The excellent new album Intimate Impressions for Two Guitars by the duo Adam Cicchillitti and Steve Cowan consists of music originally written for piano, harp, or two guitars by leading 20th century composers who spent the bulk of their careers working in Paris, such as Ravel, Debussy, Mompou, Tailleferre, and Jolivet. The arrangements, the majority of which are by the Cicchillitti/Cowan duo, eloquently illustrate that the tone colors, intimacy, and pure lyricism of the composers’ styles are ideally suited to the guitar, and that the harmonic language translates beautifully to a guitar duo. Simply captivating!

REVIEW:

New additions to the guitar duo repertoire: 20th Century French works arranged for two guitars, artistically performed by Canadian guitarists who clearly have command of transcription skills, and also a unified delivery of the music in all its technical complexity and musical depth. Drew Henderson and Michael Kolk’s arrangement of the `Prelude’ from Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin, the only arrangement in the program not by the duo, is nothing short of stellar in concept and execution. There follows the almost obligatory contemporary work on the program, Serenade by Andre Jolivet. Even though it was written for and premiered by Presti & Lagoya, an inspiring duo from the mid-1900s not known for avante-garde musical excursions, it disrupts the flow in this otherwise delightful program of warm and uplifting music. Liner notes by Richard Turp are well written and interesting, leaving the listener with a fairly complete picture of the music.

-- American Record Guide

Charles Ramirez is a guitarist of rare skill. A preeminent performer in the generation of guitarists that followed Segovia, he has held the post of Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music since the age of 25, raising the profile of the instrument through his concerts and education activities since mid-1970s. This disc is the first in a new series of recordings featuring Charles Ramirez and sees him perform works by Joaquín Rodrigo with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe - the Concierto de Aranjuez and Fantasia para un gentilhombre - under conductor and founding member of the orchestra Douglas Boyd. The programme is completed with Rodrigo's enchanting solo-guitar piece Elogio de la guitara.

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Following the success of their last album, Timelapse, this new album from Orchestra of the Swan is a collection of extraordinary works connected by ideas of pilgrimage, contemplation, exploration and enlightenment through the works of composers such as Richter, Respighi, Britten, Piazzolla, Brian Eno, Nico Muhly, Joy Division and more. As with Timelapse, the joy is to be found in discovering the surprising and delightful connections between culturally disparate and musically contrasting time periods. Labyrinths have been an important part of humanity’s cultural landscape for thousands of years; from the Ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur to the intriguing stories of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco. Our overwhelming desire to find patterns and ‘the hidden truth’ is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the subversive and complex vistas of music. Formed in 1995, Orchestra of the Swan is a British chamber orchestra which, under the artistic direction of David Le Page, is passionate about audience inclusivity and blurring the lines between genres, through its adventurous and accessible programming.

In the early 19th-century, a rivalry existed between two of Italy's greatest guitarists/composers, Francesco Molini and Ferdinando Carulli. This album features not only the complete Molino works for flute and guitar, but also the Carulli Concerto for Flute and Guitar. Both composers are wonderful, as are these performances. Diversity of styles is a hallmark of Roberto Alvarez’s concerts and recitals. As a matter of fact he feels just as comfortable performing classical, baroque or avant-garde music as well as Celtic, jazz or rock. He has received various international prizes, such as the Diploma of Honor in the Torneo Internazionale di Musica, Concurso Internacional de Música “Paper de Musica” de Capellades, the Ángel Muñíz Toca Award and the Ciutat de Manresa Prize. Born and raised in Singapore, Kevin Loh is a recipient of the Fellowship of the Royal Schools of Music, the 2018 Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award and the 2010 HSBC Youth Excellence Award for Musical Excellence. He was talent-scouted by The Yehudi Menuhin School via his YouTube channel when he was only 12 years old and was awarded a grant by The Rolling Stones to study at the prestigious music school as their first Asian guitarist.

This CD has been a long time coming, and dates back to the first time Paco Peña and Eliot Fisk ever met, when they performed separately at a now-defunct guitar festival in Germany, in September 1983. The disc does not pretend to be either pure flamenco or pure classical. Necessarily, the classical selections are colored by Paco’s flamenco sensibility just as the flamenco selections are colored by Eliot’s formation in the classical world. But that is exactly what is interesting! Paco finds things in classical music that would never occur to a classical player, and something analogous can be said of Eliot’s attempts to enter the mysterious temple of flamenco.

Among the operas, concertos, oratorios and solo piano music (Naxos, Somm SOMMCD 032) there are two guitar concertos, a serenade for guitar and orchestra, a concerto for two guitars and orchestra and many pieces of chamber music involving the instrument. The first concerto was written partly in Mussolini's Italy and partly in America. If the middle of the three movements of the op. 99 First Concerto sometimes drifts close to Tatiana's Letter Song it is delectable sentimental stuff. The flanking movements are sanguine and proud. They will certainly appeal to anyone who likes Rodrigo's Aranjuez. It's a lovely concerto and well worth tracking down in this very generously timed disc. I hope there is a volume 2 with the Second Concerto, the Serenade and the Concerto for two guitars.

Golondrinas (Swallows) suggests a relaxed saunter along the corniche - a summer evening with the swallows of the title diving and soaring. It's a virtuoso piece as is the eager and bustling La Primavera. The Platero suggests a delicate spray of lilies. The Rondo has some of the aristocratic elegance of the finale of the op. 99 concerto. The three movement op. 133 Suite is a work of beguiling emotional suggestion. This enchanting disc ends with the three movement op. 143 Guitar Quintet. The writing is full of interest with some incidental echoes of Ravel and of Russian nationalism. Again it is cheerful, subtly allusive, dynamic, poetic, playful and at times sweetly eerie. Unlike the much younger Brouwer this music has no truck with dissonance. Its milieu is impressionistic poetry. The string quartet writing is most inventive and by no means a dull stooge to the guitar.

After you have rifled Rodrigo's guitar treasury you must try this. This composer is no Rodrigo epigone but his music shares the Spanish composer’s mood and gift for beguiling invention. You can add this composer's name to that of Manuel Ponce as someone whose guitar music needs to be explored. By the way, do not overlook Ponce's Concerto del Sur for guitar and orchestra. Like so much else from that era including these works by Castelnuovo-Tedesco - it was written for Segovia – recorded by him and also by Alfredo Moreno with Enrique Batiz.

These recordings were originally issued in 2004 on MusicMasters. I hope that there is more to come and if not that Nimbus might find funding for a collection of this composer's concertante works for guitar. It's that good.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International