Amazon.co.uk Review
There's a scene in
Captain Corelli's Mandolin where the eponymous hero chooses to demonstrate his mandolin-playing prowess by performing the first movement of Hummel's concerto--except that he mystifies and exasperates his audience by doing nothing, then reveals that he's simply counting the first 45 bars of orchestral introduction before the mandolin soloist can enter. It's a richly funny scene, demonstrating author Louis de Bernières' intimate knowledge of the mandolin repertoire, but it's all the more amusing if the reader actually knows the Hummel concerto. Guitarist Craig Ogden found similar instances in De Bernières' Latin trilogy where his own knowledge of guitar repertoire helped him to a greater appreciation of incidents in the stories and so--with the author's blessing and help---he determined to record an album of music inspired by the novels. The result is a delightful selection of what is, after all, pretty obscure music that almost certainly would not have seen the light of day without its association with a bestselling novel. Ogden is a top-flight musician whose solo selections of predominantly Latin-American guitar pieces, such as the (actually quite well-known) Villa-Lobos
Choros No. 1 or the Catalan folksongs by Miguel Llobet, are performed with his typical grace and sensitivity (not to say virtuosity). Alison Stephens is one of the few professional classical mandolinists in the world and she's an equal partner for Ogden in the arrangements for guitar and mandolin of the Vivaldi concerto, the Giuliani duo (originally for flute and guitar) and the "Andante" from the Hummel (not the first movement, with its opening 45 bars, sadly). The balance between the two instruments is entirely complementary, arguably improving on the original orchestral accompaniments that risk obscur