The other side of Cuban music

By WILLIAM DART

If the subject of Cuban music comes up, many will make the inevitable connection with the Buena Vista Social Club. Classical guitar aficionados, however, may bring up the name of Manuel Barrueco, one of the leading musicians in his field, and this week's soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia.

Barrueco picked up the guitar at the age of 8. "Nothing unusual for a Cuban," he says. "All the kids around were playing the instrument. It was spreading like a disease and eventually my household became contaminated."

Barrueco does not remember much of his homeland (he hasn't been back for 37 years) although he did get to play for the great Leo Brouwer when he was 12.

Two years later the boy had settled in the US, eventually studying with Aaron Shearer in Baltimore.

"It was a difficult relationship," Barrueco recalls, "with many fights, but out of that I learned a lot. It was one of the biggest influences I've ever had."

There's a dry sense of humour at large here. "Quiet, with no cellphones going off," is his immediate response when I ask for his ideal concert situation, but he quickly adds, "No, seriously, what we want is appreciation. It makes one want to do more. If you can have an appreciative audience as well as a beautiful hall with good acoustics, assuming you are having a good day, that would be the ultimate."

He pauses when I mention that Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez is on the bill in Auckland. It's obviously a personal favourite.

"That middle movement - it's heartbreaking how beautiful it is. I guess the older I get the more I see that no matter how well-crafted a piece of music can be, a beautiful melody will go a long way."

Tackling a work that is so well-known doesn't intimidate him.

"If you are an honest musician, if you really dig inside of you, the results that are going to come out will be unique."

It is well worth searching out Barrueco's 1997 EMI album of this and other Rodrigo music, with Placido Domingo conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

"It was great to work with someone like Domingo," says Barrueco. "This music is in his blood and I swear you can hear him sing through the orchestra."

In fact, Domingo does sing four Rodrigo songs on the CD. "I played the first introduction," Barrueco remembers, "and then out came this beautiful voice, so recognisable. There goes the neighbourhood I thought."

Domingo has not been afraid to collaborate with the likes of John Denver and Natalie Cole and Barrueco also takes crossover in his stride. His 2001 album Nylon and Steel, a collaboration with Al di Meola, Steve Morse and Andy Summers, reached no 14 on Billboard's Classical Crossover chart.

One of the highlights of Nylon and Steel is Wolfville in which Barreuco and Morse simultaneously play their versions of a Villa-Lobos study. It's the rhythm he admires. "I often tell my students that we guitarists have the reputation of having bad rhythm and we do. With these guys, rhythm may not be everything but it is really important."

Barrueco has also ventured into the world of Madison Avenue. He has appeared in a television advertisement for Lexus, in which the car was so quiet he could record an Albeniz piece while travelling at 90km/h. "Not driving as well as playing?" is my query. "No," he chuckles, "and you might be happy to hear I was wearing a seatbelt. I was in Europe for the first month it was playing and I came back with sunglasses, thinking people were going to drive me crazy. But nobody recognised me and, after a while, I was telling them I was the guy in the ad."

Interviewing overseas visitors, the unavoidable question comes up; what do they know about us and what pleasures are they anticipating once they are here?

I've become hardened to what seems the obligatory Lord of the Rings spiel.

At last I meet someone for whom Frodo might as well be the name of a frozen dessert. "I hear your country is very beautiful," Barrueco says, "and I know you make great wine. What else do you need?"

Performance

* Who: Manuel Barrueco, with the Auckland Philharmonia

* Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Thursday and Friday, 8pm