Frederico Mompou - Suite Compostelana for Guitar (1962) Frank Wallace, guitar

Dedicated to the legendary Andrés Segovia, this colorful six-movement suite incorporates traditional Spanish guitar sounds and modes, as well as a twentieth century harmonic sensibility.
The "Preludio" (Prelude) opens with a traditional rotating guitar picking figure with the melody notes on the lower line alternating with a repeated inverted pedal point tone in the upper register. The beautiful modal scale sets a strange, ancient, yet romantic, mood. Eventually this pattern reaches the lowest, highly resonant octave. Some rich, modern modal chords (built in fourths) follow. When the rolling patterns begin again, the modal scale has been replaced by eerie chromatics of a disjunctive, constantly wandering nature. However, the patterns soon find their former evocativeness expressed through a modal scale in the sub-dominant key in which the piece...