Description
El Decameron Negro
1. La Arpa del Guerrero..3:24
2. La Huida de Los Amantes por el Valle de los Ecos…4:21
3. Ballada de la Doncella Enamorada…5:58 Leo Brouwer
4. Theme and Variations (Magic Flute)..8:14 Fernando Sor
5. Beau Fleuve….3:42 Michael Chapdelaine
6. Portrait de Femme..6:39 Michael Chapdelaine
7. Tombeau sur la mort de M. Comte de Logy.7:55 Sylvius Leopold Weiss
8. Prelude 1…4:12
9. Prelude 2…3:02
10. Prelude 3…4:30
11. Prelude 4…3:45
12. Prelude 5…3:49 Heitor Villa-Lobos
total…59:42
Portrait de Femme
I have long envied painters for their ability to make visual the feelings and images that can’t be expressed verbally. I think that portraiture is one of the most powerful genres in art. Here is my first attempt at musical portrait making. This piece is a triptych of a woman at three different places in her life. First, when she is young and sweet and innocent, looking forward to life and love. Then we see her, mature and full of passion and power and she has her lover, her life, her work, maybe children. Finally, we see her when she is much older and looking back on her life. She is the same. Still the young woman from the beginning but deeper….darker, colored by the years in between.
Beau Fleuve
After being a classical guitarist for nearly 2 decades, I found myself more and more wanting to create my own music, rather than just interpreting that of others. But for years, I just couldn’t seem to finish a piece. Finally, in the early 90’s, while staying in a bed and breakfast in Buffalo, NY called the Beau Fleuve, I decided one morning that I would invent, develop and finish a complete piece of my own before the day ended. Late, late that night I played the newly born “Beau Fleuve” for Ramona and Rick, the owners of the B&B. The emotion in Ramona’s face told me that I had made something beautiful and my life and work have never been the same.
The piece on the cover is “Portrait de Femme” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The tray card photo is by Tetsuya Yoshimi from a concert in Manila.
Strings by D’Addario. Guitar by Thomas Humphrey. Everything else by mc.
This album is dedicated to my teacher, Bruce Holzman, who showed in the 70’s, an un-trained barefoot rocker most of the possibilities that you hear matured here, which I probably would have missed without his intense and selfless guidance. mc 1/6/200
