Music and Dance Reviews : Guitarist Eliot Fisk Plays at Cal State Northridge

Eliot Fisk has always been a hot-headed, hot-handed guitarist, something demonstrated anew in a generous, demanding yet self-indulgent program at Cal State Northridge Saturday evening.

He is also a dedicated proponent of new music, and offered the latest--number XI--of Luciano Berio’s Sequenzas. It is a characteristic reinterpretation of the instrument’s bravura vocabulary, and Fisk gave it a vivid, high-voltage performance.

Fisk is also a tireless transcriber, and capped his program with four of Paganini’s Caprices--a magnificently quixotic effort, the need for which is not apparent in all quarters. Technical stunt man that he is, Fisk was almost able to play large portions of them at his typical fret-flattening pace.

Purists may not agree with everything Fisk did in his idiosyncratically phrased, lavishly embellished transcription of Bach’s Cello Suite in D, BWV 1012, but it revealed a coherent personal vision, and was played with remarkable control.

The same could not be said of his four Scarlatti Sonatas or the opening Introduction and Allegro by Sor, which were forced along in uneven tempos. Four pieces by Barrios, in more poised accounts, and three encores completed the recital.