Luys y

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.

Recording the “Seis libros del Delphín” has been a long-held wish of the Argentine guitarist Pablo Márquez, who came to Europe almost twenty years ago to study renaissance repertoire and to delve into contemporary treatises on performance practice. “Troughout my artistic development, Luys de Narváez has remained a passion of mine, never failing to move me with the mystical nature of his music and the crystal clarity of his discourse”, he writes in his performer’s note to the present album which marks his debut on ECM New Series.

Four discs of key recordings by the most revered classical guitarist of our time, many debuting on CD! Disc one, "Concertos," features works by Rodrigo, Ponce and Boccherini. Discs two and three, "Works for Solo Guitar," include Seis Pavanas Milan; Granada Albeniz; Praeludium & Allegro De Murcia, and more. And disc four collects Segovia's celebrated arrangements of works by J.S. Bach. Over five hours of gorgeous guitar mastery!

On this, the largest set ever compiled of one of the last century's most popular composers, we may not only renew our familiarity with the Concierto de Aranjuez, or perhaps with one of the other ever-melodious guitar concertos that sustain his reputation with audiences, but also discover chamber, instrumental, choral and especially vocal works which testify to a creative imagination confident in the formation of its style but never satisfied with repetition, one which responded directly to poetic and lyric inspiration, and transformed its ideas with unfailing skill and respect for the idiom under consideration.

Two 16th-century masters of the Spanish vihuela, speaking afresh to the 21st century through the modern guitar of Giuseppe Chiaramonte.

Between 1975 and 1983 Jordi Savall and the vocal and instrumental ensemble Hespèrion XX made a dozen recordings which remain indispensable to our knowledge of the richness and vitality of early Spanish music. They include performances not only of art music from the courts of Ferdinand and Isabella, and later Charles V and Philip II, but songs by women troubadours of the early 13th century, Sephardic romances and a justly famous recording of 14th-century pilgrim songs from the Llibre Vermell of Montserrat. Eight of these recordings were subsequently remastered for CD and are now brought together in this budget-priced Black Box.