Bermuda Guitar Festival, first night May 27

The first concert in the seventh Bermuda Guitar Festival was given to a full house by Steve Crawford, Louise Southwood, Lamont Robinson and David France and featured music ranging from the early renaissance to Bob Marley, all expertly, intelligently and passionately performed.

First up was Steve with the first Bach prelude (C major) from the "Well Tempered Clavier".

It's not as easy to play as it sounds being a keyboard piece with the typical bachian characteristic of being a cumulative statement built on a series of minutely modulated arpeggios all of which have to be perfectly executed.

I first heard this prelude played by the great Polish harpsichordist, Wanda Landowska, and Steve's interpretation came close to hers in tempo and feeling. Steve then inserted a musical bridge of his own to move with no pause to the key of E to give us a fine performance of the wistful, dreamy piece "Barcarole" by the Paraguayan composer Agustin Barrios.

Dedicated to a daughter of one of his patrons in Costa Rica, it's a sort of Alice in Wonderland moment 'All in the golden afternoon, Full leisurely we glide'…

Staying in the Latin idiom, Steve then gave us three of the well crafted classical Spanish pieces by Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), "Rumores de la Caleta", "Granada" and "Asturias".

All are impressionistic evocations of Spain, its people, towns and landscapes.

Next, a surprise. Steve explained that he has been working with the local jazz/rock/pop group 'Working Title' and that the lead singer, Lamont Robinson, was on hand to perform Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" and Carlos Santana's "Smooth".

Lamont emerged from the audience and sat down on the steps to give us the moving Marley classic about slavery, emancipation and mental liberation, followed by Santana's extraordinary fusion song which mixes mariachi, blues, salsa and jazz; BB King meets the Tijuana Brass Salsa division.

For those interested in the hearing more of Lamont, Steve and the band, they can be heard Wednesday evenings at OPUS on Bermudiana Road and at Newstead during the happy hour Fridays.

Steve then returned to Barrios and played the elegiac "C minor Preludio", a piece obviously heavily influenced by arpeggiated works such as the Bach one above, but given a Latin and guitaristic lilt by emphasising the second beat of each three-quarter bar, which gives it a slightly melancholic feeling.

Steve finished the first half with the upbeat, rasgueado filled and flamenco inspired "Homenaje a Tárrega" by Joaquin Turina.

Louise started the second half of the concert with three well executed pieces by Luís de Narváez.

This composer stands at the dawn of the repertory; all these pieces are from his "Six books of the Dolphin", a series of compositions in tablature published in 1535 for the vihuela (a forerunner of the guitar) and aimed at a literary and courtly audience.

They include some of the first printed theme and variation compositions. First, The Emperor's song, "El Cancion del Emperador", an instrumental version of Josquin des prés' motet Mille Regretz (a thousand regrets) and apparently Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's favourite song.

Actually the song isn't much lyrically and the attribution of Josquin is dodgy but it is still a very moving piece of music and Narvaez sustains the tension throughout by varying ornamentation and chordation.

Next "Tres Diferencias por otra parte", a typical 16th century courtly piece such as those written by Enriquez de Valderrabano, but Narváez's is better because it is a far more sustained, compact and well thought out piece which holds the modern audience far better than, say Valderrabano's "Pavanas". We departed Narváez with his famous "Look after my cows" (Guardáme las Vacas), a theme and variation (some say the very first written down) on a folk song involving a pact between a cattle herder and her boyfriend, where the going rate for cattle herding is expressed in the currency of kisses.

Carrying on in the pastoral fashion Louise next played Andrew York's composition Fayre.

York, one of the finest modern composers for the guitar, is a frequent visitor to Bermuda, which he calls "one of his favourite places on Earth", and a performer in the Guitar festival.

This piece is built on renasssance like structures reminiscent of a country fairground, with a basse-dance type refrain, ending with a streak of melancholy as, like all things, the fair has to pack up and go.

Louise next played two waltzes by the Venezuelan composer Antonio Lauro (1917-86), "El Negrito" and "Natalia".

They represent the ultimate development of the waltz; technically virtuosic, rhythmically complex and brilliant, they reanimate this musical form.

Louise maintained a wide and yet relaxed sound for these technically demanding pieces.

Francosco Tárrega was a virtuoso performer, technician, composer and teacher and wrote his evocative masterpiece "Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra)" in 1896 while on a visit to Granada, outside which is the ancient Moorish fortress of the Alhambra.

Made of red stone and decorated throughout with beautiful intricate stucco artwork, the palaces remind the visitor that tenth century Granada was a major centre of trade and power in the Muslim world, rivalling Baghdad.

Tárrega's piece is an elegy in sustained tremolo which tenderly offers us a glimpse of this past.

Louise dedicated her performance of this great composition to the memory of our dear friend and fellow guitarist the late Milt Robinson.

Violinist David France then joined Louise on the stage and together they gave us some inspired ensemble work in interpreting works by the Spanish composer Enrico Granados, and the Argentinians Máximo Diego Pujol and Ástor Piazolla.

Granados' "5th Spanish Dance" was something of a revelation to me as an ensemble piece; the lyricism of the melody is brought out by the violin better perhaps than either on the solo piano (for which it was originally composed) or the guitar itself.

There followed three movements from Pujol's "Buenos Aires Suite", each dedicated to a district of the city of Buenos Aires: Louise and David work perfectly together to bring these technically complex pieces to life; the music demands anything from percussion to harmonics.

The insistent applause persuaded Louise and David to perform an encore with a rousing interpretation of Piazolla's masterpiece "Bordel 1900".

Full of sly emotion, unctuous insincerity, hypocrisy and lust, and involving dazzling technique, this is a true masterpiece of the tango era.