Alfabeto

I would recommend this CD to anyone who loves early Baroque music as well as classical guitar. However, my disk--new, straight out of the box--would not play on my CD player; I've been listening to it in the car and am wondering if anyone else has had the same problem with this recording.

I was driving in to work this morning, when suddenly, my classical radio station started playing something that sounded to me like a lively, almost new age tune with an almost middle-eastern sound, but using classical instruments. Classical guitar was the primary element, coupled with wordless singing, where the voice was being used simply as another instrument. At the end of the song, I was amazed to discover that the piece was in fact around 300 years old, and had recently been released on this CD, Alfabeto. I sat down to order the CD as soon as I got into my office. If the rest of the CD matches that one track, it surely deserves 5 stars. As it is, though, just the one track is enough to justify 4 stars, in my opinion, so I wanted to tell people about this CD even before I get to listen to the whole thing.

There is a myth that King Crimson and the entire Discipline ethos of opening up to the possibility of Music happened sometime between 1969 and 1982. In point of fact it was nearly 400 years earlier in the music of Domenico Pellegrini, Giovanni Battista Granata, Giovanni Paolo Foscarini and Francesco Corbetta. These four guitarist/composers have produced music that is as extraordinary in its beauty as it is groundbreaking in craft. Robert Fripp, English Guitarist and caretaker of the Crimson King, has described as wondrous those moments when Music leans over and takes us into its confidence. This music is all about the discourse that takes place once that confidence is gained. Exquisitely, ensemble kapsberger and rolf lislevand have found a way to dwell in the Music encoded in the alfabeto system encrypting the wonders and mysteries to be unlocked by musicians who read the music, instead of the notes. This is Guitar music for the ages and far exceeds anything I was expecting. Think a genetic splice between King Crimson and John Dowland and you are getting close. But discard the comparisons, the real treasures lay in the music itself and if you give yourself awya to it, be prepared for an experience of a lifetime. Alfabeto was a system used by these composers to suggest the subtleties in changes of tone, direction, discipline necessary in order to first clear the ground so that Music may Be with the musician, and then intimate the intercourse possible in that clearing. Too Heideggerian? Not by half! This is music that will find its way forward in the hearts, souls, minds, hands of crafty guitarists for all time. This is music that begat the composers, and in turn, they have given birth to the primordial and celestial and passionate embrace of the ineffable. The Crimson King presented its Music to these gifted writers. I have no idea if they knew each other, but it would be some 4 centuries before it would occur to the followers of J. G. Bennett that in Charlestown, West Virginia, they were not just coming upon a new standard tuning, but uncovering a way of doing things that had surfaced once before and was waiting for the right artists to clear its ground once again. Hats off to this remarkable label, ASTREE, for producing the most incredible disc I have heard this year. They have released a CD of Beethoven's transcriptions of Irish and Scottish songs that is a revelation. This however, is the Holy Grail of guitar music, sacred scripture. We are all Parsifal for having discovered it.

Let me say that I really want to love this album. The playing is fantastic, innovative, virtuosic... and the recording sounds perfect and captures every nuance. But, this is something akin to a jazz ensemble or a tango group playing arrangements of Chopin's solo piano music. I guess there's an audience for this and a multitude of fans can't be wrong... Personally, I guess I'd just love to here Lislevand play all alone, without all the jazzy "schtick" arrangements. I would ask, why is the music the composer wrote *not good enough* to stand on its own? Is what is added making it better? Lislevand and his companions are all phenomenal players and this is certainly a high quality recording worthy of widespread praise. It's just not my cup of tea.

I don't think words can describe this CD without "offending" it. If you like ancient music, this is a CD you will appreciate and listen over and over; if you don't try it anyway, if you don't like it you will never like ancient music; I heard for the first time Rolf Lislevand at FNAC in Grenoble (they were playing "Nuove Musiche"). Since them I keep following and buy from time to time a CD of his' This CD is the one I like most so far ... I even use it as music for my marriage :) enjoy it

In general, I like guitar music to be in the background, but this recording is quite full on. I've only given it 4 stars based on my own musical preference, This is not a reflection of the artists' playing, as the execution of the pieces is terrific. I found the idea of 'alfabeto' - a way of writing notation preceding lute tablature - quite fascinating. The amount of information given on this in the CD notes are enough to make you want to find out more. Well done.

CD stupendo, fantastico. Consigliatissimo. Venditore affidabile, rapido e articolo ben confezionato. Molto soddisfatta.

Ou l'art de réconcilier les partisans de la musique. Ce retour aux sources de la "guitare à la capucine" nous fait relativiser l'écart entre les folkeux et les classiqueux.