One, Two Three, Four Guitars and a Lute on Fretworks

The Next Fretworksprogram will feature music for various numbers of guitars, with a bit of Renaissance lute for good measure.  Ron McFarlane has several pieces from 16th century France by Pierre Attaignant. The other solo performance is for the classical guitar from Sharon Isbin's CD "Road to the Sun."   She'll play music of Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz, who never wrote a single note for the guitar, but whose works for piano sound so natural and idiomatic in arrangements for the guitar that many people assume they were written for the instrument.  We'll hear Mallorca, titled after one of the Balearic islands off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean. For two guitars with orchestra, I'll have music of  Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  The Japanese brother and sister duo of Kazuhito and Naoko Yamashita will play the Double Concerto from 1962.  The London Philharmonic Orchestra is led by Leonard Slatkin in this late work from the Italian born composer who fled fascist Italy in the late 1930's to settle in California, where he also wrote Hollywood film scores. Music for three guitars will come from the Amsterdam Guitar Trio.  They'll play the Rondo in C, Op. 73, originally for two pianos, by Frederic Chopin.  And for four guitars, it's an arrangement of music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Sonata for Flute and Harpsichord, BWV 1031.  We'll hear the Canadian Guitar Quartet. Above is a much younger Sharon Isbin in a rare guitar video from 1975 playing Mallorca.