Artist Website: eddiehealy.com
Listen to recordings via ReverbNation
Publisher, Sales, Samples: Les Productions d’OZ:
Quartet or Imminent Loss
Direction by Eddie Healy (via Amazon) – Healy also put out this recording which contains both of these works as well as numerous other compositions. The albums sounds clean has a good studio sound and nice melodic playing throughout. There are also some more extroverted and active works on the album. If you’re looking for ensemble works you should check this out.
Review: Quartet & Imminent Loss:
These two new releases from guitarist & composer Eddie Healy are both scored for guitar quartet. You could double up on the parts for a larger group but I think Imminent Loss might be tricky to keep rhythmically tight with more guitars. The edition by Les Productions d’OZ looks great (as usual) with fingering but only a minimal amount so the score looks nice and clean.
Quartet is a peaceful adagio in A minor which could possibly serve as prelude to Imminent Loss. It’s a short and sweet 40 bars. There is some nice interaction between the parts and the general sound is consonant, melodic, and steady in pulse and rhythm. The actual playing difficulty is low so students could plug away at this but more advanced players could get more musical results.
Imminent Loss is more significant with much more rhythmic variety and plenty of accents, time signature changes and ties so the difficulty level is quite a bit higher than Quartet. It’s still around the intermediate to intermediate-advanced level but mostly requires rhythmic reading skills. Advanced players could up the tempo and really hit the accents to make it more exciting. It is generally very consonant once again, not without some spike and dissonance but certainly easy to listen to for general audiences. Don’t forget to listen to samples.
Productions d’OZ is pretty much my number one place to visit for ensemble music for classical guitar. Works like these ones from Eddie Healy really fill out the repertoire and have an important spot in a world short on ensemble works of medium difficulty. I would recommend this for students who like consonant melodic works or performers looking for something for audience relief from more dissonant or virtuosic displays. This is nice melodic music overall and although it might not end up being a hit on the charts it will be happily used by many.
