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Duarte: Complete Works for Guitar Quartet on CD

John W. Duarte was not only one of the

most prolific composers for the solo

classic guitar in the 20th century; he was

also concerned with the instrument in an

ensemble context. He made a lasting

contribution to the concept and musical

chemistry of the guitar quartet, a muchneglected feature until his innovations.

This area of his creative work proved

something of a goldmine for both

professional quartets and educational

settings where the guitar was taught as a

serious instrument, worthy of deep study,

and indeed for Summer Schools

worldwide. In this the composer offered

arrangements and original works of taste

and delicacy, a hitherto unprecedented

development in the expanding repertoire

of the guitar.

This fourth instalment in Brilliant Classics'

series dedicated to the vast and precious

guitar oeuvre of John W. Duarte provides a

complete survey of the composer's music for

four guitars. This sub-set of his guitar music is

in itself greatly varied in style but of

consistently superb quality. Disc one contains

music he originally composed for this

ensemble, and disc two features his

arrangements (many of them of his own

compositions) for guitar quartet.

Duarte explained that his own stylistic

eclecticism derived from improvisation, with

composition being a slower form of

improvisation benefitting from time to

reconsider and to refine the product: 'What

one hears becomes translatable into "playback" action and/or, given a knowledge of

musical theory, comprehensible. It can

provide a direct route to eclecticism - one

may adopt what one chooses into one's own

bloodstream and bypass what one feels

foreign to one's own nature. For this reason I

have never had one immediately identifiable

style and have happily lived with a wide

variety of idioms.'