German guitarist Heike Matthiesen (1969) was brought up on music. She was taken to the opera from an early age and from the age of four was taught piano by her mother, a concert pianist. It wasn't until she was eighteen that she decided to study guitar. She proved to be a natural and became one of the master students of renowned Spanish guitarist Pepe Romero. Even while studying, she played plucked instruments at the Frankfurt Opera and recently presented her fourth solo CD: Guitar Ladies.
Sensual sonority
In her preface, she writes: 'I have chosen music that I like, that I like to play.' She selected works by nine - female - composers, including six guitarists. Guitar Ladies is thus a title as obvious as it is pointedly chosen. Matthiesen goes on to write that she has avoided 'demonstrative virtuosity' and sought out 'pure music'. That purity, she says, lies in the 'extreme sensual sonority, which also cherishes the silence between the notes'.
Charming atmosphere
And that is not a word too many. The CD opens with seven Songs without words by the my unknown German-British guitarist and composer Madame Sidney-Pratten (1821-1895). She began her career as Catherine Josepha Pelzer in a well-known family of guitarists.
She gave guitar concerts as a child prodigy and married at 33e with a British flautist. In England, she became a celebrated guitar soloist, composer and teacher. She even taught music to Queen Victoria's daughters. Sidney-Pratten has a flair for appealing melodies and her Songs have a beguiling, meditative atmosphere.
'Flamenco'
From here, Matthiesen takes us through another 15 equally appealing compositions. Like, for instance Segovia by the young French guitarist Ida Presti (1924-1967), who died young, to the Spanish guitar king Andrés Segovia Segovia honours with dark harmonies and water-smooth strumming.
Reference to flamenco can be heard in the reflective Serenade from Sofia Gubaidoelina (1931) and the melancholic Pocta Kolumbovi - Elegy by Czech Sylvie Bodorová (1954). Argentine Carmen Guzman (1925-2012) also harks back to folk music, in her equally spirited and wistful Tangos and Waltzes.
Role-affirming
The CD concludes with four pieces by British-German Maria Linnemann (born 1947), including Two Elegiac Pieces are dedicated to Matthiesen. Linnemann composed these highly lyrical pieces for the project 'Orpheus und die Macht der Musik'
With her controlled playing and warm tone, Matthiesen is the dream advocate for these partly unknown composers. Her championing of their music is commendable. But her choice of sensual, lyrical sounds also has a drawback: there is little contrast between the various compositions. At one point, I started craving a shrill dissonance or a pounding rhythm.
Moreover, it is - no doubt unintentionally - a tad role-affirming: music by women is lovely, harmless and coquettish. This does not detract from Matthiesen's excellent playing. Those who like to dream away on romantic guitar sounds will find in Guitar Ladies the ideal CD.
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