Dawn Of The Guitar

An disk by baroque guitarist Gordon Ferries entitled La Preciosa explores the guitar music of Gaspar Sanz ( c.1640 - c.1710 ) The disk comes with extremely erudite and comprehensive notes by Ferries which I won't replicate here to any great extent. They cover the history of the instrument during this time when it was first approaching its' modern design and the conservative and religious elements in Spain looked upon it as the work of the devil, evoking as it did the tavern, popular ballads and dancing. The notes also go into great detail about tuning and describe the various dances depicted, many of which have cropped up in other disks I have considered such as the folia, the villano, the chacona and the zarabanda, as well as some more localised steps. These pieces by Sanz now seem to epitomise Spain, there ar pre-echoes of flamenco in places and Rodrigo utilised some themes in his concerto Fantasia Para un gentilhombre. One of those releases that some world music fans would appreciate as well as baroque specialists, it is hard to imagine the pieces being better played than by Ferries here and the recording quality is spacious and resonant. Not sure what the cover has to do with the music but it's very fetching.