Leo Brouwer - Elogio de la danza played by Ahsen Mehovic
Cuban composer Leo Brouwer has written a substantial body of work for the guitar throughout his career. This piece, Elogio de la Danza (Homage to the Dance) exhibits a fairly advanced expressive manner within its tonal framework.
It is cast in two movements. The first is marked Lento, while second, an homage to the famous Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev, carries the designation Ostinato.
The work opens slowly and tentatively, Brouwer content to create a dark athmosphere before introducing dance elements. A lively rhythm soon appears, but the music still struggles to get going, at times becoming animated, at others slackening off and turning timid and ponderous. This section ends with the music fading into a grayish mist, the ensuing movement proceeding without pause.
Here, the music is livelier in its driving rhythms and features tapping effects that provide percussive color and invoke images of flamenco feet slapping the floor. While there are Cuban and even Spanish national elements surfacing in the notes, Brouwers steers clear of obvious folk influences, tempering his music with a cosmopolitan and quite serious manner.
Produced by DH
Recorded in Vienna (A) 2018