Mauro Giuliani (1781-1828) was a contemporary of Schubert and one of the many Italian guitar virtuosos who had to flee his own country to get noticed. He ended up in Vienna frequently playing in the fashionable salons and contributing to the guitar becoming all the rage there. As a composer he mainly wrote for his own use: around 200 pieces in all. Many of his works are still popular today, and belong to the standard guitar repertoire. 'Composer, or rather translator of beauty'. This is how Giuliani described himself in a letter to Anton Diabelli on 24 January 1824, and it contains all the poetry and aesthetics of his music, which is quintessentially beautiful, charming, melodious and witty. This new recording presents the complete works for flute and guitar, a popular combination. Included are sets of variations on popular themes from operas, serenades and divertimenti, potpourri’s, Grand Duo’s and Marches, a veritable treasure trove of instrumental brilliance and joie de vivre.

Flutist Daniele Ruggieri completed his studies in Venice where he graduated with the highest marks under Guido Novello and subsequently in Geneva where he was awarded the first Prix de Virtuosité in the class of Maxence Larrieu, after which he built an impressive career as a soloist and ensemble player: “...Rarely will you hear the flute flutter around a concert hall in such a beautiful and playful display of virtuosity.” (M. Connolly, The Times, London). Master guitarist Alberto Mesirca is twice winner of the Golden Guitar, for the best recording of the Year. He recorded the complete guitar music by Regondi, Asencio and Sanz, and “Voces de Sefarad”, four centuries of Sephardic Songs.

Wanderlust is a voyage around the world of folk and the traditions that emerged from each countries’ unique blend of traditional music. Ranging from the rolling hills of Romania to the jagged cliffs of Newfoundland, flutist Lara Deutsch and guitarist Adam Cicchillitti have compiled a survey of folk music naturally suited to the flute and guitar. Drawing on the roots of folk traditions from around the world, the duo gracefully navigates a plethora of styles through their own unique identity as predominantly classical players.

Pavans and galliards by the Elizabethan master of melancholy, complemented by a new recording of Benjamin Britten’s magnificent Nocturnal inspired by both Dowland’s music and by the playing of Julian Bream. After the success of ‘The Golden Age of the Guitar in Europe’ (2CD, 96157), Brilliant Classics releases a second album by the French guitarist Pascal Boëls, a unique collection of music by 17th and 20th-century English masters. In a booklet introduction, the guitarist explains how he sees Dowland as ‘a universal genius, eternal wanderer who – already! – knew how to rub shoulders with all facets of the human soul.’ Pascal Boëls plays a personal selection of Dowland’s piece originally written for solo lute, pieces which embody a spirit of introversion such as the ‘Forlorn Hope’ Fancy and the ‘Lachrymae’ Pavan which became famous across Europe, much imitated and adapted by other composers of the day.

Lightening the mood are also the kind of courtly dances and romances which delighted the composer’s aristocratic patrons such as the Earl of Essex and King Christian of Denmark. The English guitarist Julian Bream played Dowland’s pieces on the guitar from an early stage of his career, and made a best-selling album of them for RCA. It was this antique palette of gentle, musing expression that inspired Benjamin Britten to write a Nocturnal for guitar which builds as a sequence of eight variations towards (rather than away from) the Dowland song on which they are based. The resulting work, according to Bream, was the greatest solo work ever written for guitar, exploring a slippage between wakeful and dream states with a subtle ambiguity between major and minor harmonies and a language that bridges the divide between the 17th and 20th centuries.

Born in 1949, Fabio Vacchi stands among the pre-eminent Italian composers of his generation. Working primarily in the operatic field, he has had pieces staged at the Teatro alla Scala and by the Opéra Comique in Paris, the Opera de Lyon, the Maggio Musicale in Florence and the Teato Comunale in his home city of Bologna. Vacchi’s instrumental pieces have attracted similar high-profile performances. His chamber cycle Luoghi Immaginari (1987-1992), has been given across the world, including at the Salzburg Mozarteum conducted by Daniel Harding. Other pieces were commissioned by Claudio Abbado and by the Tokyo Quartet.

The most substantial piece on this new collection of his chamber pieces was commissioned by the Swedish guitarist Magnus Andersson and first performed by him in 1997 as a guitar concerto; this Quintetto Notturno Concertante dates from 2012 and is a masterful condensation of the complexities of the original, rich instrumental texture, while preserving its fleeing moods and subtly shifting changes of harmony. At the other end of this collection, Livia Rado sings Flow my Dowland, a rapturous transformation of five songs by the Elizabethan lutenist, in which the original vocal part is richly embroidered by Vacchi’s own modern reimagination of the accompanying part, scored for a small ensemble of winds, strings, vibraphone and harp, to melting and magical effect. In between come a pair of solo works, though in fact Plynn quotes Britten’s Nocturnal after John Dowland as a study of harmonics on the guitar, evoking its most dreamlike and insubstantial timbres. The earliest piece here is a Suite for flute and guitar, dating from 1971. Here, the 22-year-old Vacchi is at his most experimental in terms of both form and harmony, employing extraneous elements such as pen and paper and sending both instruments to the extremes of their register, though always with an intrinsically idiomatic sympathy. Any listener with an ear for the Italian postwar avant-garde will find this newly recorded album full of delight and discovery.

Recorded at the height of the international Covid lockdown, Oliver Davis’s sixth album for Signum is a feat of both technological as well as artistic achievement. Following from draws together artists from across the globe for a selection of moving works for a variety of forces – recording a violinist in Los Angeles, a piano duo in The Netherlands, a guitarist in Argentina and the Budapest Scoring Orchestra conducted by Péter Illényi in Budapest. Davis’s previous albums with Signum have reached the top 10 on both iTunes Classical and UK Specialist Classical Charts multiple times, receiving numerous five-star reviews and well over a million streams on Apple Music. British composer Oliver Davis has parlayed a long record as a composer of film and television scores into a successful career as a composer of orchestral music that in performance have attracted top-notch London orchestras and soloists. He has also been active as a composer of ballet – most recently premiering Lineage with choreographer Edwaard Liang at New York City Ballet’s prestigious Fall Fashion Gala.

David Starobin's recordings of 19th century music on Viennese guitars have been hailed as path-breaking, including his recent Matiegka sonatas disc, (BRIDGE 9567). Donald Rosenberg, in Gramophone wrote: "These works unfold with a spectrum of creative possibility, especially in Starobin's eloquent hands. The guitarist brings refinement to every turn of phrase, whether the music is marching, dancing or crying. This recording is a swansong to savor." In honor of the 200th birth year of Giulio Regondi, Victorian composer, guitarist, and concertinist, Starobin's new Regondi release combines previously unissued recordings, alongside re-mastered performances from Starobin's back catalog. In addition to Regondi's most well known works (Nocturne Reverie, op. 19 and Introduction et Caprice, op. 23), Starobin includes four transcriptions from Regondi's concertina etudes, guitar etudes nos. 2 and 10, and Regondi's Fetes Villageoise, op. 20 and Air Varie, No. 1, op. 21.

Jean-Philippe Rameau was perhaps the greatest of all French composers of the Baroque. Sylvie Proulx presents an exceptional program of Rameau's works in transcriptions for guitar. Canadian virtuoso guitarist, Sylvie Proulx has concertized throughout Canada, the United States and England. A champion of new works for the guitar, she has presented numerous Canadian world-premieres. Acclaimed for her exceptional musicality and remarkable technique, her repertoire reflects a wide range of periods and styles. In addition to solo and orchestral work, Ms. Proulx always enjoys the collaborative aspect of chamber music, welcoming new and challenging pieces for that genre.

David Juritz writes: “The dilemma faced by any arranger of Bach is to stay true to the character of his music while knowing he would have been far bolder and more imaginative. For this version, I have attempted to remain within a sound-world that he would have found familiar. I did, however, have two factors on my side: Bach’s sublime and rigorous counterpoint and, in Craig Ogden, a virtuoso guitarist whose technical accomplishment is matched only by his Aussie ability to remain unruffled in the face of any challenge.”