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5.0 out of 5 stars
The Pinnacle Achievement of the Baroque Guitar, April 15, 2010
This review is from: Gaspar Sanz: Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española (Audio CD)
With the possible exception of Hopkinson Smith's Guerau album, this is the high point of baroque guitar recordings. The colour, phrasing, energy - the poetry - this disc is the closest anyone working in the 'early music' realm has come to achieving the glories of Julian Bream's guitar-playing. As if this weren't enough, Smith's approach to the text - the way he treats the musical sources - is outstanding in both its tase and its inspired freedom. Smith treats the tablatures of Sanz as a diving board into the general ether of Spanish music, popular and artistic, of the 17thc century. Many recordings - I won't name them - apply a misguided textual reverence to the sources. Not this one! Hopkinson Smith tastefully embellishes, repeats, adds, re-fingers, even uses the odd harmonic. Whether each choice is 'right' or not, what he achieves is the recreation of living music, the sense that the music is of the here and now. And far beyond any grand sentiments, he simply makes great music out of it. If you have eighty dollars lying around or a birthday comming up, I strongly recommend forking out for this disc. It will be the favorite cd in your collection for a very, very long time, easily repaying your loss of funds. If not, try to find it in a cd store for the normal price, though its out of print at the moment.
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