JONATHAN JACKSON : Lemon Frog- 30 pieces for guitar : Bergmann Edition Jonathan Jackson Bergmann Edition : 34 pages Here are 30 very varied pieces, quite short, often one page but occasionally two using a large portion, but not all of the 24 keys. So that you do spend a fair amount of time playing in keys that you may not be normally used to playing in on the guitar. Not only that, the style of each piece is quite different from the others, so that they are extremely usefu

Marianne Vedral Bergmann Edition: 11 pages I have seen quite a few pieces from this lady and they have always been quite something. This latest book is no exception. Moreover the title of Love Songs is very apt. The tunes and the harmonies are very catchy and really do stick in your mind and the pieces themselves are wonderful to play, and the other thing to say is that they do sound as if they need words, because they really are love songs in every sense of the phrase. See

Wolfgang Vedral Bergmann Edition : 10 pages I have reviewed pieces by a Marianne Vedral before, who is mentioned in the fourth piece here, so I can only assume that they are related. This however is the first time that I have seen music by Wolfgang Vedral. These five pieces are instantly melodic, full of emotive harmony work, and when you play them , you do get the feeling that they are somehow familiar in content. The title piece Golden Memories is first, set in D Major and

Jane Darcey Bergmann Edition : 7 pages This Australian composer/teacher of the guitar has written a number of pieces for the guitar, this one partially under the guidance of Gilbert Biberian during late 2022. Set in A Major, but moving through various keys in a mixture of 9/8 and 3 / 4 , this gentle piece has almost no solo lines in it, but rather spends a lot of time with pairs of notes in the melody, and a bass line underneath. However it moves quite a great deal over al

J.S. BACH (Arranged by Marek Wegrzyk) Bergmann Edition: 12 pages Polish-born Marek Wegrzyk has arranged a number of Bach pieces for the guitar in the past , many published here by Bergmann Edition. This latest pairing are pieces that I have never seen before for guitar and so that immediately makes them desirable for guitarists who love their Bach! The first thing to say is that both pieces are tuned like the Renaissance Lute, namely with the third string to F#. This tuning

Ivo Antognini : Arranged for guitar by Stefano Moccetti and Ivo Antognini Bergmann Edition: 9 pages Originally, this work was for choir, but now here has been freely arranged for guitar solo, freely in the sense that much of the guitar version has new sections and really doesn’t sound anything like the original ( which you can find on YouTube in a couple of performances) The first thing you notice is the wide varied use of many time signatures including 5/4, 9/8, 4/2, 10/8,

Adrian Andrei Bergmann Edition : 22 pages I have always admired Adrian Andrei’s works for guitar, as they are very different , melodic but often unusually harmonised so that you don’t ever get the feeling that this man’s work is like a dozen others. This latest volume consists of 18 little pieces, mostly one page but occasionally two, all with that very different sound that the music from this country often has. They reminded me, harmony – wise a little of Bartok’s For Chil

Leonid Hrabovsky Duma Music : 39 pages Leonid Hrabovsky is a Ukrainian composer, born 1935, now living in the USA. Over the years he has written a great many pieces for all manner of combinations of instruments and voices but this book has his entire guitar solo works, which amount to 13 different pieces, spread over 4 actual works. The Night Blues is the first one. It is set in B Major and this one immediately has an opening page that is a mixture of octaves with the t

Joop Klein Goldewijk Bergmann Edition : 16 pages Goldewijk is a Dutch guitarist/composer (and also a painter).Here he has written a set of three pieces for our instrument that are moderately difficult, but not too much so. They are melodic and have, mostly a pattern that you will recognise. The Road is the first one, a three pager, set in 4/4 at 140 crotchets a minute, and having mostly a quaver rhythm with a crotchet usually at beat 4.After that the rhythm of the six quave

Nelly Decamp Les Productions D’OZ: 7 pages Here are three pieces that were inspired by Nelly Decamp’s life in Brasilia, a place where she lived for a while. Concha Acustica (Acoustic Shell) is a place that she discovered after a concert that had wonderful acoustics amid lovely scenery. The shortest of the three pieces it is a Largo, Libre et Sonore full of long exotic chords interspersed with some faster lines of melody that is a great start to this set. At the end of bar 1

Michel Cardin (arrangements and variations) Bergmann Edition: 12 pages Having just reviewed one of this man’s books for Baroque Lute, and saying that this was a rarity for me on my site, here is another, perhaps even rarer! It is a book of two pieces arranged for a Theorbo in A, and again is in tablature entirely. The first piece was written by James Oswald in the 18th Century and is a tune many of you will definitely know, Barbara Allan, and being the instrument that it is,

Michel Cardin Bergmann Edition: 12 pages Here is a rarity for my web – site, a pair of arrangements for solo baroque lute in tablature of two pieces that many of you will certainly know. There is a wonderful performance incidentally of Michel playing them in concert on his Baroque lute, and if any of you have never heard one of these marvellous instrument with their huge dynamic range, then give yourself 3 ½ minutes to listen . I am quite sure that having one of these instrum

Laurent Meneret Les Productions D’Oz : 12 pages There are seven pieces here, all quite different and all having a very musical sound, and sometimes not always moving melodically the way you might expect .Moreover they are not too difficult, so will suit the relatively modest players amongst you. Vagabondages incidentally means Wanderings, which does aptly describe the pieces when you play them. Au Fil de L’eau (Along the water) is a 4/4 in D Major, and a modest 69 crotchets

Laurent Meneret Les Productions D’Oz : 7 pages These two waltzes are modest in size and not too difficult to play and are dedicated to two of his family. Firstly, La Valse de Rose is dedicated to his granddaughter Rose and is set in E Minor at the speed of 46 dotted minims a minute. It is immediately quite pleasant to play and something that many will enjoy, especially as it doesn’t have modern harmonies as such, but is set in a style which players will enjoy. The style is

Lovland Rolf U. And Skavlan Petter arranged for guitar by Angelos Tsoutsis Bergmann: 8 pages I knew this tune straight away, and realised that when I had heard it before it had some words, but couldn’t bring it to mind. Turns out it was a piece of music by Secret Garden called Nocturne. This version for solo guitar uses the dropped D 6th as it is in D minor. Immediately it seems a little difficult in one or two stretches but they are easily got round with a bit of work. If

Benjamin Verdery Doberman – Yppan : 39 pages This extensive piece is, on the face of it, in two movements but with a number of themes cropping up in both. Not only that there are a few features of this piece that set it apart from most other pieces I have seen, namely, the way you have to set your guitar up first.The open strings are, from bottom to top, D, G, D, A, Bb, and E, but with the added instruction to place a capo on strings 1 to 5, in the first movement, leaving t

Louis Trepanier Les Productions D’Oz: 7 pages Here is one from a set of twelve concert studies, all published separately by D’Oz. This really is a study in every sense of the word, as there are numerous technical obstacles the player has to overcome before getting to grips with this piece, even though it is harmonically very clever and always interesting. The opening section is marked Lento, liberamente with a zero time signature, simply because everything is very free temp

Francis Kleynjans Les Productions d’Oz : 20 pages Here is a set of ten pieces from this French composer, who has written hundreds of works for guitar, as witnessed by the Opus Numbers of each of these pieces, ranging from Op416 to Op438,( although a few Opus numbers are not used in this set of 10). I have seen many pieces from this composer and they are always very playable, extremely melodic and full of nice harmonies and interesting fingerings that are not always what you

Arnaud Dumond Les Productions D’Oz: 16 pages This book of 12 moderately easy studies is part of a three book set that ranges up to difficult pieces by the end. I have already seen and reviewed the first book a couple of years ago, that was marked simply ‘easy’, and which I had nothing but good things to say about it This latest book is every bit as good as the previous one, with the first thing you notice being how varied the genres and techniques are that he uses and that th

Nejc Kuhar Les Productions D’Oz: 4 pages This short piece is all about memories and the nostalgia some create and in this piece our composer has made all the music sad, emotive and very pleasant to play. It’s set in D Major with a dropped 6th to D and is a Lento 4/4.It is all in 2 voices but the main thing about the piece are the rhythms he uses, often setting one against the other . The opening melody starts almost immediately without an introduction over a rocking bass li