Shapes

Passion for Bach - '...he is a genius.'

Classic-light? Pop-o-Bach? When one hears that Dominic Miller's day job is as Sting's guitarist, one may be excused for thinking that he is merely a pop-musician trying his hand at being a classical crossover after having 'discovered' that some of 'these classical dudes' wrote pretty good music. This might be what a lot of crossovers from pop are like but if you think this is what Dominic Miller is about, think again. He is not your run-of-the-mill crossover artist, leastwise not from 'Them' to 'Us'. Miller is the one who rebelled, absconded from his Guildhall schooling and got away for a while, travelling the world with various famous pop bands. Now the virtuoso guitarist/composer's classical roots are calling him back.

The Argentine-born Brit spent his teenage years in the States, started out as a classical musician and then drifted into pop to make a living. Like the prodigal son, he is heading home again and, boy, is he ever welcome! Shapes hit number one in the Swedish classical charts shortly after its release, then was nominated for the Classical Brit awards and, prestige here we come, has a feature-excerpt on the Awards' sample CD. These days, Shapes is being played on classical radio stations all over the world, its reputation slowly but steadily spreading.

Miller is now doing his own concerts internationally. In June 2004, he came to town and I missed the concert and forgot about it. I have got this thing about crossover artists. The last time I listened to a crossover was Michael Bolton, and his Nessun Dorma brought tears to my eyes... over what he was doing to Puccini! So this entire Sting-guitarist-classical-album episode was going to pass me by until I realized that most of my colleagues were writing about him. Every once in a while someone kept talking in the press lounge about 'that guitarist who was in town last week'. Weeks after the Miller concert I did not attend, revelation hit home: this is something I should not have missed and reparation is in order, fast. So I dug myself through the pile on my desk, resurrected the Miller press release and sent off an email for a review copy of the CD which, by then, had already taken prime feature position, by the checkout, in continental Europe's largest classical music store.

Ever since, I've been starting my days listening to Miller's arrangement of Albinoni's Adagio in G minor [listen -- track 2, 2:30-3:42], and mornings just got finer. Revelation: Dominic Miller is a classical guitar virtuoso of the finest who also happens to play guitar for someone named Sting. Sting, who? He's the guy who joins Placido Domingo for Schubert's Ave Maria on Shapes. Since he does not have an opera voice, this is one track I personally can do without. As for Miller: he is a genius. To paraphrase a Washington Post critic: if he were a share, I'd take out a loan to buy him.

Take the first track, Bach's Mass in B minor, that Miller arranged for guitar by cleverly orienting himself on the flute rather than the chorus theme. He asked a collaborator to re-write the main theme for strings and thus created a reversal of main and counter theme, so that the flute becomes the main guitar theme and the strings reflect the chorus. 'After playing with it some more, we added a rhythm guitar,' Miller says. 'I attached myself to the counter melody on the flute and tried it on the guitar, which worked perfectly, with each phrase more uplifting than the last.' [listen -- track 1, 0:00-1:08.]

This, by Miller's admission, is his favorite track on the CD. Mine is the second, Albinoni. 'This has got to be one of the most emotive and inspirational melodies of all time,' Miller says of track two, Albinoni's famous Adagio. His next comment, 'it came to me as no surprise that Albinoni was one of Bach's influences', suggests that he must have only recently discovered him. The discovery has done Albinoni proud since the Argentine-British guitar virtuoso has taken the original and re-worked it for guitar with such sensitivity as one can only muster for a piece of music when, rather than needing to ponder over it in scientific terms, one can go straight to the core, guided by an intricate feeling for its essence. Harmony and counterpoint must have been among Miller's favorite subjects at music school (Guildhall) because his understanding of both is so impeccable that he does not mutilate when he arranges or restructures but, rather, he enhances in a way that leaves one in awe. The guitar, under the skilled guidance of Miller, suddenly offers a myriad possibilities even for a perfect piece like Albinoni's, elevating it to greatness yet again - only to greatness of a different kind.

Track three, Shape Of My Heart, is a pop track, and as such I find it somewhat misplaced on a classical CD. The underlying guitar arrangement, based on Chopin, is very nice and so this track would probably, for the classical album that Miller is presenting here, work best if Sting's singing were left out of it.

This is followed by two more Bach arrangements, Air on a String and Presto. Bach happens to be Miller's favorite and these two are rather good. Air on a String, track four, is cleverly enhanced by the piano into a sensitive expression of musical beauty. However, the Presto takes some getting used to at first listen but, like all of Miller's work, it grows on you. Miller says: 'The great thing about Bach is that although his music is technically demanding it's so much fun, which I had with this piece adding different bass lines, rhythm parts, hand clapping etc. In the end it sounds like a South American folk tune. God only knows what he'd think if he could hear this.'

Track six is ... better left aside. This is Schubert's Ave Maria but, joining the impeccable voice of Placido Domingo, Sting sings it when this is a piece he should probably not be sticking his lovely pop voice into.

Elgar's Enigma variation (No 9) - Nimrod [listen - track 7, 1:17-2:39] is second on my list of personal favorites. For Miller, the preponderant evocation here is image and sensation of the Wiltshire countryside where he, presumably, worked on the CD. This was such a predominant thought for Miller, it seems, that he charmingly put a thank you to 'the English countryside in spring' on his list of credits in the CD booklet. 'There is no composer who translates this beauty and tranquillity better into music than Elgar,' Miller writes. 'His harmonies and melodies are so visual.'

There are plenty others worth listening to: Beethoven, Satie, Bach. Of Bach, Miller somewhat unconventionally states: 'If Bach were alive today, I have no doubt he would be the pop genius of out time. Nothing illustrates this better than the opening chords of the Ciaccona.' Writing about his own, brilliant arrangement of Prelude No 3 for Clavier, Miller goes on with his Bach observations: 'It's a keyboard study that Bach wrote for his eldest son (William Friedemann) as an exercise when he was ten. Being a father myself, I can hear he must have loved his son very much. It's in the harmony.'

From the writings on his website, maintained for his ever-growing fan community, Miller comes across as possessing that rare modest kindness which sometimes goes hand in hand with true genius, when an artist concedes his art comes through but not from him and sees himself as a channel for something greater, a mere instrument for beauty, his every creation a parturition touching on various regions of perfection that history reserves for a select few. Of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, the final track, Miller says: 'While I was recording this, the chords and melody seemed to play themselves, which made me feel in the presence of greatness.'

© Tess Grebbin Music & Vision (Germany) | July 2004

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