Hello and Welcome to My New Guitar Blog!
As a first blog entry, I am listing ten of my favorite classical guitarists and putting links to their videos on YouTube. This will serve as a sort of manifesto outlining my ideals and my aspirations as well as the music I enjoy the most. These links are not in any order of ranking, just in the order I found them.
Of course with only ten links, there will be people I could not include, but the links to the links will most likely include such players.
Enjoy!
1) Here is Carlos Barbosa Lima right at the time I started to study with him at MSM:
2) Here are two for the price of one, Juliam Bream and John Williams with a classic performance of a piece that is not hard to play, but is hard to play like this!:
3) Here is the incomparable Roland Dyens working his magic with arrangements:
4) David Russell is all class!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1akRj3CTMck
5) Manuel Barrueco’s Sonata record (yes, record) let me know of the existence of Manhattan School of Music, and his early Vox Turnabout albums were my daily companions in music school. There isn’t much of him on YouTube, but I found this newly posted video of his Chick Corea arrangements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QCxVOCtin0
6) Of course the great Andres Segovia is an overarching presence in the mind of all modern guitarists:
7) Sharon Isbin revolutionized the guitarist’s approach to Baroque ornamentation with her work on the Bach Lute Suites. Her album with the Britten Nocturnal and the Bach E minor Lute Suite introduced the guitar world to the new ideas she developed with help from harpsichordist Rosalyn Tureck. Here she talks about those important times:
8) Here is a brilliant player from Italy, Anniello Desiderio, whose work just amazes me! I found out about him from the online newsgroup, rec.music.classical.guitar, which is a constant source of great information if you can put up with the static!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH_t2mhVrGk&feature=PlayList&p=F9C0DD7740655AAD&index=0&playnext=1
9) Another two for the price of one, this time a piece by one of my favorite contemporary composers, Carlo Domeniconi, played by the extraordinary Dale Kavanagh:
10) Finally, here is Jason Vieaux playing the old favorite Asturias by Albeniz. I wish there was a video of him playing Cuba by Albeniz. When I heard him perform it at the William Paterson University Guitarfest 2008, I thought it was the prettiest thing I’d ever heard!: