The Guitar Manuscripts

Alexandre Tansman’s guitar music was almost exclusively created as the result of his friendship with the legendary Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia. The true extent of this catalogue has only recently become apparent, with unknown works emerging from archive sources. Performed after careful research into the original manuscripts, Andrea De Vitis’s programme brings together pieces that reference Tansman’s favourite musicians from history, in particular Bach and Chopin - masterfully intertwining personal affections with sophisticated techniques to create some of the most important guitar repertoire of the 20th century.

Baroque powerhouse Domenico Scarlatti – son of the great Alessandro Scarlatti and born in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friderich Handel – wrote an enormous 555 keyboard sonatas. These were mostly to be performed on the harpsichord, although several sources suggest that he may have also written some for the fortepiano at the Spanish court, where he was employed from 1733. The universal appeal of these sonatas – containing Scarlatti’s trademark influence of Iberian folk music and dances – is such that they have been pushed beyond the boundaries of the intended instrument, and thus the recording also boasts performances of selected sonatas on the harp and accordion, bringing these wonderful sonatas into the 21st century.