Folias Canarios

Born in New York in 1946, Swiss-American lutenist Hopkinson Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in Music in 1972. His instrumental studies took him to Europe where he worked with Emilio Pujol, a great pedagogue in the highest Catalan artistic tradition, and with the Swiss lutenist, Eugen Dombois, whose sense of organic unity between performer, instrument, and historical period has had lasting effects on him. He has been involved in numerous chamber music projects and was one of the founding members of the ensemble Hespèrion XX. Since the mid-80’s, he has focused almost exclusively on the solo repertoires for early plucked instrument, producing a series of prize-winning recordings for Astrée and Naïve, which feature Spanish music for vihuela and baroque guitar, French lute music of the Renaissance and baroque, English and Italian music of the 16th early 17th century and music from the German high baroque.

¡Jácaras! 18th Century Spanish Baroque Guitar Music of Santiago De Murcia
Classical | CD | MP3 VBR 320kbps | COVER NO BOOK | 131 MB
Harmonia Mundi Fr. B00000DG08 | Release Date: 1998

This excellent recording treats us to a different baroque. Not the extremely elaborate fugues, chorales, and operas most people immediately think of when they hear "baroque". Many of the pieces are dance music, but not the kind of dances you would find in Bach cello, violin or lute suite. This is music someone can actually dance to. Even though the music is definitely baroque, some of these pieces sound like flamenco (like Jacaras por la E), and some other sounds like South American music (La Jota sounds somehow like "pajaro campana").

A discussion of the Alfabeto letters that show up in the titles of the pieces would have been nice; when you see "por la E" or "por la B" Murcia did not mean in the key of E or in the key of B. He was reffering to the names of the main chord in each of the pieces by an old guitar-chord naming system.

Los Otros - Aguirre
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 310 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # 82876 60489 2 | Country/Year: Germany 2004
Genre:Classical | Style: Baroque, Latin American

… At times, Aguirre almost approaches a jazz feel, and presenters from beyond the classical world should definitely check this album out – Los Otros could work well on folk or world music stages… Aguirre is a musically successful realization of an unusual and fascinating New World tradition.

La Guitarra Española is the second solo album from William Carter. This recording explores the fascinating music of Spanish guitar legend Santiago de Murcia who successfully fused the popular and art music of the early 1700s.

The popularity of the guitar has never waned and the sun-drenched sound of Spanish guitar music is one of the instrument’s most popular incarnations. At the helm of performers of this style of guitar music is Narciso Yepes who recorded vast amounts of guitar music for Deutsche Gramophon. This collection brings together some of the gems from among these recordings and indeed, from the body of work for Spanish guitar.