The musical style(s) of Ms Kruisbrink's compositions can often seem chameleonic; sometimes very conservative in harmony; sometimes the polar opposite and everything in between. Her latest work «A Word of Consolation« might lead you to expect a warm nostalgic little work but as one often finds with her pieces the most obvious idea is not what she goes for.
A Lento rubato begins on a rising idea based around a D minor chord. Then a sudden change into a ritmico drone around the notes A and D leads you into a rhythmic and syncopated melody above, which gradually turns sour until one is hitting notes of C, C#, E and D# above the aforementioned A and D, just to quote one example. After a climactic moment wherein crunchily harmonised chords rock back and forth interwoven with variations on the opening rising D minor idea, one is hurled into a semiquaver variant of the A/D drone idea now translated into a passage marked insistendo. A brief respite of the oddly syncopated fourths idea, now in G/C leads again to the crunchy chords making a return now in ever-changing meters and in a more extended fashion. This in turn makes way for the insistendo passage to return, slightly varied before the syncopated A/D section dies away to strummed misterioso chords. This leads once more to even more upbeat version of the insistendo idea, interrupted one final time by a brief calmer section before running relentlessly this time into a variant of the opening that in turn becomes the coda which closes on the D minor run.
It was interesting throughout with a set of musical ideas you could follow, and was only moderately difficult to play. Lovers of Annette Kruisbrink's many compositions might like to give this eight minute piece a try.
Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)
