Lorenzo Micheli
Miguel Llobet Guitar Music

The name of Miguel Llobet might not mean much to most, even to many classical music lovers. Which is truly a shame, because this Catalan composer represents one of the highest peaks ever reached by musical impressionism between the late 19th and early 20th century. His lack of fame is due to the unfortunate fate that classical guitar composers have almost always faced: limited exposure to the general public.

However, this collection has the merit of bringing together all his works (excluding his numerous and very important transcriptions) and allowing us to appreciate the elegance and refinement of this great musician. It ranges from romantic influences (mainly Tarréga and Chopin are evident) in studies and mazurkas, to impressionist atmospheres worthy of Ravel and Debussy in his "Canzoni popolari catalane," a true masterpiece of harmony and ethnomusicological revival (especially "El mestre", "El testamento de Amelia"). Certainly, there are also extreme virtuosities like in "Respuesta", which introduces a new guitar playing technique, or in "Variazioni su un tema di Sor", where the instrument's fretboard is thoroughly explored and new performance solutions are presented (one of the variations is played with solely harmonic sounds and another with only the left hand).

Llobet seeks in each string of the guitar not uniformity of timbre, but rather the color and uniqueness of sound that each one possesses, so as to skillfully paint new chromatic solutions (also in the pictorial sense of the term). And his continual formal, technical, and timbral research makes him one of the pillars of modern guitar, which great performers like Andrés Segovia explicitly draw inspiration from.

All Llobet's compositions here are performed by the young Lorenzo Micheli, a great promise in our musical landscape, technically very skilled (the clarity in the virtuosic pieces is remarkable), and equally capable of conveying the elegance and depth characteristic of the Catalan master; it's just a pity that at times he seems a bit cold and detached. But overall, we can listen to a great composer performed by a young talent who is much more than just a bright prospect.