There is nothing colloquial about Sergio Assad’s captivating Colloquial Preludes - written for star guitarist, Ricardo Gallén - with which this new Eudora release begins. At first listening, it becomes immediately clear that these are anything but ‘colloquial’. It’s magical. All of it. The composition, the playing and the recorded result are simply brilliant. Released on record for the first time, the twelve preludes explore the twelve most common guitar composition keys. Acoustic Guitar players should not be without it. For that reason alone, this album is a must buy.

But there is much more to enjoy.

Gallén is not the only one who has put the 5 Préludes and Suite populaire brésilienne of the disc’s ‘flag bearer’ composer Heitor Villa-Lobos on record. But I can’t think of anyone having it done better. In his review En Silencio: Latin American guitar music - Gallén John Miller raved about him, and in this one, too: Sor: Guitar Sonatas - Gallén. Adding my voice to it would be like carrying water to the sea.

For a change, I followed a different path to keep up with the many times more cyber-literate Joneses. I asked Chat GPT to share its views with me. This is (partly) what I got: “Ricardo Gallén is a distinguished Spanish classical guitarist renowned for his exceptional technical prowess and profound musicality. His interpretations are celebrated for their nuance and expressiveness, earning him acclaim from both critics and fellow musicians. The esteemed Cuban composer and conductor Leo Brouwer has praised Gallén's "great creativity and virtuosity that is felt only by looking at his hands”."

For some, it may be tempting to facilitate the job by calling in the assistance of Artificial Intelligence. However, as it turns out, AI is not as intelligent as the Joneses might have hoped for. All was stolen from the web, though ‘honestly’ mentioned at the bottom of the text in hardly discernible script: “Six String Journal”.

Nonetheless, although I could not ‘see his hands’ my ears concur with the author of the article “Artist Spotlight: Ricardo Gallén” in the Six Strings Journal’s issue of September 29, 2016, about the “exceptional technical prowess and profound musicality”.

Summing it up: The long and the short of it is that in this kind of repertoire Ricardo Gallén is the reference to which others will have to be judged.

Compulsory stuff, recorded in the fine acoustic of the Auditorio de San Francisco, Avila, Spain, and engineered to perfection by Gonzalo Noqué in an original immersive 7.0.4 DSD 256 recording.

Blangy-le-Château, Normandy, France

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