José Menor

With a capaciously-filled boxset of a dozen CDs made up of attractive individual programmes and entitled The Spanish Guitar, Glossa reintroduces the superb playing of José Miguel Moreno. And with recordings from 1991-2004 which still sound fresh and vivid today. A new essay and all the sung texts are included in the physical booklet that completes this limited-edition set.

This is first recording for Challenge Classics by the very highly-rated Al Ayre Español and its conductor Eduardo López Banzo - and the beginning of a longterm partnership. The sacred cantatas performed on this Hybrid SACD are by José de Nebra, the ‘father’ of Spanish opera and Zarzuela.

Without any doubt this is one of the great recordings produced by Glossa, as well as being the only recorded occasion in which the two co-founding brothers of the label guitarist José Miguel Moreno and violinist Emilio Moreno have taken part together. In the hands of these fabulous specialists, who are accompanied by a tiple treble guitar and castanets in the famous Fandango, two of Boccherini’s guitar quintets sound here with an unparalleled intensity and brightness.