Stephen Crawford and Jerremiah Smith are the guitar faculty of the Bermuda School of Music, and the opening concert of the 12th Bermuda Guitar Festival let them strut their stuff. And strut it they did, in a well-wrought programme of widely diverse music.

Crawford kicked off with Manuel de Falla’s Miller’s Dance from the 1919 ballet The Three Cornered Hat.

This was the first time I had heard the dance arranged for guitar solo and it came across very differently from the normal full orchestra plus stage treatment.

Without strobe lights, chorus, dancers, scarves, castanets, stamping and choreographics, it emerged as a moody idea piece with a percussive and melancholic flamenco flavour. I cannot resist a factoid here: the 1919 sets and costumes were designed by some “unknown bloke” called Pablo Picasso.

Next, two sound paintings from what he called “the Spanish Moorish/Christian tradition” by Isaac Albéniz: Granada and Rumores de la Caleta (Sounds from the Cove). The first evoked the ancient city of Granada with its Islamic architecture by using Arabic scales and intervals in the bass, with a modern style melody on top.

The second had more of a folk atmosphere, using percussive hammers-on that were reminiscent of Andrew York’s Sunburst.

Crawford then gave a well-balanced interpretation of Erik Satie’s 1890 piano piece, Gnossienne. One asks oneself if Satie was serious about this work, whether it is a mickey-take of contemporary music or of the audience’s expectations, or a self-parody. Its sheer playfulness seems to indicate all four.

The highlight of the first half was Stephen’s rendering of Agustín Barrios’s 1944 Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios (Alms for the Love of God), one of the great tremolo pieces of the 20th century.

The effect of the piece can be rather over-the-top in its desperate and pleading tone, and almost unbearable in its insistence. But Crawford toned down the volume of the entreaties and, using a “less is more” approach, generated more genuine pathos than many other interpreters of this work have managed.

His tremolo was rock steady, the bass riffs crystal clear. This was a masterful interpretation.

Recalled by tumultuous applause, he encored with Jobim’s One Note Samba.

Smith played the second half of the evening, starting with Barrios’s Barcarolle (boat song), Julia Florida.

Composed in the 1930s and dedicated to the daughter of a friend, this is one of Barrios’s lyrical masterpieces. It’s also very demanding to play. But despite a back injury rendering any movement difficult and sitting down especially painful, Smith gave a beautifully light interpretation of the piece, emphasising its simple emotions, which are somehow tinged with the sadness of life’s transience.

He then moved on to Tárrega’s 1902 Gran Vals. This was more a European-style waltz than those of the South Americans, such as Lauro and Barrios, and it had a Viennese ring to it. It was a lovely piece and, like many of Tárrega’s tunes, somehow sexy.

It’s a pity that Tárrega’s estate did not extend the copyright on this piece: bars 13–16 were used by Nokia, the Finnish cellphone maker in the 1990s, for their “standard” ringtone, which in 2010 was played an estimated 1.8 billion times a day. Next, Brazilian Zequinha de Abreu’s 1917 chôro composition Tico-Tico no Fubá (Sparrow in the Cornmeal).

It’s one of those catchy tunes made famous by Carmen Miranda in the 1930s and 1940s (available on YouTube) but which, until someone hums it to you, doesn’t mean much.

The music is actually a clever portrait of the way that sparrows hop and move.

Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune has been transcribed for the guitar a number of times, explained Smith, but these versions are often unplayable.

He recently came upon an arrangement for guitar by a Turkish classical guitarist and arranger, Emre Sabuncuoglu, which he played.

It was a wonderful mood piece and the audience was hungry for more. As a finale, he gave us Andrew York’s Sunburst (Jubilation), reminding us all that York himself had played the piece on the same stage some ten years ago.

This was a fitting burst of energy and joy to end a terrific first night.