With 2015 drawing to a close and the new year just ahead, join me for a celebration of music for the classical guitar and more on the next Fretworks.
The German group Fidium Concentus is a guitar and mandolin orchestra, and they'll start the hour with an arrangement of the Suite in D Minor by George Frideric Handel, followed by the fine Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco with his rendition of Fernando Sor's Mozart tribute: Six Airs From Mozart's "The Magic Flute."
The program continues with a concerto for 4 guitars and orchestra from 1967 by the great Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo, the Concierto andaluz. It was written for Los Romeros, who will be the soloists in this 1978 recording with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Neville Marriner. The concerto evokes the region of Andalusia from which the Romeros hail with hints of flamenco and much wonderful guitar playing from the "First Family of the Guitar."
An overture from a Rossini opera receives a scaled down treatment for guitar, flute and clarinet from a CD titled "Borrowed Treasures" from JoAnn Falletta, Debra Wendells Cross and Robert Alimeny. JoAnn Falletta may be better known as the conductor and the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony Orchestras, but she is also a very fine classical guitarist. They'll play the overture to La Gazza Ladra (The Silken Ladder).
To see out what is now the end of the third year of Fretworks here on Classical 101, guitarist Anton Del Forno performs his arrangement of Auld Lang Syne.
Join me in 2016 as we continue to explore the repertoire of the classical guitar and occasionally the lute, mandolin, and other fretted stringed instruments every Saturday and Wednesday evening at 7.
Happy New Year!