The piece opens in the unmistakable shadow of John Dowland \u2014 that great Elizabethan melancholiac whose Lachrimae still haunts anyone who has truly heard it. Howard does not imitate Dowland so much as conjure his spirit: the modal harmonies, the delicate ornamental gestures, the sense of music half-lost in contemplation. On a fifty-year-old hand-built classical guitar, these opening passages carry genuine warmth and resonance. The instrument itself is a character in the story \u2014 its age audible in the richness of its lower register, its handmade quality lending a tactile humanity that a modern factory instrument could never quite replicate.<\/p> Then the piece turns south, and we are somewhere else entirely. The flamenco central section does not erupt \u2014 it insinuates itself, which is the right instinct entirely. A less assured composer might have thrown a full comp\u00e1s at us without ceremony, and the seam would have shown. Howard understands that these two traditions, separated by a century and a half and a thousand miles, share certain temperamental affinities: both are essentially introspective musics that happen to be capable of fierce emotion. The modal language, the ornamentation, the willingness to dwell \u2014 all of these create common ground across which the transition moves convincingly.<\/span><\/p> The flamenco section itself is atmospheric rather than academic. Howard is not attempting a musicological reconstruction of palo forms; he is reaching for the emotional truth of the tradition \u2014 its urgency, its almost vocal quality in the treble runs, the rhythmic pulse that never quite lets the listener sit still. Given Howard’s background \u2014 a musician who has moved outward from classical training into folk, blues, and rock \u2014 this feels authentic rather than appropriated. He knows the difference between inhabiting a tradition and merely sampling it.<\/span><\/p> The return to the Dowlandesque closing passages is handled with real structural intelligence. The reappearance of that opening modal world does not feel like a retreat but like a resolution \u2014 as though the flamenco heat has been absorbed into the music’s memory, and what we now hear is the same English melancholy but with something new behind the eyes. It is the kind of structural thinking that separates a composed piece from an improvised one, and Howard wears it lightly enough that the architecture never overwhelms the feeling.<\/span><\/p> A word must be said for the playing itself. Howard’s technique is not showy \u2014 there are no gratuitous flourishes designed to impress at the expense of expression \u2014 but it is precise and musical throughout. The dynamic shaping of phrases is thoughtful, the tone consistent and well-managed. He understands what solo guitar can and cannot do, and he does not ask more of his instrument than it can give. That is a lesson some younger players take years to learn.<\/span><\/p> Hidden Andalucia is the work of a mature musical mind. It will not detain the impatient or the easily distracted, but for those willing to follow it through its unhurried course, it offers something genuinely rewarding: the rare pleasure of hearing two distant musical worlds meet on equal terms, and find they had more to say to each other than either suspected.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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