José Ferrer y Esteve
Two Operatic Fantasías (for two guitars)
Editions Schott, 32 pp. (Intermediate)
Edited by the author of Schott’s Guitar Anthology series, Jens Franke, along with Marta González, with fingerings “revised and expanded” by Norwegian guitarist Jørgen Skogmo, this book represents the first publication of two operatic fantasías by Catalan composer, guitarist, and teacher José Ferrer y Esteve (1835–1916), who was a contemporary of such leading Spanish musicians and composers of that era as Isaac Albéniz, Julian Arcas, Francisco Tárrega, Miguel Llobet, and Emilio Pujol. Included are medleys based around themes from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata (which premiered in 1853) and Gaetano Donizetti’s La Favorite (1840). below you can watch Skogmo and Franke play the entire La Traviata fantasía. Hard to understand how this has escaped publication this long. It’s truly lovely, and I can see how a strong intermediate duo could perform this!
Agustín Barrios
Barrios for Flute & Guitar
Mel Bay, 44 pp. plus parts
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As many of you probably know, guitarist and scholar Rico Stover is perhaps the world’s leading authority on Paraguayan composer-guitarist Agustín Barrios (1885–1944), and this book presents Stover’s guitar-flute arrangements of three Barrios works, Aconquija (Aire de Quena), and two of his most popular pieces: Julia Florida and Danza Paraguaya. Stover notes in his preface that “the three works featured here are exemplary of his ability to synthesize Latin American and European musical/cultural elements into a new and fully integrated whole that yields a novel and pleasurable listening experience. These three works are arrangements and as such do not follow note-for-note the original versions of Barrios.”
Stover recorded these three pieces and a number of other Barrios works for a wonderful album he made with his late flautist wife Jananne Lovett (1943–2016) called On the Mangoré Trail: Barrios for Flute & Guitar, released several years ago (Stover also published two volumes of the Complete Works of Agustin Barrios Mangoré for Guitar, also through Mel Bay.) Audio of the flute-and-guitar arrangement of the piece Aconquija can be heard here.
Giuseppe Torrisi
Tango del Mar
Les Productions d’Oz, 4 pp. (advanced)
This interesting and delightful contemporary tango sounds like it would be a lot of fun to ply. Composer Torrisi (b.1958) has had a few of his pieces reviewed in Classical Guitar, and this is clearly another winning composition. In the video, the piece is played by American guitarist Matt Palmer, to whom the piece is dedicated.