Tarrega for Two Guitars and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco on Fretworks

The Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is the featured work for guitar and orchestra on the next Fretworks program on Classical 101. This popular concerto was written in Hollywood, after the composer fled his native Italy after the rise of the fascist government there.  It was dedicated to and first performed by Andres Segovia in 1939. Our performers will be English guitarist Nicola Hall with the London Mozart Players in a recording made about 20 years ago. Paco Pena and Eliot Fisk will be back this week with another selection from their duo recital recording, playing a two guitar arrangement of the beautiful Recuerdos de la Alhambra ("Memories of the Alhambra") by Fransisco Tarrega. Rob MacKillop, a specialist in early Scottish lute and guitar music, will perform a divertimento by 18th century Scottish composer James Oswald. He'll play an 18th century wire-strung guitar that looks like a large mandolin. I'll have a contemporary piece for horn and guitar by Kenneth Fuchs titled Evensong featuring the Polish born horn virtuoso Jacek Muzyk accompanied by JoAnn Falletta. Falletta is certainly best known as a conductor (she is music director of both the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony), but is also a very fine classical guitarist. She founded the JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Competition, one of the premier classical guitar performance competitions in the world. From 19th century Cuba, we'll hear Eight Contradances by Manuel Saumell. In these miniatures, there are early forms of contemporary dances popular in Cuba, such as the conga, habanera, mambo, rumba, and salsa. Originally written for piano, Leo Brouwer made the transcriptions for guitar that will be played by Graham Anthony Devine. Join me for music of the classical guitar on Fretworks, Saturday evening at 7 and Wednesday evening at 7 on Classical 101. Here's a video of Segovia himself performing part of the concerto by Castelnuovo-Tedesco in 1963: http://youtu.be/n8k75qtEbw8