Classical Guitar Magazine (USA)

"...another winning album from beginning to end"

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More great music, more historic guitars! Here, the guitars are two Panormos: one made by George Panormo in 1828, the other by his son, George Louis Panormo, in 1869. They are played expertly here by the Cannella-Dubès Duo: Nausicaa Cannella and Vincent Dubès, who studied together under Odair Assad at the Royal Conservatory of Mons, Belgium. Dubès is also a luthier himself.  I’m happy to say it’s another winning album from beginning to end, and in every aspect—the sparkling recording is by Frédéric Briant in Belgium.

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The album begins with a Bach “Prelude and Fugue” from the Well-Tempered Clavier, which the duo dispatch with tremendous confidence and elan. Next are two three-part works by Fernando Sor. The duo’s liner notes describe Fantasie, Op. 54 bis as one of Sor’s most characteristically Iberian-sounding pieces, but it strikes me as a standard, regionally non-specific classical work until the back half of the concluding “Allegro.” Still, it’s an attractive, fun piece. Much more interesting musically (to me) is Sor’s Souvenir de Russie, Op. 63, which he composed following a stint living in Russia in the 1820s, and based in part on a couple of traditional Russian songs. It’s Romantic character is ideally suited to these guitars and musicians; such a fine performance!

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We stay in Russia and return to “Preludes and Fugues” with the next number, courtesy of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975), who wrote his own 24 Prélude et fugues in 1950, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Bach’s death. Cannella-Dubès play “No. 8,” which the liner notes accurately suggest is dominated by an Eastern European klezmer theme in the Prelude, “full of life, with a hint of bitterness, to which he opposes the fugue, the longest of the [entire] opus, dark and melancholic.” And moving, I would add!

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Given the first three composers represented on the disc, the final selection surprised me: The sentimental old American folk tune Shenandoah, which dates back to the early 19th century and has found its way into the repertoire of so many American folk and country musicians. Indeed, I’ve heard it most of my life, first encountering it in early elementary school in the suburbs of New York in the late 1950s. The version here is among the prettiest I’ve heard, and not at all out of place on this fine, centuries-spanning album. Interestingly, the duo notes that “the two versions [of Shenandoah] that particularly inspired us to arrange this piece are [American jazz players] Keith Jarrett’s and Charles Lloyd’s.” I’m going to have hunt those down. In the meantime, I’ll happily wallow in this one!

Blair Jackson, Classical Guitar Magazine