DIAM PARIS

Here are five student pieces of around the grade 4-5 standard. Without exception they are all wellwritten and enjoyable compositions.

The opening Tho~me Vari6 has three variations and a finale and manages to make a quite decent composition out of a small amount of working material.

Pluie, even without the give-away title, would make the player think of rain falling. Echo could easily be used as a study in dynamics (as all the pieces in this book could). Danse is the most dramatic of the five pieces with an ostinato bass rumbling away under some macabre sounds above it. The set closes with a gentle Berceuse.

Within the confines of writing at this level, Cortes has produced a lovely set of teaching/student concert pieces of imagination.

L'élément le plus frappant à première lecture réside dans la qualité de la partie de guitare. Les positions d'accords, d'arpèges, la dynamique des gammes, en particulier dans leur relation avec l'orchestre - utilisation de cordes à vide permettant un plus grand volume sonore - dévoilent une vraie connaissance de l'instrument, connaissance confirmée par le parcours du compositeur, guitariste, enseignant, chef d'orchestre, qui a su développer son écriture au travers d'un répertoire de musique de chambre original...

... l'uvre entière est une réussite.

Triptico was written in 1995 and is an attractive and atmospheric

composition. This is the third publication by this composer for flute and

guitar that I have reviewed and each time I have found his works to be

well-written, interesting and worthy of public exposure. One of his

trademarks seems to be the inclusion somewhere in the piece of a melodic

line over an arpeggio, which is either a moveable chord or just has the odd

note changed here and there. He uses this technique with skill and never

does it sound out of place or stereotyped.