Guitar Recital

"Francisco Tárrega's compositions are well known to lovers of guitar music and even those with a fleeting interest in the instrument must have heard Recuerdos de la Alhambra (included here). Mats Bergström is a Swedish guitarist who studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the Juilliard School in New York. He has been a professional player for more than twenty-five years, making his recital debut at Wigmore Hall in 1983. He is one of the most versatile of guitarists as soloist as well as ensemble musician in a wide variety of genres.'Dreamy' may not be a keyword for everything on the disc, but the beauty of the playing, the care over nuances and the technical assurance, which is no end in itself, are all the time in evidence and makes this one of the most satisfying guitar recitals I have heard for a long time." (MusicWeb Feb 2010)

Francisco Tárrega, the most influential Spanish virtuoso performer of the nineteenth century, was a charismatic romantic who, with a cigarette in his mouth, mesmerized his audiences for hours with his performances. On this disc, Swedish Royal Academy member Mats Bergström expresses the 'light and shade' of Tárrega's music (sans cigarette!) on a modern instrument based on an 1888 model owned by the composer himself. The Preludes, composed between 1889 and 1909, are particularly well regarded pieces, while the other works include original compositions and imaginative transcriptions.