'Cheers to Mr.'Chobim'!

....Chopin's thoughtful poetry and the delicate melancholy of Rio de Janeiro in the sixties make for a perfect combination, which happens to work especially well in an arrangement for four guitars.

....'Chobim's' piece was the subtle highlight of an entertaining evening....

Egberto Gismonti's sensitive 'Fala da Paixao' and the Hermeto Pascoal's virtuosic 'São Jorge' had the audience cheering; and 'Guitar4mation' showed its true show talent in the encores: Ary Barroso's 'Aquarela do Brasil' was a real showpiece for four excellent musicians. In Domenico Modugno's 'Piove', they proved their sense of vocal humour and then ended the evening with a harmonious, lovely version of Bruce Springsteen's 'I'm on fire', which came as another surprise. Much cheering in the end.'

Martin Gasser

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Hans Millies

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Swiat Gitary (Special Interest Magazine for Guitar ), Poland
October 2004

'The highlight of Mikulov's XVIIIth guitar festival 2004 was the appearance of the guitar quartet 'Guitar4mation'..... the four guitarists enchanted with wonderful arrangements of Preludes by Bohuslav Martinu as well as with music inspired by the tango.... '
'I am fascinated by each concert of this guitar quartet, because their repertoire is not only attractive, but surprises with new ideas time and again. Go on like this!'

Zbginiew Dubiella

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Oberbayerisches Volksblatt Rosenheim, Germany
November 20th, 2003, Concert in Bad Aibling at the International Guitar Festival 'Saitensprünge'

'FOUR GUITARS AS KINDRED SPIRITS
'The Ensemble did Magic at 'Saitensprünge'

'.... From the start, the exceptional musicians - all of them multiple prize winners in their genre - convinced with their precise, expressive playing....'
'...lyrical moments changing to the driving force of flamenco, 3/4 bars often being replaced by 6/8 rhythms, passages of polyphonic harmonics creating a special athmosphere. ...'
'...in full harmony, the arpeggios of Claude Debussy's Arabesque No1. rolled out of the guitars' bodies. Martin Schwarz had called the arrangement of this piano piece a challenge. Absolutely virtuosic, the four musicians fulfill their task...'
'...they almost delightfully live up their interpretations with a strong body language. The audience appreciated it with thundering applause - Guitar4mation thanked with a couple of encores.'

Ulrich Nathe

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Silesia Prezentuje No.4 / 2003, Concert in Chranow, September 14th, 2003, Poland

'.....A masterly performance without reservations, rich in sound and atmosphere, touching and funny - all this can be said about the concert of Guitar4mation.
The international cast: Martin and Martin Wesely from Austria, Petr Saidl form the Czech Republic and Michal Nagy, a Pole with a hungarian name.
This group was founded in Vienna ten years ago and has created a broad repertoire that includes both original compositions from Brazil and Argentina, countries in which guitar music is held high, and well done transcriptions of delicate european piano music (de Falla, Debussy), which are being written by the members of the quartet. The numbers of listeners at this concert showed the truth of the saying that the guitar is a 'national' instrument in Poland.... '

Anna Wozniakowska

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KYTARA 3/2003 (Special Interest Magazine for Classical and Acoustic Guitar) - Prague, Czech Republic
June 2003

Guitar4mation in Hradec Králové, May 16th 2003

'...The atmosphere was absolutely enrapturing...'
'...Guitar4mation has shown the impressive abilitiy to present both serious and poular music to the audience. All this with precise technical execution, incorporating a variety of different playing techniques and all the colours the guitar offers....'
'... The overall impression of the ensemble is very natural, as it does not tend to show off with technical tricks. Even though all four players make use off a very solid technique, they always use it to the advantage of the piece....'
'...the ensembles' specialization on the music of today respectively of the 20th century is original , and the players move in different genres with great ease...'
'...One can say that the performance of Guitar4mation is fully up to the demands of a concert - the technically perfect and sensitive coping of a qualitiy program, and the nowadays necessary show, as in the motto of the quartet: 'Pulse, Sound, Joy, Heart'....'

Rostislav Coufal

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