Roots Of Spanish Guitar

I would not have thought that the technical challenges of recording solo guitar music were that great but this disk by baroque guitarist Gordon Ferries, entitled Marionas - The Guitar Music of Francisco Guerau, suffers from a very bright and over resonant church recording. The result is that it becomes wearing on the ears to listen to the whole disk at one sitting and is best dipped into and sampled in smaller doses. The other possible limitation of such a disk, that of a certain monotony and similarity in the pieces performed, is not a problem here. The music is an intoxicating mix of Spanish, dance and passion with the roots of some aspects of flamenco clearly evident and an Arabic and Sephardic influence noticeable among the more familiar baroque dance forms from northern Europe. Ferries has sublime technique and uses it in the service of the music to exploit all the timbre and expression of which the instrument is capable. The earlier caveat notwithstanding, this is an unusual and stimulating disk.