Leo Brouwer - Sonata No. 1: I. Fandangos y Boleros - Nathan Cornelius

One of the leading contemporary composers for guitar, Leo Brouwer (b. 1939) melds folk elements, African rhythms from his native Cuba, neo-Romanticism, and avant-garde techniques into a distinctive and colorful style all his own. In this sonata, Brouwer further enriches the collage of meaning by weaving in allusions to famous composers. In addition, he creates a cyclical element by deploying the same motto theme in each movement.
The first movement, “Fandangos y Boleros,” begins with an improvisatory introduction featuring ethereal harmonics that fade in and out of more florid gestures, along with the motto theme. Eventually a fragmentary fandango rhythm emerges, followed by a faster section with an increasingly insistent double-octave pedal. Just as this music seems about to climax, it breaks off and gives way to a gentle, hypnotic version of the fandango, developing in a repeated pattern that accretes additional notes every three repetitions. This in turn is interrupted by a quotation from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”), which Brouwer labels Beethoven visita al Padre Soler. (Antonio Soler was an eighteenth-century Catalan composer whose works include a famous fandango for harpsichord.) One imagines Beethoven opening Soler’s door rather brusquely as he fantastically intrudes on this Spanish-inflected sound world.