Au fil du temps

«Now this is fun! This is a book of well-known pieces in a variety of styles, suited, so it says, to music colleges and conservatoires, but this is easy material, and school teachers should keep reading. Well-known and «hackneyed« are often confused, but these are well chosen pieces that will delight players and audience alike. Set for four guitars, the lowest part often has familiar chord shapes rather than a bass alone, and in the one piece where this job is given to Guitar Three, well, that's because Guitar Four has an even more enjoyable job to do. We start with a Leopold Mozart Minuet, very straightforward and yet with plenty of dynamics to make the piece come alive. W.A. Mozart next, with La Ci Darem La Mano from Don Giovanni, where just a few semiquavers (sixteenth notes) will trip up the unrehearsed. Strauss's waltz from Die Fledermaus causes Guitar One to venture a little higher and at more of a speed. Perhaps some fingering here would be helpful, because the rest of the music is easy, and good fingering here will help maintain that flow. Villoldo's tango El Choclo is a favourite of mine because it sits so well on guitar and sounds so good too; this arrangement certainly gets the tango feel to the fore with chords and a luscious bass-line too. Valse Vénézuélienne (trad.) is known to me as La Partida by Alvarez, or one of about seven other composers all credited with writing it. But it's a well-known piece and this is a very playable arrangement which uses lots of open E strings in the tune to flesh out the sound and to add movement with minimal technical overhead. Very effective. So what standard is it? Conservatoire? No, I'd say that a mixed ability ensemble around about Grade Five would be able to enjoy these pieces, and that's why I am so happy to commend this edition to school teachers who fancy some good arrangements of solid repertoire that an audience will instantly relate to.« Derek Hasted (Classical Guitar Magazine)