ENTHUSIASM AS DISCIPLINE
Everything about David Russell “is cool.” His spontaneity with the guitar is "cool." His treatment with the public, cordial and close, "is cool." His choice of heterogeneous and uneven repertoire with works presented in no apparent order is “cool”. Even his punctuality - the recital began at 8pm sharp and ended exactly at 10pm, not a minute before or beyond - "cool." Russell is the type of artist that, as soon as you see him walk on stage, you know that what awaits you next is going to be something special. And it doesn't matter if he plays second-rate works like Napoleon Coste's Introduction and Polonaise that opened the concert and is just one of hundreds of thousands of exhibition works that were written for all kinds of instruments in the 19th century. The enthusiasm and affection with which Mr. Russell approached the composition makes you believe that you are before a masterpiece, by treating it with that same conviction with which some privileged in life face the most insignificant aspect: they water a flower or hang a picture.
Impressive, at times moving, was his reading of GF Händel's superb Suite N.7, with an Overture whose pompous and solemn interpretation, magnificent the character of the French dot and the internal rhythm it transmitted, fully introduced us to the eighteenth-century of Versailles and in its compact and impetuous textures. The same thing happened with a Sarabande that in its sober elegance with the breathing of the phrases by the interpreter poured us a world close to desolation.
The recital continued with two works, out of the program, by the Paraguayan composer Agustín Barrios. And here we find again one of those aspects of the Scottish guitarist: it turns out that he has come across a notebook that the composer had with phrases or drawings of his followers and that Mr. Russell is in charge of deciphering. The love, care, enthusiasm and meticulousness with which the guitarist spoke of the notebook was so contagious that one, from that moment on, already lives with the anxiety of wanting to see it and read it. That, according to me, is a gift. From that point on, if he hadn't done it before, the guitarist had won us over and had us in his pocket, ready to take as superb -which in addition, and objectively speaking, they are- any of the interpretations he did next; It does not matter whether it was the baroque preludes-chorales that opened the second part or the current works of the guitarist and composer Sergio Assad - the brilliance of the Scottish interpretation with all Latin music is especially blinding - the impeccable balance in his phrasing and the luminous color of his sound rocked you without being excessively sweet. All of this, as I have already said, is a gift only available to those special people who have the ability to "rock”.
Federico Solano
INFORMACIÓN, ALICANTE
