{"id":14155,"date":"2020-01-06T14:07:05","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T22:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=14155"},"modified":"2020-12-31T12:04:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-31T20:04:21","slug":"recent-album-releases-duo-morat-fergo-play-schubert-early-romantic-guitars-played-by-roland-gallery-kristen-waligora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/recent-album-releases-duo-morat-fergo-play-schubert-early-romantic-guitars-played-by-roland-gallery-kristen-waligora\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Album Releases: Duo Morat-Fergo Play Schubert; Early Romantic Guitars Played by Roland Gallery; Kristen Waligora"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some weeks we take a peek at recent albums or sheet music releases. Here are three CDs I like that have come into the\u00a0Classical Guitar<\/em>\u00a0office within the past several months.<\/p>\n

If you have a CD you\u2019d like to submit to us, here\u2019s our address:<\/p>\n

Classical Guitar
\n941 Marina Way South, Suite E
\nRichmond, CA 94804<\/p>\n

You can listen to some of these on various streaming services, but we always encourage you to support the artists by actually\u00a0buying<\/em>\u00a0anything you like! Obviously we cannot research and report every outlet or online business where these albums are sold (Amazon, for instance, has outlets in many different countries\/regions, but we generally link to the U.S. version), so check your favorite places that sell CDs and downloads, as well as your favorite streaming sites.\u00a0 \u2014Blair Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

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\nFranz Schubert: A Sentimental Moment<\/strong><\/em>
\nDuo Morat-Fergo<\/strong>
\n(Challenge Classics)<\/p>\n

This album was released at the end of 2018 but only reached me in California in the fall of 2019, so I’m a little late getting to it. But better late than never, because it’s definitely among the best albums I heard in 2019 and it is not to be missed! The duo of Danish guitarist Christian Fergo and Swiss guitarist Raoul Morat<\/a> are specialists in transcribing\/interpreting 19th century classical piano music onto Romantic Viennese guitars\u2014in this case, modern instruments built by Czech luthier Jan Tulacek modeled after an original period nine-string guitar crafted by the early- to mid-19th century Viennese luthier Nikolaus Georg Ries, who worked in the famed Stauffer workshop.<\/p>\n

More often than not, Franz Schubert’s entree into the classical-guitar world (both in his lifetime and since) has come through as an accompanying instrument on various vocal songs, but here the duo has chosen a number of pieces from the prolific Mr. Schubert’s solo piano oeuvre, limiting themselves “to the lyrical piano pieces, dances, and miniatures which are a better match for the guitar than the large-scale, almost orchestrally conceived piano sonatas,” they write in the liner notes (which appear in English and German). Their choices could not have been better! They manage to communicate at once both the idiosyncratic nature of the guitar and<\/em> the miraculous ability of two guitars to capture the fullness of a single piano. When I listen to this collection of short(ish) pieces, I hear a composer who was clearly enthralled and influenced by his contemporary and friend Beethoven\u2014the drama and gravitas and occasionally unpredictable harmonies\u2014as well as some of the vivacious melodic and rhythmic brilliance of Mozart who, though he died in 1791, seven years before Schubert was born, was still a titanic figure in Viennese music. (Beethoven and Schubert died just a year apart, in 1827 and 1828, respectively, but Schubert died young\u2014at just 36; Beethoven was 56.) This is not to take anything away from Schubert as an original composer, as he definitely had his own voice; a powerful and sensitive one.<\/p>\n

Every track on the album is wonderfully performed, and my favorites change with each listening. In terms of variety and the mix of complicated and straightforward works, it’s hard to top the delightful and also moving Six Moments musicaux<\/em>, but its also impossible not to be charmed by the generous selection of 13 of the brief Valse sentimentales<\/em>, only two of which exceed a minute in length.<\/p>\n

This is a wondrous and important achievement!<\/p>\n

Impromptu No. 1, Op. 90<\/em>; Six Moments musicaux, Op. 94<\/em>; Impromptu No. 2, Op. 142<\/em>; Valse sentimentales Nos. 1\u20136<\/em>, 21, 13, 25, 12, 18\u201320, Op. 50<\/em>; Impromptu No. 3, Op.90<\/em><\/p>\n

The album can be streamed and\/or purchased through Amazon<\/a>, iTunes\/Apple Music<\/a>, and in Europe bought through Challenge Records International<\/a>; and it can be streamed on Spotify.<\/a><\/span>