Graham Lynch: Light Darkness
Pilfink Records

In a 2015 interview, British composer Graham Lynch identified some of the values that characterize his music: coherence, expressivity, and conceptual clarity, all of which go hand in hand to facilitate and maximize communication. The London-born Lynch achieves a delicate balance in writing tonal material that communicates with immediacy but not at the expense of sophistication or integrity. Stated otherwise, he's interested in engaging the listener without pandering or lapsing into banality. Averse to pigeonholing, Lynch has written not only classical works but ones that delve into tango nuevo, flamenco, and jazz too. While his pieces have been performed widely and by orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists, he tends by choice to steer clear of the spotlight (in a recent interview, he described himself as “a natural hermit and almost totally disengaged with the outer world of musical life”). After completing his Ph.D. at King's College, spending a year at the Royal College of Music, and taking private lessons with Oliver Knussen, Lynch relocated to a remote area in the North West Highlands of Scotland to take stock before moving to Penzance.

A wonderful introduction to his world is Light Darkness, a collection of guitar ensemble music recorded in Finland and performed by the Helsinki Guitar Duo. Rody van Gemert and Jose Casallas appear on all six works, with guests augmenting them on select pieces: Mari Mäntylä, whose main instrument is the decacorde, the ten-string classical guitar; classical guitarist Petri Kumela; and Antti Ignatius, who plays bass guitar on Serenata Notturna. All bring impressive backgrounds to the project, be that extensive academic credentials, performance histories, and/or recordings. Casallas, van Gemert, and Ignatius, for example, are all guitar teachers at Avonia Music Institute in Espoo, Finland. That the recording presents duo, trio, quartet, and quintet performances certainly adds to its appeal.

The compositions are Lynch's, of course, but Light Darkness was truly a collaborative undertaking. The composer acknowledges, for instance, that Casallas and van Gemert were pivotal to the project's creation. They helped create the arrangement for Pájaros del Mar, which was originally written for cello and flute, and they also were involved in making revisions to Naïvement-Rondeau. Writing for guitar offers the composer a rich palette for the way the instrument lends itself to a huge range of colour and harmonic effects, and the guitarist is also able to customize expression using resonance, decay, and attack; that no loss of clarity occurs when the performer plays in the lower register also works in the composer's favour, and in this specific case allows lightness and darkness to easily co-exist.

The beauty of the Helsinki Guitar Duo's playing is evident the moment Figures from Watteau introduces the release with its evocative opening movement, “Pierrot Content” and livelier second “The Italian Comedians.” The ease and elegance with which the guitarists' voices blend speaks to the deep connection they've forged since they began playing together in 2018. The three-part Dark Sonata advances from the intricate tapestries of the gradually blossoming “In Shadows” to the absorbing folk dance-like animation of “Interlude” and the spidery creep of the subtly foreboding “Night.”

With Mäntylä joining the duo, Naïvement-Rondeau exhibits the kind of classical dazzle one would expect from a piece influenced by Francois Couperin. Here and in the album's remaining settings, the Helsinki Guitar Duo's playing becomes all the more elaborate and dense when the guests add extra layers to the performances. Waltz Cocteau navigates ever-twisting pathways through its homage to the artist and film-maker, the presentation enriched when Kumela joins Mäntylä, Casallas, and van Gemert. Originally arranged for a student guitar orchestra and, according to Lynch, owing much to Mozart's work of the same title, Serenata Notturna adds Ignatius to turn the three-part work into a quintet treatment. No clarity is lost, however, in the opening “March” when five players are involved, and neither are the “Waltz” and the rousing “Rondo” any less enticing for featuring extra bodies.

March 2023