Customer Reviews

Guitar Espanola

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I cannot recommend this retrospective of just a small amount of Yepes's work highly enough.

He was a consummate technician and a knowledgeable interpreter of all musical idioms from the Middle Ages through to the height of the 20th Century avant-garde. His playing was characterized by intelligence, sensibility, clarity, power, majesty, poetry, and a devilish ability to separate and sustain contrapuntal lines.

In this box of 5 CDs you will find the definitive performance of Rodrigo's now famous "Aranjuez" concerto (singlehandedly made famous by Yepes). There are also 2 CDs with rare concertos by Salvador Bacarisse, Antonio Ruiz-Pipo, and Maurice Ohana.

The other 3 CD's contain solo guitar works by Sanz, Mudarra, Narvaez, Soler, Sor, Albeniz, Granados, Tarrega, De Falla, Turina, Bacarisse, Rodrigo, Llobet, Pujol, Moreno Torroba, Montsalvatge, Ohana, and Ruiz-Pipo.

Every guitarist and every lover of the instrument should own this set. If it is not available, also refer to a similar box set with the ASIN number B0000B09Z5 or another B000026ZRL.

I bought this 4 cd set under the title Gitarra Espanola for about fifteen dollars more used than under its correct title Guitarra Espanola. It and the individual four volumes are out of stock. Volume 1 Sanz, Soler and Sor are pretty good. Volume 2 Albeniz, Granados, Tarrega, De Falla, and Turina are more the Spanish or Classical guitar I am used to from the likes of Romero, Williams, and Villa Lobos.
Volume 3 has the first recording of Joaaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjeuz from 1947. My seller said that volume 3 was defective though it was just the recording capability of 1947.
Salvador Bararisse, another Twentieth Century composer for the guitar, was thrilling. Antonio Ruiz-Pipo challenged me. He was born in 1933.
There is a volume 5 with Joaquiln Rodrigo: Fantasia para un Gentilhombre/Concierto Madrigal for 2 Guitars & Orchestra/Marurice Ohana: Concerto Three Designs for Guitar & Orchestra that I will try to get used or new as it is also out of stock. These are way high in the Amazon Sales Rankings, but for a retrospecitive of the 10-string guitarist who died in 1997, this will do.