Before a phrase from the Gran vals by Francisco Tárrega unexpectedly shot to international fame as the Nokia ringtone, his most celebrated pieces included the Capricho árabe, composed in 1892. The piece is inspired by the mixture of Muslim Castilian and Christian cultures which had always been a feature of the Valencia region where Tárrega grew up.

Tárrega’s friend and near-contemporary Isaac Albéniz was a virtuoso pianist who also played the guitar. Even though he evoked the guitar brilliantly on the piano, he never composed any music for the instrument. ‘Malagueña’ was first published in the collection España. Published in 1892 as ‘Prélude’, the piece widely known as ‘Asturias’ is also imbued with the spirit of southern Spain.

Federico Mompou’s Suite compostelana was commissioned by Andrés Segovia and was published in 1964, the same year as Segovia’s first recording of the piece.

The Italian guitarist and composer Carlo Domeniconi has drawn on several national traditions for his works, but has a particular interest in Turkish music which he has studied in depth. The Variationen über ein anatolisches Volkslied (Variations on an Anatolian Folksong) were composed in 1982 and are based on the song (türkü) ‘Uzun ince bir yoldayim’. Koyunbaba is a four-movement suite for guitar which started as an improvisation, and was then notated soon afterwards. The composer describes the score as ‘no more than a sketch’ and insists that players improvise in their performance – which Krzysztof Meisinger does to great effect with his additional ‘Invocazione’ at the start of the work.

REVIEW:

It’s a pity Mompou didn’t write more for the guitar. His only work for that instrument, the Suite compostelana, is a minor masterpiece, profound in its simplicity. It takes a player of Meisinger’s stature to pull off a successful performance, and here the Preludio, Cuna and Canción are especially well rendered.

-- Gramophone

Renowned both as a guitarist and a composer, Carlo Domeniconi has written over 150 compositions, combining Eastern and Western elements in striking and individual ways. Sinbad, a Fairy Tale for Solo Guitar is a perfect example of his imaginative style and is one of the most remarkable works in the entire solo guitar repertoire, evoking the panoramic journey of the sailor and adventurer known from The Arabian Nights. The piece draws on diverse sources including Oriental-Persian scales, Arabic oud ornaments and extended techniques to chart, in three cycles, the Middle Eastern atmosphere through which Sinbad travels.

“The love of nature and Sufi poetry are the threads running through the production of this album. I’ve been looking for a way to connect these two themes to music for a long time. At the age of thirteen, my first guitar teacher, Leo van Rutte, introduced me to the music of the composer Agustin Barrios. I found his music to be mesmerizingly beautiful and I was so inspired by this composer that at the time I was determined to devote my life to the classical guitar. Barrios was not only inspired by Western European romanticists, but also by indigenous music, nature, and religion. His composition Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios (An Alm for the Love of God) is a clear example of this. In addition, I’ve included music by the composer Johann Kaspar Mertz.

"I find that his compositions display a great beauty and are reminiscent of Barrios’s compositions. Mertz was also inspired by Western European romanticists and indigenous folk music. The Old Lime Tree by Sergei Rudnev not only has a fitting title, but struck me by its special atmosphere, depth, and eloquence, making it a good fit with aforementioned themes. I feel a deep connection to the thirteenth-century Sufi poets Rumiand Hafiz. Rumi spent most of his life in Konya, Turkey. Domeniconi’s beautiful variations, inspired by an Anatolian folk song, reflect an atmosphere of poetic stillness and contemplation that is often found in Sufi poems.” (Rob Nijboer)

Carlo Domeniconi is a master of guitar composition. His fusion of Western and Eastern elements is a distinctive feature of his writing, and this album presents a body of work for the unusual combination of mandolin and guitar. The large-scale Durandarte charts a medieval knight’s wild journey through the countryside, which is accompanied by poignant love songs, elegies, and agitated cross-rhythms. In Tarantula precox he summons up a dervish-like dance; while in the kaleidoscopic moods of Zemrude the Orient and the Middle East merge dramatically. All but one of these works have been composed especially for the Mare Duo. The Mare Duo has inspired numerous composers to enrich the repertoire for their formation, including Carlo Domeniconi, Jaime Zenamon, Konstantin Vassiliev, Jürg Kindle, Frank Wallace, Thomas Allen LeVines, Lars Wüller, and many others. The Mare Duo is also interested in performing the classical repertoire for their formation as well as playing innovative transcriptions. Annika and Fabian have released several solo, duo and chamber music albums with labels such as Naxos, Schott Music and Gyre Records, and they have appeared on TV productions including MTV Unplugged.

Carlo Domeniconi retains a close relationship with the culture of the Mediterranean whose traditions and customs permeate the ‘Concerto Mediterraneo, Op. 67’ in which the two guitars evoke North African and Middle Eastern plucked instruments such as the oud and the saz. Domeniconi’s prestige as an internationally esteemed guitarist informs ‘Oyun’, a vivacious and true hybrid of Turkish and Western influences, while Trilogy demands both unusual tuning and imaginative improvisation from the performer. Full of virtuosity, energy and pensive melancholy, ‘Toccata in blue’ embodies allusions to boogie-woogie and the blues. Canadian Dale Kavanagh and her German partner Thomas Kirchhoff have recently celebrated their 25th anniversary as the Amadeus Guitar Duo and are today regarded as one of the pre-eminent international guitar duos, receiving enthusiastic reviews from critics around the world. Having enjoyed great success, with more than 80 concerts annually, as an unaccompanied duo, Kavanagh and Kirchhoff decided to expand their repertoire to include that for guitar and orchestra.

Over the last 25 years the Amadeus Guitar Duo have consistently proved to be one of the world’s most exploratory and admired ensembles. Through their many international tours, recordings, and the symposium they established at Iserlohn in Germany, they have extended the repertoire for the duo and for guitar duo with orchestra. In this release, their inaugural one for Naxos, the programme ranges across the centuries from the magnificent arrangement of Handel’s Suite in G minor, HV 432, through music by the nineteenth-century guitar composer Johann Kaspar Mertz, to contemporary works including the brilliant and virtuosic Fantasie d’oriente e d’occidente by Carlo Domeniconi, which was given its world première by the duo.