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VIDA Guitar Quartet perform Baião de Gude by Brazilian guitarist and composer Paulo Bellinati at the Exe Guitar Fest, Exeter Pheonix – 2 April 2010

International Record Review praise VIDA Guitar Quartet’s debut recording “Love, the Magician” BGS118.

“Their range of timbres and colouration is so broad that one really does forget that there are four identical instruments. The excellent arrangements of Falla’s El Amor brujo by Eden, using techniques such as rapid rubbing of the strings and various scordaturas, approximates the orchestral colours of Falla’s work, assisted by the players’ refined tonal control. Reducing the work to just four guitars brings a level of intimacy to the work, particularly in the poignant ‘The Fisherman’s Story’. Ashford’s arrangement of El sombrero de tres picos is well conceived. As the informative booklet notes elucidate, Diaghilev persuaded Falla to revise his pantomime as a ballet, which was premiered in London in 1919 with sets and costumes designed by Picasso, choreographed by Léonide Massine. Most outstanding are the tonal colours in ‘The Corregidor’.” [Read more →]

“VIDA Guitar Quartet’s debut recording is impressive indeed. Why? Because it’s so easy to imagine you’re listening to an entire orchestra and not merely to four guitars.” Gramophone March 2010 RECOMMENDS the VIDA GQ’s CD ‘Love, the Magician’ BGS118.

“Throughout, the Quartet succeeds in bringing out the narrative and dramatic qualities implicit in the music through a combination of exquisite tonal and dynamic control, super-tight ensemble and unerring musical instinct. Listen to the confident sweep of rapid figures in the frenzied “Danza del terror” from El Amor Brujo and the beautiful transparent “Romance del pescador” from the same; or the beguiling sensuality of the “Habanera” and virility of “Toreadors” from Carmen Suite. There’s only one word for it: magic”