Stuart Weber: Pieces of Road
Ravello Records

Anyone charmed by Stuart Weber's 2018 album The Fifth Row will assuredly cotton as much to the guitarist's latest, Pieces of Road—even if its EP-styled fourteen minutes makes it more exquisite morsel than full-size meal. That's the only regrettable thing about it, however: its two settings, one a quartet performance and the other a three-part work for solo guitar, are quintessential Weber and wholly satisfying thereby.

For Anniversary Waltz, a lovely folk setting that oozes the kind of gentle heartache one might hear in a Mexican ballad, Weber's joined by fellow guitarist and Greek virtuoso Antigoni Goni plus violinist Angella Ahn and cellist Maria Ahn, the sisters two-thirds of The Ahn Trio. The guitars and strings blend beautifully, each complementing the other in their lustrous expressions of nostalgic longing. When the material moves into a call-and-response episode between guitar and violin, it's easy to imagine them as long-parted lovers calling out to one another across vast distances.

The title work accentuates the personal dimension of the recording when each movement takes as its subject a road Weber traveled long ago. While the poise of his execution in the three parts speaks to his technical prowess, technique is always used in humble service to the material, which is marked by honesty and sincerity. With plaintive melodies as the foundation upon which they're built, the music engages immediately. Wistfulness for earlier times is shared, with “The Old Way” recalling a time when roads were unpaved and “Sunken Highways” alluding to a road rendered impassable by the rising waters of a reservoir. “Sweetgrass Hills” is lighter in tone, with Weber using a playful folk dance to evoke the carefree days of his youth. In every case, the presentation is enhanced by the exceptional clarity of the production.

November 2020