{"id":8560,"date":"2017-12-14T16:53:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T00:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=8560"},"modified":"2017-12-16T12:33:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-16T20:33:57","slug":"album-releases-candice-mowbray-gantriis-zimmerman-guitar-duo-and-louis-valentine-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/album-releases-candice-mowbray-gantriis-zimmerman-guitar-duo-and-louis-valentine-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Releases: Candice Mowbray, Gantriis-Zimmerman Guitar Duo, and Louis Valentine Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most weeks we take a peek at recent albums or sheet music releases. Here are three of the CDs that have come into the\u00a0Classical Guitar<\/em>\u00a0office recently.<\/p>\n

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

Classical Guitar
\n501 Canal Blvd. suite J
\nRichmond, CA 94804-3505<\/p>\n

Some of the albums we talk about online will be reviewed in the magazine, some not. But we want to at least mention most of them here. You can listen to some of these on various of 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, so check your favorite places that sell CDs and downloads!<\/p>\n

To see our previous listings, scroll to the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Blair Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nReverie<\/strong><\/em>
\nCandice Mowbray<\/strong>
\ncandicemowbray.com<\/p>\n

What a revelation this album is! It’s definitely one of my favorites of the year (though it actually came out at the end of 2016; I only discovered it recently, and Mowbray has since released another CD, Garden Waltz: 19th-Century Parlor Gems for Guitar<\/em>, which I have not heard). All but two of the album’s 18 pieces are by French composers: Dutchman Peter van der Staak is one outlier, though his piece is called “Bellefleur: Valse fran\u00e7aise”; the other is Alexandre Lagoya, of Greek-Italian heritage but famously the husband and guitar-duo partner of French legend Ida Presti, and wildly successful in France. But let’s not get too hung up on national identity because, for example, the opening Vals for Atom<\/em>, by modern French composer Laurent Boutros, has apparent musical roots in Near-Eastern music (Turkish? Armenian?), and one might say the same for Erik Satie’s Gnossienne, No. 1<\/em>, here in Roland Dyens’ arrangement. Mowbray neatly pairs that with her own arrangement of Satie’s much played Gymnop\u00e9die<\/em> (a tad slow for my taste, but unarguably pretty).<\/p>\n

The album’s program has an artful and intelligent flow. The aforementioned “Bellefleur” was dedicated by van der Staak to contemporary French guitarist\/composer Arnaud Dumond, and is followed on the album by Dumond’s five disparate Hommages\u00a0fran\u00e7ais<\/em>, which includes appealing nods to composers Louis Couperin, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel (thus traversing many different styles and eras). Then we have Poulenc’s sadly beautiful Sarabande pour guitare<\/em>, dedicated to (but never performed in public by) Ida Presti; followed by three from Presti herself, including the Baroque-sounding\u00a0\u00c9tude du matin <\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>the lively and infectious\u00a0Danse rythmique\u2014<\/em>the latter dedicated to her husband Lagoya, who is the composer of the next piece on the album, Reverie<\/em>, which he wrote for Presti in 1959; a lovely piece.<\/p>\n

Edith Piaf and Luis Guglielmi’s La vie en rose<\/em> may be the most famous French song there is, but the gorgeous version here (arranged by Jean-Marie Raymond) still sounds fresh and sparkling. And the disc closes with pop singer Claude Nougaro’s frothy 1962 hit, Le jazz et la java<\/em>, arranged by another fine modern French composer, Thierry Tisserand.<\/p>\n

It’s quite a distance we’ve traveled from Couperin to Nougaro. The playing throughout by the Maryland-based guitarist is splendid. Highly recommended!<\/p>\n

Vals for Atom<\/em> (Boutros), Chanson Trilce<\/em>\u00a0(Boutros); Les\u00a0\u00c9chelles du Levant<\/em>\u00a0(Boutros); Gnossienne No. 1<\/em> (Satie, arr. Dyens); Gymnop\u00e9die<\/em> (Satie, arr. Mowbray); Bellefleur: Valse fran\u00e7aise<\/em> (van der Staak); Cinq hommages\u00a0fran\u00e7ais: Couperin, Poulenc, Milhaud, Debussy, Ravel<\/em> (Dumond); Sarabande pour guitare<\/em> (Poulenc);\u00a0\u00c9tude du matin<\/em> (Presti);\u00a0\u00c9tude No. 2<\/em> (Presti); Danse rythmique<\/em> (Presti); R\u00e9verie<\/em> (Lagoya); La Vie en Rose<\/em> (Piaf and Guglielmi, arr. Raymond); Le jazz et la java<\/em> (Nougaro, arr. Tisserand)<\/p>\n

The album can be bought on CD through Mowbray’s wesbite<\/a>, previewed and purchased through CDBaby<\/a>, streamed and\/or purchased via iTunes\/Apple Music<\/a>, and streamed on Spotify.<\/a><\/p>\n

Below, Mowbray plays Ida Presti’s<\/em>\u00a0Danse rythmique:
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