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Guitar Classic No Easy Feat

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By KURT LOFT, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 21, 2008

Updated: 02/20/2008 07:44 pm

TAMPA - John Michael Parris has a finger-breaking job to do over the next week.

Sitting with his instrument on three stages around the Bay area, Parris will tune up and dive into one of the most beautiful and treacherous pieces written for the guitar.

"Technically speaking, it's a mountain to climb," Parris says, "and it's obvious to anyone how difficult it is."

The work in question is Joaquin Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez," the Spanish guitar concerto that ranks with Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto in frequency of appearances on orchestra playbills.

Parris will perform it in concerts Friday through Wednesday with the all-volunteer Tampa Bay Symphony.

People hearing the piece for the first time won't soon forget it. The famous adagio is one of those haunting moments in music that burns into the memory, Parris says.

"I chose to do it because the Rodrigo is such a landmark in the repertoire," he says. "It's such an incredible piece that no matter how many times you hear it, it's incredibly moving."

Rodrigo, the blind Spanish composer who died in 1999, wrote a significant amount of music for the guitar, both solo works and for orchestra. But his "Aranjuez" of 1939 has never been matched. It serves as a cornerstone for any professional classical guitarist.

"A pianist can chose from 30 great concertos, but the guitarist has just a handful, and this is at the top," Parris says. "It's extremely well crafted. And when you leave the concert hall, it's still in your mind for days."

The middle section has earned its place in musical immortality, helped in part by transcriptions on Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" and, to a lesser extent, through exposure on television commercials and movie soundtracks.

"In the adagio, there's this incredible amount of pathos and emotional expression that's just buried in the writing," Parris says. "It's impossible to play or hear it without being moved."

Parris has been engrossed in the piece during hours away from his duties as chairman of the fine arts department and classical guitar studies program at Blake High School in downtown Tampa. He hopes all goes according to plan - and his fingers cooperate.

"I've cracked three of four nails just practicing for these concerts," he says.

The Tampa Bay Symphony's program also features works by local composer Vernon Taranto as well as pieces by De Falla, Berlioz and Bizet. Jack Heller conducts.

Reporter Kurt Loft can be

ON STAGE

Tampa Bay

Symphony

WHEN AND WHERE: 8 p.m. Friday at Mahaffey Theater, 400 First St. S., St. Petersburg; 4 p.m. Sunday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa; 8 p.m. Wednesday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater

TICKETS: $15; (727) 867-6505

reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.

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