Stuart Weber: The Fifth Row
Ravello Records

The Fifth Row is a live recording though not in the customary sense of the word. Yes, Montana-based classical guitarist Stuart Weber did record its eleven tracks from the concert stages of eleven historic theatres distributed throughout the Rocky Mountain Northwest, but when doing so he played alone and to empty houses. That wasn't done for any misanthropic reason; it's simply that, weary of the studio recording process, he wanted to exploit the acoustic potential a theatre might offer as a recording space. Weber himself states, “I learned long ago that focusing on the sound coming off the guitar is not as important as listening to the room in which the guitar is being played,” and so to that end imagined himself experiencing the music from the fifth row rather than the stage.

To record the album, he followed a set plan: after setting up microphones and sound levels in the afternoon, he'd retire, sleep until midnight, and, with the theatre doors locked and the lights off (except for a single onstage lamp), be ready to record by 3:00 a.m. With each locale as quiet it could possibly be, Weber executed multiple takes of a given song until he was satisfied. His genuine affection for the opera houses and theatres where the material was recorded is borne out by in-depth liner notes in which he provides extensive details about the histories of the buildings.

Playing an acoustic guitar built for him by Jeffrey Elliot, Weber performs eleven pieces, five of his own and others by Dvorák, Bartók, Telemann, and Weiss, plus renditions of Samuel Ward's “America the Beautiful” and Randy Newman's “Texas Girl at the Funeral of her Father.” While many of the compositions are classical by definition, their presentation in a solo acoustic form lends them a strong folk character and an informality that's not unwelcome.

Certainly one of the most classical-sounding is Telemann's “Bourée alla Polacca,” whose melodies and graceful lilt the guitarist conveys with clarity and a well-honed sensitivity of touch. Also strongly classical in nature is “Passacaille,” one of over 600 pieces written for lute by Sylvius Leopold Weiss and played with conviction by Weber in a contemporary transcription by classical guitarist Christopher Parkening. Deprived of the composer's identity, the listener might never guess “Humoreske” to be a Dvorák composition but instead imagine it one written by a folk artist from a hundred years ago. Originally composed for piano, Weber re-imagines it as an affably light-hearted setting that would no doubt captivate listeners at an outdoors get-together. Recorded at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, Bartók's “Evening in the Country,” also originally composed for piano, becomes a reflective reverie in Weber's hands.

The album's American folk dimension surfaces during his “Walk Away,” a piece inspired by the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804, and “Sacajawea,” a heartfelt homage that uses lingering chords, delicate picking, and a wistful tone to convey the guitarist's abiding affection for the historical figure. Flamenco flourishes distinguish his “Spanish Creek” in a performance that sees folk and tango flavours seeping into its rapidly flowing melodies, and for “Jefferson Waltz,” Weber imagined the president alone at his Monticello estate, indulging in a meditative waltz as he reviews maps and muses upon an expedition advancing towards the Pacific Ocean. More rhythmically intensive is “Toccata - Darkness,” in which Weber attempts to capture the unease experienced when venturing into the wilderness.

Originally featured on Newman's 1977 Little Criminals album and recorded by Weber at the Central City Opera House in Colorado, the elegiac “Texas Girl at the Funeral of her Father” tugs at the heartstrings with a delicately rendered series of plaintive expressions, while at album's end, new life is breathed into “America the Beautiful” in a humbly reverential treatment of a song that since its 1882 birth has been performed by American icons such as Marian Anderson and Ray Charles.

May 2018