Buffalo Guitar Quartet
The guitar is the popular instrument par excellence. As apt for Brazilian sambas for Irish ballads or American blues, the guitar has also recently been adapted as a surrogate for plucked instruments from non-Western musical traditions; no idiom seems beyond its reach. When social history of the second half of the twentieth century is written, it may be seen that the guitar is as central to this era as the piano was to the nineteenth century. But while the piano was an emblem of upward social aspiration, the guitar is anything but. An instrument of the masses, its enormous appeal has to some extent derived from its antibourgeois associations, from its very opposition to the salon world of the piano.
Unlike most other popular instruments, however, the guitar has an aristocratic tradition of its own. A collateral descendant of lute, vihuela, and Renaissance guitar, the modern “classical” guitar, the modern “classical” guitar has inherited the repertoire of the lutenist-composers of the Renaissance, as well as the incomparable musical legacy of Spain. Although the major eighteenth and nineteenth-century composers generally ignored the guitar, its noble tradition was preserved and passed on by a long line of (mostly Spanish) guitarist-composers. Over the past two or three generations, through the crusading efforts of a few virtuosos such as Andrés Segovia and Julian Bream, the guitar has finally regained its rightful place as a serious recital instrument.
But the guitar continues to be something of an outsider in the world of concert music. It is too quiet to compete with the powerful instruments of today's orchestra, too intimate for many of today's large recital halls, and, most important, it still lacks a mainstream repertoire. Many lovers of the guitar have accepted these limitations; others have sought to transcend them.
One obvious way to expand the guitar's concert capabilities is to multiply the number of instruments. Not only does this increase the volume of sound, it also allows for greater contrapuntal possibilities. The Buffalo Guitar Quartet is a pioneer in this new venture. In the present recording they present six works (including three commissions) from six American composers of widely divergent stylistic persuasions, some guitarists themselves, and some not.
New Music for Four Guitars
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Track Listing
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Metaphors
Lejaren Hiller
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Mummychogs (Le Monde)
Stephen Funk Pearson
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Quartet for Guitars: I. Allegro deciso/II. Andante molto/III. Scherzo vivace/IV. Allegro con brio
Walter Hartley
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The Struggle of Jacob: I. Night Time/II. Daybreak/III. Penuel
James Piorkowski
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Abrazo
William Ortiz
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Sonics
Loris O. Chobanian
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