This Guitar4mation program offers music from Brasil, arrangements of impressionistic and Spanish piano music, two "classical" compositions by famous jazz musicians and a set of tangos and milongas from Argentina.

For a start, Guitar4mation explores the musical world of Brazilian guitarist and composer Sergio Assad, who is a member of the famous Assad Guitar Duo. His composition is titled "Uarekena" in reference to an unkown Indian tribe in the rain forest of the northern Amazonas. It is a rhythmic, vituosic piece in one movement that uses all four guitars in a demanding democratic complexity and ends with a wild, percussive finale.

The next part of the program couldn't set a stronger contrast: Karol Szymanowski was only fourteen years old when he wrote his opus one, a set of "Nine Preludes" for the piano. Guitar4mation has selected and arranged four of these wonderful, sensitive miniatures that seem to fit perfectly on four guitars. These works have never been arranged for guitar before. "Prelude no.1" begins with a tender arpeggio in 6/8 and gently fades away again. "Prelude no.2" offers heartfelt melodies, while "Prelude no.3" hardly last a minute and reminds of Schumann in its simplicity. "Prelude no.7" ends the set with agogic melodic lines and rich modulations.

Although he never composed a single piece for this instrument, Isaac Albèniz is one of the few composers whose works can be heard more often on the guitar than on the piano, for which they where written. But "Iberia", his monumental suite for piano solo, has so far been neglected by guitarists because of its dense pianistic textures and enormous technical demands. Guitar4mation performs three pieces from this suite: The opening Prelude "Evocacion" with haunting, quiet melodies, the dance-like "El Puerto", a description of the harbour town of Cadiz, and the fiery "El Albaicin", which describes the gypsy quarter of Granada. Claude Debussy wrote an enthusiastic review about this piece: "The atmosphere of Spanish evenings, redolent of carnations and brandy, is captured in this piece. And it resembles the muffled tones of a guitar suddenly leaping with laments into the night."At the end of the first half, Guitar4mation offers arrangements of Spanish piano music.

After the break the program continues in a Spanish mood. Joaquin Rodrigo composed a lot of beautiful guitar music besides his famous "Concierto de Aranjuez", but little is known of his piano works which show an influence of guitaristic effects and sound colours equal to the music of Albéniz and Turina.
Two dance movements - "Caleseras" and "Danza Valenciana" - from the "Quatro Piezas Espanolas" build a frame for the somber, dark "Sonada de Adios"  -"Sound of Goodbye", which Rodrigo wrote in Salzburg.

The American jazz guitarist Path Metheny is one of the great musical personalities of our time. Guitar4mation present his delicate "Letter from Home" as a chamber music miniature. This is directly followed by "Addendum", a one-movement work by jazz pianist Chick Corea. He composed this piece originally for violin, violoncello and piano. In htis version by Guitar4mation, the rhythmical aspects of this music come to the fore. 

Our musical journey takes us to Argentina next. The great Astor Piazzolla was definitely the first composer to combine the melancholy of the tango with a virtuosic, complex fugue which abruptly ends with a mysterious adagio, as in "Fuga y Misterio".

This typical melancholy can also be found in Alberto Ginastera's "Danza de la Moza Donosa", a hauntingly beautiful milonga. This "Dance of the Graceful Girl" starts with a gentle rhythm and, after a climax full of dense harmonies, fades away again. Ginastera, who is seen as one of the leading Latin American composers of the 20th century, is well known amongst lovers of guitar music for his virtuosic "Sonata" for guitar solo.

What could be a bigger contrast to a graceful girl than a shark? "Escualo" is Piazzolla's hommage to his favourite offshore-fishing past-time. Martin Wesely's arrangement  offers driving rhythms, and the listener cannot help but think of the scourging fins of sharks in the Mar del Plata off the Argentinian shore, and probably of Hemingway as well.

A one-time companion of Astor Piazzolla is Tomás Gubitsch, a guitarist from Argentina who lives and works in Paris. Guitar4mation contacted him via internet. He wrote "La otra Calesita" - "The other Caroussel" for his tango quintet. Driving rhythms interchanging with lyrical moments: Virtuosic "Tango Nuevo", but this time not by Astor Piazzolla.