Michael Erni plays music by Agustin Barrios Mangore

This is the second CD in the new association between Guild and the outstanding guitarist Michael Erni, following the highly successful first disc (GMCD 7332) of music by Tárrega. For this new recording, Michael Erni has selected music by the Paraguayan composer and master of the guitar, Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944) whose reputation throughout the guitar world has grown considerably in recent years. Included on this new CD, which boasts an exceptionally fine recorded quality, are no fewer than 18 individual tracks, which together demonstrate the mastery of the more intimate forms in which Barrios excelled. The programme has been carefully selected to reveal the range of the composer’s favourite genres, especially his love of the short descriptive piece, expressed through gracious melodies and superb writing for the instrument. This is a most important record for lovers of guitar music across the world.

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World’s fastest Violinist

A violinist has broken the record for the fastest performance of the Flight of the Bumblebee.
Oliver Lewis managed to play the piece in one minute and 3.356 seconds.
He performed the feat live on the BBC children’s programme Blue Peter.

Olivier Lewis can be found on following CDs:
GMCD 7216 – Vita Abundans – Chamber Music of Malcom Arnold
GMCD 7189 – The Eye of the Storm – Ferruccio Busoni’s Zurich friends and disciples
GMCD 7171 – In Autumn – String Quartets by Johann Carl Eschmann
GMCD 7163 – Goethe Lieder & Chamber Works by Philipp Christoph Kayser
GMCD 7124 – English Romanticism II – Music by Elgar & Goossens
GMCD 7120 – English Romanticism – Music by Ferguson, Goosens & Ireland

Virtuose Operatic Music for Flute and Piano

This outstanding new recording is certain to have a wide appeal to all lovers of the flute. In this carefully chosen programme, Miriam Terragni shows herself to be a complete virtuoso musician in playing a wide selection of music, mainly from the 19th-century, which has been chosen to represent a school of brilliant composer-instrumentalists who contributed much to the repertoire. Many of the pieces are based upon well-known operas of the day, notably by Verdi, and reveal an aspect of music-making of yesteryear which has too long been overlooked. She is wonderfully partnered by Catherine Sarasin and we are proud to present this CD which will certainly come to be recognised as one of the most important records of music for flute and piano to have been issued in many years.

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Fribbin is ‘…one of the outstanding composers of his generation.’

The dramatic, expressive and highly melodic chamber music of the British composer Peter Fribbins, performed here by some of England’s finest chamber ensembles: the Angell Piano Trio, the Allegri Quartet and cello & piano duo Raphael Wallfisch and John York. The disc takes its name from the title of Fribbins’s first String Quartet ‘I Have the Serpent Brought’ after lines from John Donne’s remarkable 17th-century poem ‘Twicknam Garden’ on which it’s based. In 2007 the UK newspaper The Independent said Fribbins is ‘…one of the outstanding composers of his generation.’ This is a CD for all devotees of good string chamber music in the mainstream European tradition.

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Tim Ewers continues the Poulenc tradition in a more contemporary idiom.

This CD combines the music of Francis Poulenc and Tim Ewers.  In the title track, Following On, Ewers takes a fragment of the Poulenc oboe sonata as his starting point, but develops it in a very different, but equally melodious manner. The playing, as always with the Fibs, is superb, the sumptuous tone colour of the winds supported by Kathron Sturrock’s detailed and supremely musical pianism. All the Ewers pieces appear on CD for the first time.

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43 years leader of the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich – forgotten as composer!

The Swiss composer Volkmar Andreae made his reputation primarily as a conductor and a champion of Bruckner. But his own music, which is of high quality, brings an individual harmonic language, traditional in the best sense, the writing beautifully crafted with a consistently appealing melodic flow.

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Peter Croton the Lute Specialist

Croton is a creative musician who wishes to recapture the improvisational and inventive nature of the early lutenists. The result, quite different from many of Croton’s contemporaries, is that Dowland’s music is presented as living and malleable, inspiring transformation as well as new compositions.

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