Tango Suite! Romance for Two Guitars - The Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo

Andres Segovia once likened the guitar to a flower. If one guitar is a flower, then two are a bouquet, for whatever is beautiful about one guitar is made many times more beautiful by two. The repertoire for guitar duo may not be as familiar as the solo literature, yet it is surprisingly broad, including some of the most spectacular guitar music ever written. All of the pieces recorded here were written in the second half of the 20th century and, in a short time, have achieved a remarkable level of popularity. The most salient reason for their success is the composers' effective and serious treatment of the duo-guitar ensemble. These are works of musical complexity and virtuosity, as difficult as anything written for the guitar. But in the main, the most appealing aspects of these pieces are their beauty and lyricism. All of the composers represented here have been influenced to some extent by the style of composition developed at The Paris Conservatory in the early part of this century. In this group of pieces, the most evident element of the Parisian style is an embrace of "popular" and ethnic music. Accordingly, these works display a strong tendency towards tonality and away from abstraction and academicism.