Frank Bungarten - Les Adieux - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Jes's Villa-Rojo is one of Spain' most impressive contemporary composers, and writes masterfully for the cello.

Virtuoso, composer, educator, music researcher- many talents were united in the person of Emilio Pujol. Nobody before him (and hardly anybody after him) had (or has) occupied himself so intensively with the tonal fine points of guitar playing as the Tarrega pupil Pujol, to whom Frank Bungarten pays homage and tribute on his latest album. The fact that Bungarten had Gary Southwell design an instrument especially for this recording corresponds perfectly to the meticulousness with which Pujol formed his miniatures. For in his manual Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra Pujol indicates a systematic path leading to the perfection of playing technique on the guitar. In his opinion such a path is necessary while working toward the goal of Inchright music.Inch Tonal differentiation plays a substantial role he is precise in his prescriptions of the fingerings, indicating on which string a note is to be played (sometimes it is only a single string), and one piece is to be performed only with the left hand, which means entirely without plucking by the right hand. Like his contemporary Segovia, Pujol oriented himself very much by the violin; models from Paganini to Ysaye are repeatedly reflected in his etudes. Poetic titles like Inchsong of the birds,Inch InchThe Dragonfly,Inch or InchAutumn SongInch show that more than finger dexterity is involved here. After Pujol's death in 1980 most guitarists turned more toward the piano or the harpsichord; the tirando with the nail replaced the song-like, full sound of the apoyando touch with the full fingertip- and masters like Pujol were forgotten.

Fernando Sor is probably only known to guitar enthusiasts today. The fact that his extensive oeuvre is hardly known beyond the etudes probably has to do with his renunciation of outward virtuosity while at the same time maintaining the highest technical standards. It takes a master like Frank Bungarten to lend glowing expressivity and delicate elegance to works that at first sight seem brittle. Sor does not make it easy for guitarists where his contemporaries increasingly produce pleasing salon pieces or shine with virtuoso bravura, he writes sonatas of enormous scope, and instead of at least delivering a rousing finale, he ends with an almost timid minuet. For the listener, many of the smaller pieces seem simple and unpretentious - at least when Frank Bungarten makes us forget the enormous difficulties. Sor explores the expressive possibilities of the guitar in uncompromising depth, especially the cantabile playing and the complexity of the movement are unparalleled. Exceedingly comprehensively educated, he seeks to make the limitations of the instrument forgotten. His ambition to succeed as an opera composer remained unfulfilled - so the everyday dramas take place in the small forms... This is not for the large concert hall, where one hardly ever encounters Sor's works. In the intimate atmosphere of the salon or the living room at home, however, a universe of dreamlike nuances of musical expression opens up to the attentive listener. The finely balanced recording technique never pushes itself into the foreground and allows a deep immersion in this world of sound, which begins to sparkle particularly attractively in the three-dimensional reproduction.