BaL - Long Overdue Works

[Sir Velo]

Put like that, exactly - how? Especially with a huge guitar repertoire from almost pre-Baroque to the present day

[Richard Tarleton]

No guitar recitals (not even the Concierto de Aranjuez since at least 1999; i.e. 14 years ago.

Julian Bream's recent 80th birthday anniversary would have made an ideal opportunity for rectifying this, particularly when one considers the large number of works he commissioned (including Britten's Nocturnal; and pieces by Henze; Tippett; Walton; Berkeley et al); as well as the great Spanish literature in the genre, or Villa Lobos' seminal studies for the guitar.

I mean, seriously, how could any self respecting "library" go 14 years without acquiring a single work from the guitar repertoire?

As a still-active plucker myself...I think guitar CDs might be better suited to one of those surveys that they do from time to time....certainly the release of JB's entire RCA discography would lend itself to this (the sort of thing they did for Joan Sutherland not long ago). Except that 4 of his greatest discs were his last 4 on EMI....and there are those marvellous early Westminster discs...

Anyway you've made me think, I'll put together a list of what I'd regard as essential guitar CDs, others might have completely different lists.....

I remember the last BAL on the Rodrigo - the trouble with that is there are far too many versions - I can't remember who won but it seemed pretty arbitrary at the time (Dyens, possibly) - when the correct answer would have been one of the 4 or 5 Bream versions .....Other concertos, yes, but not enough versions of each?

The trouble with the guitar repertoire from the BAL format point of view, it's that it's difficult to compare like CDs with like. Too many short pieces, and recitals. And with the rise of period performance, I'm finding that my own collection has diversified into all sorts of period performance - CDs devoted to Sanz on Baroque guitar, Narváez, etc. (the composers Segovia would cherry-pick for recitals), besides masses of lute. Complete Villa-Lobos recordings are fairly few, AFAIK - too many bits and pieces in recitals. There are lots of Naxos recitals by newcomers....John Williams in recent years has gone for "project" albums, like his Venezuelan and African collections, as he has (I imagine) grown weary of the standard repertoire. He does not seem to have played much of the repertoire Bream has commissioned over the years, if any. Looking at the Spanish repertoire - I have a few great all-Sor discs, for example (essential to any player), including a couple of HIP ones but the same few transcriptions of Albeniz and Granados keep turning up in recitals.

Another problem might be - who would do it? I'd suggest you would need a David Owen Norris figure with real insights into the instrument, performance and playing styles, not a Rob Cowan generalist - I pick on him because he's forever playing Segovia discs. And we'd need somebody who can pronounce Spanish .

Perhaps I'll put together a Summer BAL (I'd better be quick) on guitar, and others can disagree violently.