| “...over sixty-six minutes
of stunning guitar played by this true master.”
Fingerstyle Guitar
“This is magnificent…Russell is a god
of the guitar, a supreme musician with an impeccable
technique, a glorious tone, and profound expressiveness.
His work is always moving, but this is among the
best work he’s ever done.”
American Record Guide
“…an exceptional CD of its kind.”
Keene Sentinel
“…supreme musicianship supported by
immaculate technique…Without doubt, another
outstanding release from a true artist of the guitar.”
Gramophone
“…played with technical polish and,
more important, genuine musicality.”
Amazon
“He holds each work like a bird in the hand,
releasing the distinctive sonorities of each and
then returning to an overall trajectory… The
overall effect is absolutely entrancing.”
All Music Guide
“Russell's concert flows from selection to
selection with the same polish and expert phrasing
that is shown in all his performances.”
Audiophile Audition
“…all in all I see this as an exceptional
CD of its kind.”
Sentinel Source
GRAMMY AWARD WINNER
DAVID RUSSELL
SHINES ON ART OF THE GUITAR
GRAMMY Award winning guitarist David Russell is
a world-class musician who has spent a lifetime
performing and recording the works of many composers
who have written for guitar as well as transcribing
other works for guitar. Not one to rest on his laurels,
the virtuoso continues his long and prolific relationship
with Telarc with the March 27, 2007, release of
Art of the Guitar.
“A phrase played by [David Russell] is a thing
of such clarity and direction that it seems almost
physically palpable,” hailed American Record
Guide, “It is an object of such polish, perfect
curvature, and ineluctable sweep that one feels
as though one could pick it up and examine it as
if it were a sculpture."
Art of the Guitar features selections from the traditional
Spanish repertory as well as original works by composers
from Latin America, Hungary and England, and arrangements
of works by Norway’s Edvard Grieg and France’s
Claude Debussy. “This collection of pieces
has been a part of my repertoire for many years,”
says Russell. “I am happy to finally find
a home for them on this recording.”
Staying true to his roots in the Spanish idiom,
Russell explores Julián Arcas’ Fantasia
on Themes from Verdi’s La Traviata, a work
from a composer whose early life is shrouded in
mystery, but who gained critical acclaim in England
during the 1860s. He later returned to his native
Almería where he opened a music shop and
collaborated with the eminent guitar-maker Antonio
de Torres of Seville on improving the instrument.
As a rebellious teenager, composer Vincent Villa-Lobos
ran away from home and performed with the street
musicians of Rio de Janeiro known as chôros.
The style of Brazilian music had an indelible effect
on him, so much so that he created a new concert
genre known as Chôros. Art of the Guitar features
Villa-Lobos’ preludes No. 1 & 2.
Straying a bit from the norm, Russell includes English
film and TV composer Stanley Myers’ bittersweet
“Cavatina” from The Deer Hunter. Continuing
through the recital, Russell plays five of the sixty-six
Lyric Pieces of Grieg. These pieces are rooted in
the songs, dances and, spirit of Norway, and are
a testament to Grieg’s commitment to composition
even during his rapidly growing renown as a winning
teacher, pianist and conductor of the Philharmonic
Society in Oslo. Grieg later finished this work
after resigning his positions in Oslo in order to
compose, tour, and attend to his frail health.
The 24 Debussy Préludes “are the quintessential
examples of [Debussy’s] ability to evoke moods,
memories and images that are at once too specific
and too vague for mere words,” says Richard
E. Rodda in the CD liner notes. Russell performs
Debussy’s La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin (The
Girl with Flaxen Hair) from Book 1 with the great
delicacy needed to tell this story of a young Scottish
girl singing in the morning sunshine of her simple,
unaffected love.
Other works featured on Art of the Guitar are Uruguayan
composer Abel Carlevaro’s “Campo”
from Preludios Americanos, Hungarian Johann Kaspar
Mertz’ “Fantasie Hongroise,” and
the Spanish composer Fernando Sor’s Variations
on a Theme by Mozart which supposedly borrows from
the chorus Das Klinget So Herrlich in the Act I
finale of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute,
but actually bears little resemblance, as though
Sor remembered the tune imperfectly and filled in
the many forgotten bits from his own imagination.
Russell’s GRAMMY for his 2005 Telarc recording
Aire Latino (Best Instrumental Soloist in Classical
Music) prompted the award of the silver medal from
the Spanish town of Nigrán, where the Scotland
native currently resides. Russell says the GRAMMY
Award is “not only a boost in confidence for
me and a great recognition for many years in the
business, but it is also a wonderful acknowledgment
for the guitar.”
Russell continues to enjoy worldwide acclaim for
his superb musicianship and inspired artistry –
creative strengths that are readily apparent on
Art of the Guitar, his twelfth Telarc recording.
He will tour the U.S. in the spring of 2007 in support
of the new recording.
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