Guitarist Adam Levin
Arboretum
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Commentary
At the beginning of 2009 I received an email from the North American guitarist Adam Levin (North Shore, Chicago), asking for contact with me during a trip to Spain that he was going to make shortly after writing to me. He was especially interested in contemporary music, and he informed me about an ambitious recording project to record a series of CDs with music by Spanish composers, in order to promote a cultural exchange between Spain and the United States. Within weeks he was awarded the Program for Cultural Cooperation Fellowship, and in 2010 the Kate Neal Kinley Scholarship.
As a result of the latter, Adam commissioned me to compose a new work for guitar, which I carried out during the summer of 2010 and which I called Arboretum because it was written entirely outdoors, always in the shade of a tree, in various parks and gardens: La Granja Park in León, El Retiro Park in Madrid, La Herradura Park in Santiago de Compostela, the Municipal Park of San Vicente de Raspeig (Alicante) and the surroundings of the Le Mesnil Priory St Martin (Montaut de Villeréal, France).
By way of acknowledgment, the score opens with the scientific names of the trees that provided me with their protective shade during the composition of this work: Gleditsia triacanthos (acacia), Acer saccharinum (maple), Laurus nobilis (laurel), Cupressus sempervirens ( cypress), Cercis siliquastrum (tree of love) and Castanea sativa (chestnut), without their reference going any further in the musical content of the work except, in any case, in the contrasts between the elements put into play (melodic, rhythmic , timbral), which in a way could recreate the differences between some trees and others.
Arboretum was composed between the months of July and September 2010, and naturally it is dedicated to Adam Levin. In July 2021 it was included on his CD "21st Century Spanish Guitar, volume 4", published by the Frameworks label.
Cover and back cover of the CD
"21st Century Spanish Guitar, volume 4" (2021)
First page of Arboretum
Recording
Recording: CD "21st Century Spanish Guitar, volume 4" (Adam Levin)
Related texts
21st CENTURY SPANISH GUITAR, VOLUME 4
By Adam Levin
Introduction to the booklet of the CD of Frameworks Records, 2021
Behold! The grand finale of what has become an epical musical event; a journey into a new era of guitar composition: 21st Century Spanish Guitar, Volume 4. Thirteen years in the making, our series (for now at least) is at the end of the road.
In 2008, an adventurous Fulbright Scholar just out of conservatory boarded a one-way flight to Madrid in hopes of discovering the next frontier in Spanish guitar repertoire. That kid was me. As I stand here today husband, father, well-traveled performer- I look back, more than a little incredulous, and with gratitude to the artists and composers without whom this new music, to which I have merely given a voice, would not have come back into being. Forward to the next project.
This four volume series along with Music from out of Time (Gober Records) and Fuego de la luna: Levin Plays Morales-Caso (Verso) showcases a new Spanish musical identity; a quantum leap forward from the Spanish standards you learned from and grew up with, and seduced your love affair with the classical guitar in the first place. Taken together, these albums champion composers spanning the last four generations, from 1930 to the present. Some compositional voices survey Spanish folklore, history and culture, while others go rogue and foray into sounds, flavors, compositional techniques, and the cultural spirit of lands near and far.
A few composers featured on this final album have appeared in my previous albums as well: Balada, Morales-Caso, and Brotons. My Maestro Eliot Fisk recommended that I con- nect with Balada, whose music is the conduit between the old and new worlds of Spanish music. The Caprichos (Abstractions of Albéniz, Granados, De Falla, and Rodrigo) exhibit this thread through time.
The connection between the old and new world Spanish music is extended literally into the lineage of Spanish pedagogy. Balada's disciple, Jorge Muñiz, contributed Portraits from the Heartland, which fuses the avant-garde with Midwestern folk songs.
In a gesture that brings my project full circle, Brotons composed Two New Sugges- tions for Volume 1 and a new work for my final volume. In his latest commission, Sonata Sefardita, he taps into Jewish musical heritage with a reimagination of ancient Sephardic melodies.
José Luis Turina, Joaquín Turina's grandson for those familiar, wrote a colorful solilo- quy for the guitar entitled Arboretum. In this complex musical analog to nature's botanic Wonders, Turina uses the guitar as a vehicle to explore the natural order in its harmony and cacophony.
My first iTunes purchase binge in 2008 resulted in the discovery of Eduardo Morales- Caso. What a goldmine! Writing with imagination, fantasy and virtuosity, Eduardo won over my musical heart. Our friendship (in the grand tradition of composer-performer part- nerships of the past) has yielded several important works. Concierto de La Herradura, quite simply a masterpiece, is no exception. It transcends comparison to other guitar concertos, in my opinion, and arguably ranks among the great concertos of our time.
My exuberance for this music is in vain if I can't inspire others to perform it as well. While this collection feels, at this point, like an extension of my own identity, it's really not about me; it's about the ethos, era, and worldview surrounding its creation refracted through the musical sensibilities of these brilliant composers. Integrating these works into the standard repertoire will ultimately bring closure to this project. Until then, my mission must carry on.
I would like to thank the Fulbright Program, the Program for Cultural Cooperation, the Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, Naxos Records, Frameworks Records, as well as each of the US and Spanish institutions, families, friends, teachers, mentors, engineers, and composers whose guidance and contributions made this project possible.
Adios amigos, until we meet again, and most assuredly we shall.
Yours,
Adam Levin
6/24/21
21st CENTURY SPANISH GUITAR, VOLUMEN 4
By Javier Suárez-Pajares
Notes to the booklet of the CD by Adam Levin, 2021
Dear reader: If you have arrived here, if you have bought the CD, if you have removed the cellophane which secured it and have opened up these notes, then you are one of us. One of those people who enjoy the excitement produced by the adventure of discovering new music. Not only at concerts, but also in the comfort of your own home on one of those artefacts which have accompanied music lovers from the last century and now, more and more, are a species in danger of extinction, under threat due to the erosion of their habitat: apartments with enough wall space upon which a bookshelf may be permitted to grow. You have decided to listen to an artist, an instrument and a repertoire which interests you and you know that all of this has been created for you. And there are many marvels together: from the creation of new works of music -probably never before heard- which didn't exist before the composer conceived of them, passing through the sieve of technique and the sensitivity of the performer, which is the essential medium between that in which composers think and arrange, and that which we hear. The journey through the thoroughly thought out recording and finally, the encapsulation on a device which supports the capacity to gather and reproduce the performances of this music, has been one of the great discoveries of humanity; something which should be worshipped, as it has allowed millions of people to contemplate works of art which otherwise would have remained inaccessible to them.
[...]
If the principal subject of this commentary is related to a mythical garden -that of Lindaraja- then our journey now concludes with another, non-existent garden: the arboretum created by José Luis Turina with the trees which afforded him shade in the summer of 2010 whilst he was composing his Arboretum among the gardens of Retiro of Madrid, the Parque de la Granja in León, the surroundings of Priorato Le Mesnil St. Martin (Montaut de Villeréal, France), the Parque Municipal in San Vicente del Raspeig (Alicante) and the Paseo de La Herradura in the park of the Alameda de Santiago de Compostela. Given their Latin names at the beginning of the score, these trees were the acacia (Gleditsia triacanthos), the maple (Acer saccharinum), the laurel (Laurus nobilis), the cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), the Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum) and the chestnut (Castanea sativa). This composition of an impious virtuosity does not identify different sections, motifs, nor movements related to any specific tree. The trees are not described but, nevertheless, their differences are behind the contrasts in musical character- timbric, melodic and rhythmic- which the composer brings into play in this work. That is to say, with the tree-laden impressions of the summer, Turina (re)creates a fabulously intricate forest which is almost impenetrable and unyielding to any explanation which is not musical. For all the words which we apply to music, there forever remains a mystery to its language. Something akin to this happens with gardens and surely there, the obsession to put to music the amalgam of sensations which they provoke, arises.
Review
Music Review: Adam Levin – "21st Century Spanish Guitar, Volume 4"
By John Sobel
Review published in te Internet website Blogcritics.org on August 22, 2021
Just two months ago, classical guitarist Adam Levin and mandolinist Jacob Reuven released Music from the Promised Land (as Duo Mantar), an album of music by Israeli composers from the mid-20th century to the present day. But Levin has been even more deeply immersed in another culture (though not an unconnected one). He has just released the fourth and final volume in his "21st Century Spanish Guitar" series.
[...]
The album's purest form of abstraction comes with the single-movement "Arboretum" by José Luis Turina, inspired – though exactly how is obscure to the listener –by the characteristics of a number of types of trees. On first hearing it I found the piece unfocused, but on further listens, its themes and sections became distinct and its emotional language grew clearer through Levin's sensitive dynamics and timbral adjustments. And guitars are made from trees, after all.
As Javier Suárez-Pajares writes in the liner notes, "For all the words which we apply to music, there forever remains a mystery to its language". Some of the music on this album is intellectually demanding, all of it intellectually rewarding, much of it emotionally gripping. It completes what is both a survey and a flowering of contemporary Spanish music for guitar, a major accomplishment by one of our most urgently creative masters of the instrument.