Fantasie Romantique

Fantasie Romantique:19th century guitar music from Eastern Europe

Jamie Akers – guitar

Mikhail Polupayenko – Fantasia on Zaporozyhe Themes
Johann Decker-Schenk – Ukrainische Weise
Ivan Klinger – Morceau de Salon
Mikhael Glinka – The Orphan’s Song
Johann Decker-Schenk – Fantaisie Romantique
Ivan Klinger – Fantasie on Four Themes
Ivan Padovec – Variations on a theme of Schubert
Ivan Klinger – Fantasia on Gypsy Themes

Fantasie Romantique is a programme of significant works by little known Eastern European guitarist composers of the 19th century. Many are based on popular pieces of the day, including opera arias and folk melodies, giving them an accessibility that belies their obscurity and underpins their virtuosity. Having been neglected for over a century this programme provides a reassessment of these composers and their work, employing period instruments and techniques to render them as sympathetically and as possible.

Although largely forgotten today, due to the Spanish dominance of the classical guitar tradition since Segovia, throughout the 19th and into the 20th century, there was a thriving Eastern European guitar scene with its own style of instrument construction and music. Often as idiomatic and stylistically nationalistic as its more famous Spanish counterpart this tradition expanded the range of the instrument, with added strings, and its technical capacities. These little know composers imbued their work with melodic invention, unique harmonies and significant pathos.