| Various Artists / Sharon Isbin (Guitar) / Pacifica Quartet: Souvenirs of Spain & Italy |
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| Album: | Sharon Isbin (Guitar) / Pacifica Quartet: Souvenirs of Spain & Italy | Collection: | Classical | |
| Artist: | Various Artists | Added: | Oct 2022 | |
| Label: | Cedille Records | |||
| A-File Activity |
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| Add Date: | 2022-10-30 | Pull Date: | 2023-01-01 | Charts: | Classical/Experimental |
| Week Ending: | Nov 13 |
| Airplays: | 1 |
Recent Airplay
| 1. | Nov 09, 2022: | Virtually Happy Guitar Quintet, Op. 143 | ||||
| Album Review |
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| Gary Lemco Reviewed 2022-10-01 | ||
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This recording (January 19-21, 2019) assembles three combinations of plucked and bowed strings, by composers who shared an Italian heritage and Spanish cultural affinities. All the pieces extend what had been originally the lute tradition; and even the most contemporary of the composers, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), called himself an “anti-modernist.” His 1939 Quintet for Guitar and String Quartet, written for virtuoso Andres Segovia, represents one of the first modern examples of this chamber music genre, a work in a genial, folk style, affectionate in its use of Spanish scalar effects and habanera rhythm. Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto, here transcribed for guitar, is a product of his travel to Prague, in Bohemia, c. 1730. In this arrangement by Emilio Pujol, the viola takes the second violin part. The middle movement Largo has gained a renown of its own, often appearing in dream-sequences in film. Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) composed his La oracion del Torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer) in 1925 for lute quartet. The piece captures the concentrated intimacy and piety of a prayer in an incense-filled chapel, where considerations of mortality occupy the toreador’s thoughts. Italian composer Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) absorbed the flamenco style of Spain, even while cultivating Italian and French styles into his significant number of compositions. He wrote his Guitar Quintet No. 4 in D Major in 1798, one of some dozen he created for Francois de Borgia of Benavente, a Spanish nobleman who had mastered the guitar. Boccherini himself was a master cellist, and his cello concertos, too, occupy a large part of the modern repertory. The most famous movement of this popular work is the last, the Fandango, in festive colors, supported by the strings and castanets. | ||
| Track Listing |
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