Born in Torino in 1967, Alfredo Franco was
involved in non-classical music in his youth
before taking up the classical guitar. He then
undertook advanced studies in the historical
and critical fields in the Department for Art,
Music and Theatre of the University of Turin.
He would later abandon concert activity as a
performer and focus instead on composition.
His now prolific classical guitar output has been
well received by important interpreters such as
Cristiano Porqueddu and increasingly
programmed on the stage and in the studio.
This triple-disc set constitutes a broad crosssection of Franco’s solo guitar music.
Porqueddu has offered brief comments on
some of the many, varied compositions that
will be new to many listeners. A Bleached
September Sky: multiple short episodes
evoking sudden premonitions. A Night’s Tale
features a rapid, edgy central section set
between a dreamlike beginning and end.
Alphabetical Portraits conceptually
depicts seven composers by associating
the letters in their surnames with notes
of the chromatic scale. Inezie deliziose is
a collection of miniature album leaves
heralding the frivolity of an imaginary
past. Fantasia No.7 contrapuntally pays
homage to Renaissance vihuelists. Il
flauto nel bosco – Omaggio a Grazia
Deledda: a sonatina based on the Nobel
Prize-winning Sardinian author’s
renowned collection of short stories. La
regina delle tenebre – Su un racconto di
Grazia Deledda is inspired by an
eponymous short story, again by the
Sardinian author. La guitarra callada –
Homage to Frederic Mompou seeks to
convey the Catalan composer’s
atmospheres. Quaderno di aprile is a
minimalist diary, composed almost
compulsively along a few days in April.
Mirando un cuadro de Goya is one
possible interpretation of the painter’s
Pavo muerto. Microsuite is designed to
provide an introduction to contemporary
musical languages. Petite Suite mécanique
honours three guitarists from different eras:
Robert de Visée, Miguel Llobet and Leo
Brouwer. Sette aforismi: short, sparse studies
on timbre and colour. Sonatina autunnale sits
somewhere between Manuel Ponce and
Alfredo Casella. Sonatina estiva pays tribute
to Carlo Carrà and his paintings of seaside
shacks. Tarreghiana: a theme and variations
based on Tárrega’s famous Prelude in A
minor. Wintergarten is a farewell stroll in a
Schumannesque winter garden, evoking
chorales and with variations.
Other Information
● Recorded January to June 2023 in Nuoro,
Italy
● Bilingual booklet in English and Italian
contains a short description written by the
artist for each piece
This album, Galdosiana, not only compiles three of the most significant orchestral works by Gran Canarian composer Laura Vega, but it also highlights female interpretation with the esteemed conductor Lucia Marin from Jaen leading the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, alongside the prestigious Spanish soloists Maria Esther Guzman on guitar and Marta Zabaleta on piano. Four women spearheading the recording of three musical creations can be classified as a "trilogy" characterised by programmatic and interdisciplinary elements: the bright dawn of Caelum in terra, the mature and reflective sophistication of Galdosiana, and the mystical elevation found in Luz, Amor y extasis. Born in Gran Canaria, Laura Vega studied under composers such as Daniel Roca, Xavier Zoghbi, Jose Luis de Delas, and Jose Maria Sanchez Verdu. From 2008 to 2011, she served as President of the Las Palmas Association of Composers, Promuscan. Between 2003 and 2021, she was a professor in the Composition Department at the Canary Islands Higher Conservatory of Music, and in 2016, she earned her doctorate in Art History and Philosophy from the University of La Laguna. Since 2011, she has been a full member of the Royal Canarian Academy of Fine Arts, and in 2023, she began teaching at the Professional Conservatory of Music of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Unquestionably Manuel Maria Ponce stands as one of the composers for the classical guitar of all time. Rare would be the virtuoso who does not acknowledge his brilliance. However, to reach such heights, history had to gift us a providential encounter with the greatest ambassador of the guitar in the 20th century: Andres Segovia. Their profound relationship of friendship, respect, and admiration, evidenced through a fraternal correspondence and declarations, began in 1923. At that time, Ponce was a professor of Harmony at the National Conservatory of Mexico and a music critic. Manuel Ponce composed the Sonatas between 1923 and 1929, all commissioned and dedicated to Andres Segovia. They constitute the first collection of Sonatas written in the 20th century by a non-guitarist composer, forming a fundamental and unique corpus in the concert guitar repertoire. Each Sonata possesses stylistic and formal characteristics that Segovia himself detailed.
This album comprises compositions for various Asian instruments from Japan to India, some combined with Western instruments. Traditional performance techniques figure more prominently in some pieces than in others. Most of these recordings were previously released, but are long out-of-print. They have benefitted from recent advances in editing technology.
Duarte: Complete Works for Guitar Quartet / Quartetto Santórsola
Brilliant Classics
CD
$12.99$16.99Save 25%Jul 12, 2024
John W. Duarte was not only one of the most prolific composers for the solo classic guitar in the 20th century; he was also concerned with the instrument in an ensemble context. He made a lasting contribution to the concept and musical chemistry of the guitar quartet, a muchneglected feature until his innovations. This area of his creative work proved something of a goldmine for both professional quartets and educational settings where the guitar was taught as a serious instrument, worthy of deep study, and indeed for Summer Schools worldwide. In this the composer offered arrangements and original works of taste and delicacy, a hitherto unprecedented development in the expanding repertoire of the guitar. This fourth instalment in Brilliant Classics' series dedicated to the vast and precious guitar oeuvre of John W. Duarte provides a complete survey of the composer's music for four guitars. This sub-set of his guitar music is in itself greatly varied in style but of consistently superb quality. Disc one contains music he originally composed for this ensemble, and disc two features his arrangements (many of them of his own compositions) for guitar quartet. Duarte explained that his own stylistic eclecticism derived from improvisation, with composition being a slower form of improvisation benefitting from time to reconsider and to refine the product: 'What one hears becomes translatable into "playback" action and/or, given a knowledge of musical theory, comprehensible. It can provide a direct route to eclecticism - one may adopt what one chooses into one's own bloodstream and bypass what one feels foreign to one's own nature. For this reason I have never had one immediately identifiable style and have happily lived with a wide variety of idioms.'
According to the guitarist Alberto La Rocca, Ernest Shand can be considered ‘one of the greatest composers for the guitar of all time’. Born into a musical family in Hull in 1868, Shand firstly learnt the rudiments of the instrument from his father before coming under the instruction of Catharina Pratten, a German guitarist who had performed as a child with Regondi and later with Gounod and Tárrega. She later married the English flautist Robert Sidney Pratten, settled in the UK and became known as ‘Madame Sidney Pratten’, and as one of the most celebrated guitar virtuosos of her day. Shand quickly proved himself to be her most talented pupil, and Pratten declared that his compositions far surpassed her own. During his lifetime Shand was widely recognized as the greatest English classical guitarist and composer, but his music fell into obscurity soon after his death in 1924. His surviving output of 220 works reveals a guitar composer of great originality and charm who had a gift for spinning infectious melodies. Many of these pieces were originally composed for Shand to perform himself on tours which took him afar as Australia. He retired from performance in 1897, however, after being assaulted at a concert in Nottingham by a Russian audience-member who had taken exception to a patriotic song. Thereafter he concentrated on composition, and his later music inflects his essentially Romantic style with bold modulations, modal writing and hints of the Impressionism that would become hallmarks of the revolution in guitar music wrought some decades later by Villa-Lobos above all.
In 2009, a large collection of guitar music from the Gitarristische Vereinigung Munchen ('Munich Guitar Society') was rediscovered in an attic in Munich. The collection included many significant works for guitar that have been hidden from view for decades. Many of these works are by neglected composers whose names are deserving of exploration and revival. Wilhelm Schmoelzl's Introduction und Variationen exists on the threshold between Classicism and Romanticism, while Adam Darr's perfectly realised Sonata is notable for it's striking use of Alpine folk music. The programme concludes with Carl Kamberger's witty and surprising Grand Fantasy, with it's multitude of quoted themes and unconventional techniques.
Fantaisie Romantique - 19th-Century Eastern European Guitar Music
Resonus Classics
CD
$18.99Apr 05, 2024
Guitarist James Akers presents Fantaisie Romantique – a collection of premier recordings of significant works by little-known Eastern European guitarist composers of the nineteenth century. With many of the works based on popular pieces of the day, including opera arias and folk melodies, it gives them an accessibility that belies their obscurity and underpins their virtuosity. Having been neglected for over a century this recording attempts a reassessment of these composers and their work employing period instruments and techniques to render them as sympathetically and accurately as possible.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Naples’ fame as a musical center attracted travelers, composers, instrumentalists and virtuoso singers alike. Among the aspiring musicians, the most highly-trained and sought-after were the castrati, promising boys aged between 8 and 12 who were subjected to an operation intended to preserve the exceptionally pure timbre of their treble voice. Forever virginal beings whose superhuman voices mesmerized their listeners, they were nicknamed angiolilli, ‘little angels’, and sang in the most important churches and theatres of ‘Castrapolis’, a term coined to describe the southern capital and its high concentration of castrato sopranos.
Nicolò Balducci is one of the rapidly rising countertenors and sopranists of his generation. Together with the ensemble Dolci Affetti, directed by the renowned recorder player Dan Laurin, he here performs arias and cantatas by Hasse, Porsile, Sarro and Alessandro Scarlatti. All four composers were associated with Naples and knew how to highlight these extraordinary voices, at a time when opera and the chamber cantata represented the most fashionable musical genres both in Italy and abroad. The program is completed with a concerto for harpsichord by Domenico Auletta, with Anna Paradiso performing the solo part.
This album, featuring several of the UK’s most accomplished performers, explores the Macedonian composer’s search for ‘chroma’ (color) in both harmonic and formal structures, traditional and experimental sonorities and in a need for deeply dedicated performances of physical directness. The composer’s challenging quest has produced a program of works with interweaving strands of expression, some of which were written during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.Mihailo Trandafilovski is a performer-composer in the mold of Telemann, Bartók, Joachim and Liszt. Like them, it is quite impossible to separate his compositional and instrumental imaginations, and he exhibits a swirling yet sold inter-dependence between the energies of each. His contribution to the violin is extraordinary; his violin-piano duos (sonatas in all but name), concerti, violin duos, chamber works and pedagogical works are gifts for audiences and players alike. Previous recordings of his works have attracted glowing reviews around the world.
Gnattali & Mignone: Complete Studies for Guitar / Monarda
Brilliant Classics
CD
$17.99May 27, 2022
Like football (soccer) and coffee, the guitar is inextricably linked with Brazil in the collective imagination. Yet despite its significance to the country’s musical identity, the major class divide in the colonial period saw the guitar dismissed as an instrument of the common, uneducated populace, in contrast to the piano, which represented the aspirations of the wealthier middle classes. Things changed in the early 20th century, however. In 1916 a performance by Italian-Brazilian guitarist Canhoto won over both media and Brazilian elite, heralding the start of a new era for the guitar, and various Italian luthiers moved to the New World, taking advantage of the great market opportunities Brazil offered to turn their craft production into a more industrial enterprise. The guitar’s status as a national symbol rests on an identity-building process combining various elements, and that mix of cultural influences can be seen in the compositions of Radamés Gnattali (1906–1988).
Gnattali used elements of popular music in his supposedly high-brow compositions, blurring the boundary between the two styles. He fought relentlessly to break down the barriers between classical and popular music, becoming the most important – and most prolific – Brazilian composer in the guitar repertoire of the 1950s. His music has its own unique sound, featuring magnificent writing for the instrument, unexpected harmonic solutions and boundless inspiration. The Brazilian composer, pianist and conductor Francisco Mignone (1897–1986) – another musician of Italian heritage – was considered a ‘nationalist’ by scholars and ‘high-brow’ by those from the world of popular music. His vast oeuvre for guitar includes two large cycles – the Estudos (recorded here) and the Valsas – which showcase exceptional technical flair and impressive stylistic versatility, delving into everything from popular music to serialism.
Georg Philipp Telemann was the most famous of all German composers during his lifetime and a master of all musical genres. Every piece in this album dates from his triumphant years in Hamburg, where he was the city's music director. They are heard in exciting new arrangements reflecting Telemann's own practice in transcribing his works for various instruments. The two Sonatinas come from the collection Neue Sonatinen of 1730-31, a rich source of material, while the Fantasias derive from the Fantasias for viola da gamba, with much polyphonic writing cast in galant style.
Fernando Sor is probably only known to guitar enthusiasts today. The fact that his extensive oeuvre is hardly known beyond the etudes probably has to do with his renunciation of outward virtuosity while at the same time maintaining the highest technical standards. It takes a master like Frank Bungarten to lend glowing expressivity and delicate elegance to works that at first sight seem brittle. Sor does not make it easy for guitarists: where his contemporaries increasingly produce pleasing salon pieces or shine with virtuoso bravura, he writes sonatas of enormous scope, and instead of at least delivering a rousing finale, he ends with an almost timid minuet. For the listener, many of the smaller pieces seem simple and unpretentious - at least when Frank Bungarten makes us forget the enormous difficulties.
Sor explores the expressive possibilities of the guitar in uncompromising depth, especially the cantabile playing and the complexity of the movement are unparalleled. Exceedingly comprehensively educated, he seeks to make the limitations of the instrument forgotten. His ambition to succeed as an opera composer remained unfulfilled - so the everyday dramas take place in the small forms... This is not for the large concert hall, where one hardly ever encounters Sor's works. In the intimate atmosphere of the salon or the living room at home, however, a universe of dreamlike nuances of musical expression opens up to the attentive listener. The finely balanced recording technique never pushes itself into the foreground and allows a deep immersion in this world of sound, which begins to sparkle particularly attractively in the three-dimensional reproduction.
Edward Cowie is considered by many to be the greatest living composer directly inspired by the Natural World. His post-impressionist works, from the gigantic orchestral Leviathan (his first Proms commission) to his cycles of Bird Portraits and other chamber and instrumental pieces are drawing gasps of admiration from critics and audiences alike. This album focuses on Nature in the smallest sense - the subatomic building blocks of the Universe, and the conceptual realization of mathematical structures in art by the great symbolic abstract artist Kandinsky. Three works for guitar(s) - solo, duo and quartet - are bookended by a violin duo and an oboe solo in a collection which once again demonstrates Cowie’s genius and his place as one of today’s most inspired and inventive composers – a place which is being confirmed by critics more and more with each new album.
The performers are all leaders in their fields: Skærved and Trandafilovski are the two violinists with the Kreutzer Quartet as well as having varied successful careers as soloists, composers/arrangers and educators – with many Metier and Athene recordings to their names. Christopher Redgate is recognized as one of the world’s foremost oboists specializing in new music (and the inventor of the Howarth-Redgate oboe) while Saki Kato and Hugh Millington are creating a fine reputation for their championing of contemporary guitar music. They are also recording music by Trandafilovsky for a new Métier release in November. Overall this recording reinforces the brilliance of Cowie’s writing and shows his ability to create fine works for instruments he was not previously familiar with!
Born in Granada, Antonio Ruiz-Pipó (1934-1997) learnt the guitar in his youth but trained as a pianist. He began his studies in Barcelona at the Escolanía de Nuestra Señora de la Merced. In 1948 he enrolled at the Frank Marshall Academy, named after the Granados pupil who had himself trained a generation of Spanish pianists, most renowned of them Alicia de Larrocha. Ruiz-Pipó duly became a student of de Larrocha, as well as learning the craft of composition with José Cercós. The turning point of his career arrived in 1951, when he received a scholarship from the French government to study in Paris. Enrolled at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he studied with Alfred Cortot, Blanche Bascouret de Gueraldy and Yves Nat. This new recording presents Ruiz-Pipó’s complete works for guitar, unmistakably Hispanic in character, but seamlessly integrated within his own, distinctive musical language. Elements of the Spanish folk tradition bridge the divide between a tonal-modal center and the prevalence of free atonal chromaticism. Born in 1994, Michele Di Filippo studied with guitar luminaries including David Russell, Adriano Del Sal, Stefano Palamidessi, Arturo Tallini, Massimo Delle Cese, Andrea Pace, and Cristiano Poli Cappelli. He is also widely known as a successful composer, mostly for his own instrument, the guitar.
This album features three works by distinguished composer Alec Roth, each setting poetry on themes of nature and human reflection. A Road Less Travelled is a cantata for tenor and guitar using poems by Edward Thomas, written before his death in 1917. The Garden Path is a cycle for mezzo-soprano and string quartet setting poems by Amy Lowell, many inspired by her garden. Other Earths and Skies sets Vikram Seth's translations of LI Bai's poems for tenor and oboe. Performers include Mark Padmore, Morgan Szymanski, Martha McLorinan, the Sacconi Quartet, Hugo Hymas, and Nicholas Daniel.
In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary classical music, composer Henning Fuchs emerges as a trailblazer with his latest release, Cocoon. This musical odyssey composed by Henning Fuchs, beckons listeners to transcend the conventional and embark on a reflective journey through a unique blend of neo-classical and world music. Fuchs, once the assistant to the renowned Max Richter, brings his cinematic expertise to the forefront, crafting compositions that invite introspection and meditation. The core of this auditory adventure lies in Fuchs' ability to marry neo-classical elements with world music nuances. Drawing inspiration from his contemporary Irish abode, the album introduces rare traditional instruments, resonating with the sounds of a place that has become a muse for the composer. The result is a rich tapestry of tones and textures that transport the listener to an otherworldly realm where time seems to stand still. Collaborating with a talented ensemble of musicians, Fuchs enlists the skills of Katie O'Connor (Violin), Aoife NíDhornáir on (Violin/Viola), Paula Hughes on (Cello), Kieran Moynhihan (Flute), Aisling Ennis (Harp), and Martin Schärer on percussion. Each instrument becomes a storyteller, contributing to the album's narrative and enhancing its emotive depth.
Adding another layer to this sonic journey are the guest vocals of Uzo Nwanaga and Lisa Lambe. Their voices intertwine seamlessly with the instrumental arrangements, creating moments of sublime beauty and emotional resonance. Cocoon becomes a collaborative effort, an immersive experience that transcends the boundaries of conventional genres. As you delve into the tracks, there's an undeniable sense of being cocooned in the intricate melodies and thoughtful compositions. Fuchs' creation becomes a sanctuary, encouraging contemplation and reflection. It's an invitation to explore the uncharted territories where classical and world music intersect, challenging preconceived notions and offering a haven for those seeking a deeper connection with the music. The album is an auditory tapestry that encourages listeners to let go of expectations, immerse themselves in the soundscape, and emerge on the other side with a renewed perspective on the boundless possibilities of musical expression.
Rudnev: Music for Guitar / Mamedkuliev, Begutov, Rudnev, Mityakov, Illarionov
Brilliant Classics
CD
$23.99$31.99Save 25%Feb 11, 2022
Russian guitarist and composer Sergei Ivanovich Rudnev was born in 1955 in Tula. In 1975 he graduated in the accordion and balalaika class of Tula’s “Dargomyzhsky” Conservatory, and while attending this school he studied guitar with A. Slavsky and P. Panin in Moscow. On completion of these studies he was transferred to the Garrison Military Orchestra, where he served as an assistant conductor and learned to play the flute, percussion instruments and harmonica and was trained in arranging for pop orchestras. In the 80s Rudnev worked as musical director of various rock and jazz groups and accompanied various singers. Around the same time, he mastered symphonic arranging and studied composition with O. Feltsman and M. Tariverdiev. By the beginning of the 80s Rudnev had already written more than a hundred compositions for classical guitar and had begin a career as a concert guitarist. In 2015 Sergei Rudnev was named a Russian ‘National Treasure’, and numerous publications on his life and work hail Rudnev as ‘the soul’ of Russian guitar, a legend, a multi-instrumentalist and one-of-a-kind researcher. 2018 saw the publication of Russian Guitar Composers of the 19th Century, in which music written for Russia’s native seven-string guitar was arranged for classical guitar for the first time and thereby made accessible to the guitar community of the entire world. Rudnev’s compositions are played literally all over the world by both Russian and Western musicians, and the success of his music is now comparable to that of classical guitar luminaries such as H. Villa-Lobos, A. Barrios and F. Tárrega. His sincere and boundless love of Russian culture, deep knowledge of the developmental history of both the classical and the seven-string guitar and compositional innovation in a varied range of musical styles (from folk to jazz) have all contributed to Rudnev’s unique place in the guitar pantheon.
