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Music Club

THE cold night outside seemed to add to the intensity of audience concentration surrounding guitarist Laura Snowden, in her recital at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor on Friday, 1 December.

Technically brilliant, her style was in no way flamboyant but instead drew listeners into her world.

This comprised the familiar and the new, across a variety of styles and periods.

An arrangement by Julian Bream of Bach’s third Cello Suite made an excellent opener, its sequence of dance movements immediately engaging; as was Fernando Sor’s Variations on a Theme by Mozart.

So attention was fully focused for contemporary Finnish composer Olli Mustonen’s Sonata No 2, which Laura had given its world premiere at the Wigmore Hall the week before. Its drama and mystery came across vividly, as did the dawn atmosphere of Laura’s short piece ‘Anpao’.

Villa Lobos’s Five Preludes are well known and rightly so, immediately sparking this programme’s second half into colourful life with their evocation of Brazilian street music.

Nineteenth-century composer Giulio Regondi was himself a guitar virtuoso, already dazzling critics in Paris at the age of 8!

His Introduction & Caprice Op.23 enabled Laura Snowden to show immense dexterity as well as musical sensitivity, bringing to a close a recital of high quality presented with warmth and simplicity.

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