Julian Bream Guitar Library

This text is a thorough study on the Spanish luthier, Antonia de Torres (1817-1892) who had a profound influence on the shape of the modern guitar.

"Julian Bream's influence is apparent in every area of the classical guitar repertoire, He transcribed Baroque works by Scarlatti, Buxtehude, Cimarosa, etc., and is acknowledged as one of the great interpreters of the music of J. S. Bach. He revitalised awareness of the early nineteenth century works of Sor, Giuliani, and Aguado, while bringing to the public the music of Spain from the sixteenth century to the present day and breathing new fire into Latin American music by composers such as Villa-Lobos, Ponce and Brouwer.".

Recording the Classical Guitar charts the evolution of classical guitar recording practice from the early twentieth century to the present day, encompassing the careers of many of the instrument’s most influential practitioners from acoustic era to the advent of the CD. A key focus is on the ways in which guitarists’ recorded repertoire programmes have shaped the identity of the instrument, particularly where national allegiances and musical aesthetics are concerned. The book also considers the ways in which changing approaches to recording practice have conditioned guitarists’ conceptions of the instrument’s ideal representation in recorded form and situates these in relation to the development of classical music recording aesthetics more generally. An important addition to the growing body of literature in the field of phonomusicology, the book will be of interest to guitarists and producers as well as students of record production and historians of classical music recording.

This volume is based on a selection of papers presented during a study course devoted to Gloriana held at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in 1991. Glorianahas been a source of controversy since its premire as part of the Coronation celebrations in 1953. It was planned as a national opera of broad appeal by its authors, Benjamin Britten and William Plomer, but, despite wide coverage in the media, the opera failed to establish itself in the repertoire until a new production in 1966 revealed it to be a powerful and stageworthy work. In recent years it has attracted an increasing amount of scholarly attention. This volume offers essays by ROBERT HEWISON, PHILIP REED, ANTONIA MALLOY, DONALD MITCHELL and PETER EVANS which explore the opera's cultural background, the early stages of its creative evolution, the first critical responses, and various aspects of the work itself: these are supplemented by a list of source materials for the opera and the works derived from it, and an extensive bibliography.