Di Luiz

The tone poem Cauchemar, which means "nightmare" in Portuguese, is much a product of its time, similar in tone to contemporaneous works by Schoenberg, Massenet, Stravinsky and Schmitt. This is not surprising since the composer was studying in Europe at the time. Despite the title, there is nothing terribly frightening about the music which has a mood rather somewhere between the Rienzi overture of Wagner and something by Nielsen.

Since the late '60s, John McLaughlin's name has been synonymous with electric fusion guitar. But McLaughlin is equally accomplished on the acoustic guitar; he has a long history of excelling on that instrument, which he plays exclusively on Thieves and Poets. This 2003 release, in fact, isn't fusion in the amplified jazz-rock sense but rather acoustic-oriented post-bop with Euro-classical leanings. Thieves and Poets finds McLaughlin joining forces with two of Europe's classical outfits: the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie (with Renato Rivolta serving as conductor) and the much smaller, guitar-oriented Aighetta Quartet.