El Canto del Viento: The Song of the Wind

Review by David Middleton

A kind of magic happened at the beautiful Georgian edifice that is the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre in the West End, in an early evening recital on August 8th. In what could have been the original 19th century salon where music would be played to admiring (or not) guests, an Argentine guitarist by the name of Amando Risueño gave a recital entitled ‘El Canto del Viento’ (The Song of the Wind), featuring selections from his recent album of the same name. This recording is an homage to contemporary Argentine composer and musician Atahualpa Yupanqui and is made up of instrumentals and songs composed by him and a few of his contemporaries.

The opening instrumental was a thing of exquisite beauty; his touch on the strings ranging from the most feather-like to forceful and dramatic. Watching his fingers running up and down the fretboard with great speed and accuracy was extraordinary to witness at such close quarters. However, this was not merely a triumph of technique over content – the music, if you like tango and its associated variants, was glorious and faultlessly played.

The album recording offers the number of instrumentals to songs at 2 to 1, but this recital offered close to the opposite ratio and perhaps this deprived us of a little more of his instrumental prowess, but that little caveat allowed, this was music-making of the very highest order, that moved me close to tears more than once.

Unfortunately, this was a very short performance run that ended on August 9th, but please, Edinburgh, ask him back again.