Home | Reviews | Articles | Festivals | Competitions | Other | Contact Us
Google
WWW MUSICALPOINTERS

Agustin Maruri is a notable Spanish guitarist and scholar, who responded to one of our reviews by kindly sending a large parcel of CDs from Maruri's own label EMEC.

For a first appreciation of this bonanza I am pleased to recommend his newest release, an unique double CD of the music of Luys de Narváez [EMEC E 100/101] and to draw attention to his remarkably wide-ranging label of Spanish music, hitherto unknown to me until we by chance received and reviewed a Granados disc played by a fine pianist, Sebastian Stanley, in a sumptuous and lavishly documented double-CD [cddvd13/Granados-Stanley.html].

De Narvaez is a particular speciality of Mauri's and this the first substantial recording of guitar and voice music by this 16th C composer, published in 1538.

Maruri considers the guitar the wholly appropriate instrument for this first complete recording of his Los seys libro del Dlphin de musica. Clearly a major scholar, Maruri has no doubt that the guitar is "a perfectly valid and legitimate instrument for historical and aesthetic reasons" for his premiering the five books of this collection of an hour and a half of short solo pieces and songs from the time of Spain's Charles 1st.

But EMEC's range is astonishing, with contemporary Spanish music (to be tackled when time allows) and world-wide duets explored with Maruri's regular partner, cellist Michael Kevin Jones.

Maybe I have somehow just missed cello/guitar duos, but they make for an alluring combination, with a wide range of music to explore and enjoy, in carefully assembled in CDs of Evocations of Spain, Don Quixote & Dulcinea, Hang Wenye's Bagetelles and other century-old Chinese music. Evocations appealed especially to me because its composers range through the whole 20th C and include three of today, Coles, Pujol and Tanaka, each with fascinating music dedicated to these players.

A veritable treasure trove for college student friends seeking viable, economical and prestigious programmes for inexpensive gigs these difficult days...


Peter Grahame Woolf