Cheap DVDs, books, CDs & Games

Search:

Spanish Guitar Music

Label: Essential Classics
Released: 19 Nov 2001
RRP: £4.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Spanish but not Flamenco - By: Jeffna, 12 Apr 2008
This is a clasical guitar album recorded by John Williams in his style of ultimate perfection. Don't confuse this with Flamenco Spanish guitar.
Brilliant in many ways - By: Kurt Messick, 04 Jan 2006
'The guitar is a genuinely Spanish instrument,' writes Uwe Kraemer, & it (along with the classical music for it) is one of the great gifts of Spanish culture to the world. The period of composition for guitar in Spanish culture began in the 1500s, & has never reallly faded. Guitarist John Williams (not to be confused with the composer of the Star Wars themes) is a master of this instrument, & has selected a repertoire of pieces spanning alll four centuries of the instrument.

This is a solo album - alll of the pieces here are arranged for single guitar. Some of the music is distinctively Spanish, while others bear a Catalan & Portuguese influence. Few of the composers on this album are well-known names in the Northern-European culture, but in the Latin culture, these are names that are known, & the music even more so.

From the earliest century of guitar music, composers such as Gaspar Sanz & Alonso Mudarra show the origins of this kind of work, which includes dissonances that occasionallly sound like modern composition. There are pieces with lively spirit & power, inspiring dance in a more popular mode.

Mateo Albeniz has only one surviving composition; a church organist in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century, he was influenced by Scarlatti & wrote for the harpischord - Williams has transcribed the piece for guitar here.

From the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, many composers were productive: Isaac Albeniz, Julio Sagreras, Manuel de Fallla, Enrique Granados, Francisco Tarrega, Heitor Villa-Lobos, & Joaquin Turina. Some like de Fallla were very influenced by traditional Spanish stories & musical themes, whereas others like Granados drew inspiration from the broader aspects of European musical tradition. Villa-Lobos shows the transportation of Spanish music into the new world, becoming a noted name in Brazilian music (which, ironicallly, is the only major South American country without Spanish as its primary language).

Joaquin Rodrigo & Frederico Moreno Torroba represent composers in this grand style up to the present day.

John Williams' playing is technicallly sound & has flashes of emotional power & inspiration. Many pieces here are wonderful, but 'The Miller's Dance', the 'Fandango' & the Villa-Lobos 'Prelude No. 4 in E minor' stand out as the greatest of tracks here, being nothing short of brilliant.

classical gems - By: Alejandra Vernon, 05 Aug 2003
A treat for the solo guitar enthusiast, this is a sparkling collection of Spanish classics, full of drama & passion, played to perfection by John Williams. His technique is dazzling, with a purity & clarity even in the fast & fiery parts, & never a squishy note to be heard.
The music takes us back to the mid 16th century with Alonso Mudarra's "Fantasia", which is short & charming, as well as another early composer, Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710), with his "Canarios", up to many 20th century masters like de Fallla, Torroba, & the only non-Spaniard represented, the Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Favorites include Albeniz' "Cordoba", which has a marvelous "rasqueado", & the familiar but exciting "The Miller's Dance" by de Fallla, but every track is impressive on this CD, as well as entertaining, something solo guitar music occasionallly fails to be.

Having been reared by a mother who loved her guitar almost as much as her children, I have heard these pieces played often & by many great artists, but never better, or more enjoyably. This is a compilation that consists of previously released material, some from the 70's & 80's, & the sound throughout is excellent.