John W. Duarte : (arranger) : Cole Porter for Guitar : Faber Music

Anything Goes; I Get a Kick Out of You; I Love Paris; In the Still of the Night; Just One of Those Things; I’ve Got You Under My Skin; Let’s Do It ( Let’s Fall in Love); Night and Day; So In Love; True Love; What is This Thing Called Love?; You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To; Begin the Beguine.

Cole Porter (arranged by John W. Duarte)

Faber Music: 31 pages

The works of John W.Duarte have gone down in history as some of the greatest pieces ever written or arranged for our classical guitar, and this latest publication has 13 well – known Porter pieces all given the Duarte touch.

They are marked Intermediate to Advanced, and they’re not kidding, for the first thing you come across is just how imaginative, and how wonderfully arranged these pieces are. Duarte really used his imagination here when adapting these pieces for guitar, and so the harmonies are very cleverly done, the styles of each of the pieces often on the move throughout the particular piece, resulting in a number of time and key changes in many of them , and therefore there are numerous large barres all over most of them, and he is not at all bothered about writing some of these works in Eb Major, or other such flat keys, even though when you try them, they work fabulously well in these keys!

The arrangements are very often full of complex rhythms that are rarely on the beat for very long, but the player who takes his or her time reading and following the fingerings etc, when trying them out will definitely get a huge amount of joy out of them, for they are all wonderful and well worth playing. Indeed , since I was a teenager I had come across this man’s guitar pieces, quite early on in my playing days, and always loved pushing myself to get better at them, simply because I loved this man’s music , and the situation hasn’t changed 50 + years later ! Definitely one to buy !

Chris Dumigan