The 10 pieces on this album are drawn from a 1694 collection called Poema Harmónico, by Spanish composer Francisco Guerau. Despite the guitar's strong association with Spain, guitar music of this period hasn't been terribly often recorded; this will be a welcome release for many collectors and specialists. The nine pieces are fairly substantial, running from just under five minutes to more than nine minutes long. They bear the names of dances, songs, or ground bass patterns, but they are like
Bach's treatments of dances, or, more accurately,
Couperin's: sophisticated and ornate. Indeed, given the nature of some of the Spanish songs that formed the basis for the instrumental art of the period, Guerau, a priest, was forced to include a disclaimer stating that his textless works were "morally neutral" -- the "Marizápalos" referred to in the title of track 2 was apparently a pretty hot number. The dance rhythms are still quite clear, however, and some of the pieces, especially the Jacaras de la costa, track, 3, have a bit of the flavor of flamenco music. Scottish Baroque guitarist
Gordon Ferries, who furnishes the detailed booklet notes, adds a good deal of ornamentation but also includes an interesting instruction from Guerau saying that if you can't execute the ornaments, that's fine, go ahead and play the music anyway. No doubt, amid all the ornamentation wars surrounding Baroque music, this was a more common position than is generally acknowledged.
Ferries is an ideal interpreter of this music, neither academic nor influenced too strongly by the example of flamenco toward a heavily rhythmic reading that would lose the music's considerable subtleties. Compared with the music of
Gaspar Sanz, the most frequently recorded guitar composer of the period, Guerau's music is more cerebral, and
Ferries gets this without losing the dramatic quality that makes people love Spanish music. The recording, made in an Edinburgh church, is drenched in echo but not miked close up; while a more intimate acoustic would have been desirable, the music isn't plagued by instrument noise, which can be especially annoying in the case of the Baroque guitar.