GRIGORYAN BROTHERS & WOLFGANG MUTHSPIEL
★★★½
The Grigoryan brothers.
City Recital Hall, February 15
These were big shoes to fill. As a composer, improviser and guitarist of extraordinary versatility, Ralph Towner always seemed the cornerstone of the trio with electric guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel and classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan. Then illness waylaid Towner for this tour (he is on the mend), so Leonard Grigoryan stepped into those shoes – and walked the walk, admirably.
In a trio that crafts miniaturised music reliant on finesse – the art of nuance rather than of grand gestures – the chemistry could easily have been upset. Of course the Grigoryan brothers share a long history, as now do Slava and Muthspiel, so only Leonard and Muthspiel had to develop a new simpatico, and that seemed effortless.
The downside of the art of nuance is that it can become predictable and merely pretty, and such was the fate of Towner's Duende (a Grigoryans duet) and Muthspiel's The Henrysons. The first set's highlight was Muthspiel's Everything Happens to that Dog, a composition of rhythmic puzzles, stabbing dissonances and nifty unisons: an intricacy of interaction that extended to the improvising, with all three players rising to the challenge.
In the second set the colour palette was extended, firstly by Muthspiel's sweetly elegant wordless singing on his own Amarone Trio and Liebeling. The former, a luxuriant garden of melody and harmony, was almost decadently beautiful, while his solo on the latter exemplified his grace of line and gently glowing sound – the sonic equivalent of a fire that has burned down to just embers.
Leonard's most fluent solo came on his Blues for Ralph. If he lacks his brother's ultimate precision, he was often the more convincing improviser. Slava showed off his exceptional articulation on Muthspiel's Nico and Mithra, before phrasing the melody to Towner's Beneath an Evening Sky with exceptional sensitivity, and then producing his own finest solo of the night. This was the only piece on which Leonard played 12-string guitar (a Towner trademark), its ringing chords instantly throwing a wash of vibrant colour across the ensemble's generally more sepia sound.
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