Warmth, wit, and astonishing control from a guitarist who makes silence sing.
Guitarist Alexandra Whittingham isn’t new to Thoroughly Good. If memory serves correctly she previously popped up at a through the noise launch event a few years back. It was hotter that night. All manner of recognisable faces — their names escaped me — crammed into a low-ceilinged bar to hear various musicians well-known and soon-to-be-so do a turn. It was cramped, it was exciting (if you’re an extrovert) and, importantly, noteworthy.
No surprise perhaps Whittingham crops up here at Cheltenham Festival this year, one of this year’s programme of events put together by new artistic director Jack Bazalgette soon after he took on the role. Bazalgette was one half of the producing force behind the crowdfunded concert series through the noise which, on the night in question, was also celebrating a newly inked partnership with Warner Classics.
Tonight, Whittingham shines like she did back in 2023. Easy warmth emanates from the stage, a likeable authenticity, and obvious passion. Suitably cued up, the craft she displays is mesmerising. Delicate, deliberate, highly intentional, and unequivocally sincere. Every single note rings out. Every held-back hesitation rewarded with a delicately plucked top note barely audible and hugely rewarding because of it. Never before has the sound of a single note’s vibrato been quite so tantalising.
In a carefully paced programme, we start with a depiction of French troops departing for the Crimean War in Napoleon Coste’s ‘Le Départ’. Here, Whittingham’s control over colour and emotion is taut and finely judged; it seems miraculous that such a small sound can inject so much energy and urgency into so big a space.
Ernest Shand we learn dedicated his life to composing for guitar after an unfortunate altercation with a member of the audience brought his performing career to an end. The composer’s music in the hands of Whittingham is a delightful stretch at the end of a long day, a cold glass of something, lots of low hanging wisteria, and the sight of a distant sunset descending below the horizon. In particular, the octave leaps in Shand’s Légend eke out the remains of the day with a bittersweet melancholy that aches and consoles in equal measure.
The more expansive score of Villa-Lobos’ Five Preludes sees the guitarist afforded more scope to demonstrate material that develops. The weightier work is teed up well by the lighter selection in the first half. The five preludes – five musical soliloquies – offer more than a scene, but a story. The third in particular – an extended moment of intense yearning – fills a gap previously not acknowledged.
It’s not often one gets to gush. Nor to have the pleasure of sitting down to write without having to refer to any notes. But that is the case here and it’s deserved. And it was signalled with one clear piece of evidence: when Whittingham wasn’t playing – moving from one movement to another, or even tuning her instrument – the audience was motionless.
