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Pablo Marquez: Pablo Marquez - Musica del Delphin

By Nenad Georgievski
June 6, 2008
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Pablo Marquez is an Argentinean classical guitarist whose work garners rave reviews from many areas. He has collaborated with groups such as Ensemble Intercontemporain as well as Argentine traditional groups, a field he has studied with bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi. His involvement with contemporary music has also led him to collaborate with composers such as Luciano Berio, Gyorgy Kurt?and Maurizio Kagel.

Musica Del Delfin is a collection of the music of Luys de Narvaez, a Spanish musician and composer born in 1500. Originally, these instrumentals were written to be played on vihuela, a 16th century guitar-like instrument that many today believe to be a precursor of the classical guitar. Navarez's opus consists of forty works (published in 1580 as Los Seys Libros del Delphi de Musica) where he gathered all kinds of fantasias, setting for vocal pieces, secular and religious songs.

For his recording, Marquez has chosen seventeen out of these forty works. In the liner notes, Marquez states that he has had the deepest respect for Narvarez's work, because it took him twenty years of studying Renaissance music in order to build the necessary facility to play these compositions. One of the goals for Marquez was to show that Renaissance music can be played without vihuela.

The ambience is ruminative and extremely intimate, making Musica del Delphin a ravishingly beautiful document—elegant, lovely, easy on the ear yet offering food for thought. These are not pieces of 16th century wallpaper. The inner-bound, ruminative movements are soulful, even ethereal, and seem to stop time. Each composition is its own abstract, beautiful world that guitarist Marquez brings to life with nearly flawless technique.

Track Listing

Primer tono por ge sol re ut (Libro I, 1); Cancion del Emperador (Mille Regretz de Josquin) (Libro III, 6); Fantasia del quinto tono (Libro II, 3); Segundo tono (Libro I, 2); Diferencias sobre Conde Claros (Libro VI, 1); Tercero tono (Libro I, 3); Fantasia del primer tono (Libro II, 6); Baxa de contrapunto (Libro VI, 4); Quarto tono (Libro I, 4); Diferencias sobre el himno O Gloriosa Domina (Libro IV, 1); Quinto tono de consonancia (Libro I, 5); Je veulx laysser melancolie de Richafort (Libro III, 9); Sesto tono sobre fa ut mi re (Libro I, 6); Sanctus y Hosanna (Missa Faisant Regretz de Josquin) (Libro III, 3/4); Septimo tono sobre ut re mi fa mi (Libro I, 7); Fantasia del quarto tono (Libro II, 2); Octavo tono (Libro I, 8).

Personnel

Pablo Marquez: guitar.

Album information

Title: Pablo Marquez - Musica del Delphin | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: ECM Records

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