# Classical Guitar



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Who are some of your favorite composers for Acoustic Classical Guitar? I'm not as interested in arrangements for Classical Guitar from the greats of the past, but rather composers who wrote for solo acoustic guitar and good performances of those pieces!


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Does that mean we leave out renaissance and baroque? da Milano, Dowland, Weiss & Bach...From the early romantics I love Fernando Sor, and also like Giuliani, Legnani, Mertz, Regondi. Ricardo Gallén has great recordings of most of them. Goran Krivokapic recorded my favorite Sor, Fantasie op. 7. Romantic music by Tarrega, Llobet, Barrios and Torroba is nice. Try guitarists David Russell, Lorenzo Micheli, Frank Bungarten. I was raised on a Barrios LP by John Williams  For romantic 20th century music, composers Rodrigo, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Turina & Ponce with artists Marco Socias, Zoran Dukic, Franz Halasz & Judicael Perroy. There is a bunch of contemporary music that's great. Stefan Östersjö plays many famous pieces. More great artists are Marcin Dylla and Carles Trepat. I'm probably leaving out a whole lot...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

All I meant was, no turrca alla rondo arranged for guitar.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

David Russell is awesome!


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

JULIAN BREAM!!! How could I forget?? Many major 20th century composers wrote for guitar because of him


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Miloš Karadaglić plays wonderful on the guitar, not sure if you like his repertoire though.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> David Russell is awesome!


As a guitarist, David Russell is awesome indeed, but is he a composer? (I will actually get to see him play live in a couple of weeks.)


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

From the composers alive today, my favorites are Dušan Bogdanović (the Levantine Suite, the Passacaglia and Fugue on the Golden Flower, countless miniatures and larger pieces) and Carlo Domeniconi (since you're asking, you probably know the Koyunbaba, but there are also things like the 90-minute suite Sindbad, the Trilogy @ 



 , many other fine pieces). Leo Brouwer is also still alive, but I like his older classic pieces more than the new ones, e.g. the Black Decameron. Guitarists will probably cringe but it is a very beautiful piece, if overplayed.

From the older repertoire my absolute favorite is Barrios. Not just La Catedral which is also overplayed, but numerous lesser known pieces as well. For example the waltz that starts the old John Williams LP (e.g. 



 ), or the C minor prelude from the same ( 



 ). I don't think any 19th century guitar composers ever approached this level of expression. Maybe Sor in a few pieces, but few performers do his music justice, and he also wrote a lot of rather uneventful pieces so finding something good is a chore.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I would love to learn how to play classical guitar, I may seriously take lessons in the future. I already compose, proficiently imo, on piano and want to start to compose for classical guitar.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

JAS said:


> As a guitarist, David Russell is awesome indeed, but is he a composer? (I will actually get to see him play live in a couple of weeks.)


I'm not sure, sorry! I'm new to classical guitar.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I must have some form of Dyslexia, I meant to say Rondo Alla Turka not Turka Alla Rondo!


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

As a somewhat guitar player myself I retain quite a collection of guitar music, solo and otherwise, in all genres and styles, on record, disc, and in manuscript. There is so much great guitar music out there (and formidable performers on the instrument) that I could type all evening to present what in my opinion is worth exploring.

But I'll choose rather to run counter, perhaps, to the original post here and bring up only one guitarist, Kazuhito Yamashita. If you've never yet heard him play his own arrangement of Mussorgsky's _Pictures at an Exhibition_ you have quite an experience awaiting.






Besides the Mussorgsky piece, the guitarist has recorded solo guitar arrangements of Stravinsky's _Firebird_, Rimsky-Korsakov's _Scherezade_ and Dvořák's _Symphony from the New World_. These are performances that have to be heard to be believed. And they're unbelievable.

Yamashita also plays standard solo guitar classics as well. His recordings include 16 CDs with the complete works of Fernando Sor, and a collection of 5 CDs containing J.S. Bach's sonatas and partitas for violin, cello, lute and flute in his own arrangements. The man is phenomenal!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I must have some form of Dyslexia, I meant to say Rondo Alla Turka not Turka Alla Rondo!


I do think we all know that you mean well.:tiphat:


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

How does the O.P. feel about lute music - either in its original form or transcribed for guitar?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> How does the O.P. feel about lute music - either in its original form or transcribed for guitar?


I haven't listened to much, but I'd prefer to stick to guitar for now. That's getting into renaissance music, correct?


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Guitar not usually my forte, but saw Craig Ogden live recently performing for one of our local orchestras and was more than impressed. Managed to get an autograph too!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Barrios, Brouwer, Garcia, Takemitsu, Villa-Lobos.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

The truth is (at least for me) that I don't have a very high opinion of many of the so called masterpieces for the instrument. 
Especially the romantic stuff (like what I've heard of Sor).
Probably my favorite is Garoto (Anìbal Augusto Sardinha), but he's not exactly a classical composer. The etudes of Jimmy Wyble are very lovely and interesting music, but again not exactly a classical composer. Maurice Ohana (Si le jour parait, , Carlo Mosso (secondo quaderno and terzo quaderno) wrote interesting music. Luciano Cilio wrote beautiful things too.

Then I've enjoyed some Takemitsu, Brouwer, Dusan Bogdanovic, Henze, the impromptus of Richard Rodney Bennett. Some Tarrega.
But generally speaking I vastly prefer the transcriptions to the original stuff.
But what can I know, I vastly prefer to hear the Cavatina of Stanley Meyers to every Villalobos etude or to Britten's Nocturnal


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I haven't listened to much, but I'd prefer to stick to guitar for now. That's getting into renaissance music, correct?


And Baroque. Bach composed and/or adapted several of his works for lute and/or a lute-emulating keyboard instrument. (Details get hazy. ) And Sylvius Weiss, a contemporary of Bach, composed a lot of music for the lute. There were other Baroque composers as well.

The Bach pieces are often performed on guitar, as are some of the others.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Barrios, Brouwer, Garcia, Takemitsu, Villa-Lobos.


And would add Rodrigo (obviously!) and Castelnuovo-Tedesco to the list. Interestingly, neither of them were guitarists, but both wrote very nice pieces for it, and I do not just mean the famous Aranjuez concerto.

Which now makes me think of another to add to the list of non-guitarist composers for guitar, namely Manuel Ponce.


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## memewaffle (Apr 17, 2017)

Certainly Vivaldi for me, maybe that's because he is one of my favorite composers from that period. His concertos for the guitar are incredibly beautiful.


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

Leo Brouwer; wonderful composer for both solo guitar and guitar + orchestra.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Just discovered that Brilliant has broken its 40 disc guitar box set into 5 sizeable downloads, each available in lossless flac for USD12.50 at Presto. Actually Presto had a technical issue with Vol. 1, so that is not currently available. I picked up the volume of Spanish guitar music. I can't say I know the players, but at the price I couldn't go too far wrong.

And if it's terrible I can pick up the box set of Narciso Yepes' solo recordings due out later this month.


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## JamieHoldham (May 13, 2016)

I am personally quite a fan of Paganini's Guitar Sonatas, underrated pieces that aren't as difficult as his Violin counterparts.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I got my first CD of lute music by Bach performed on guitar. It's spectacular!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Miloš Karadaglić made some wonderful guitar recordings, perhaps they are on Spotify.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG/4791421

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG/4779693


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I got my first CD of lute music by Bach performed on guitar. It's spectacular!


Who's the guitarist?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> Who's the guitarist?


Filomena Moretti


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I don't listen to classical guitar because of the incredibly distracting noises involved in the musical "sausage-making". Happens every time, no matter who the guitarist is.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

JamieHoldham said:


> I am personally quite a fan of Paganini's Guitar Sonatas, underrated pieces that aren't as difficult as his Violin counterparts.


This was a great suggestion Jamie.:tiphat:


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

hpowders said:


> I don't listen to classical guitar because of the incredibly distracting noises involved in the musical "sausage-making". Happens every time, no matter who the guitarist is.


And I find solo acoustic guitar (classical, jazz or otherwise) offers some of the most soothing sounds in my entire library. It's my number one choice for late night music. Lute too.


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