"...really gets below the notes in this repertoire... revealing both its haunting sensuality and manic intensity." Fanfare From Fanfare: The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors Review by William Zagorski / March/April 1994 Volume 17, Number 4 ARGENTINA'S SANTA FE GUITAR QUARTET. Santa Fe Guitar Quartet. LAVIER KCD 11045 [DDD]; 67:43. Produced by Harold Powell. (Distributed by Albany.) FALLA: El amor brujo: Introducción; Canción del Amor dolldo; Escana; Canción del fuego fatuo; El circulo mágico; A medianoche; Danza ritual del fuego. PLAZA: MeIancólico. MANZI and TROILO: Sur. MORES: Taquito milltar. HEINZE: Canción. GUSTAVINO: Bailecito. PIGNONE: Huella (Por el Sur). ALFONSO and ZABELA: Gato (De la prima a la bordona). PIAZZOLLA: Four Seasons: Invierno porteño; Verano porteño. PRAETORIUS: Terpsichore (published 1612): Bransie de la Torche. Ballet. Volta. DEBUSSY: Petite Suite. Segovia has likened the guitar to a self-contained orchestra. Chopin is purported to have said, "There is nothing more beautiful than a guitar, save perhaps two." By logical extension it would follow that three guitars are better than two, and four better than three. Would three orchestras simultaneously playing a Haydn symphony in the same hall present a threefold increase in its perceived beauty? I doubt it. True excess can never be beautiful; by the same token, true beauty is never excessive. The music on this release works because it is not only idiomatically and affectingly played, but often cunningly and tellingly arranged (the Falla by Marcello Cornut: Plaza's Melancólico and Manzi's and Troilo's Sur by Osvaldo Munóz; Gustavino's Bailecito by Irineo Cuevas). Walter Heinze's Canción was composed for and dedicated to the Santa Fe Guitar Quartet, and the balance of the program, I presume, can be chalked up to (as expressed in the program notes) the ensemble's ability "to play note for note what the composer intended without transcribing. String quartets by Villa-Lobos, Ginastera, or Mozart for example can be absolutely reanimated by the guitar." The excerpts from Falla's El amor brujo come off better than in most of the many renditions of the original score that have come my way. The Praetorius and the Debussy are often insightful, but it is in the egregiously rare Argentinian music that this ensemble really shines. The music of Julián Plaza, Aníbal Troilo, and Mariano Mores are poorly represented in the world discography (Plaza on a single Venezuelan LP [Venedisco VD 2138]; Troilo on two Uruguayan and one Argentinian LP; Mores on a Spanish Diapason LP [52.5038] and, more recently, on a Music Hall CD [MH 10.004]). With the exceptions of Alfonso and Zabaia, the other Argentinian composers are apparently unrecorded. They are all, to a greater or lesser extent, Tangueros, combining in their music a beguiling combination of ethnic flavor and compositional sleight of hand. In describing the result of their efforts, the word "delicious" falls short of the mark. The Santa Fe ensemble really gets below the notes in this repertoire--revealing both its haunting sensuality and the manic intensity (Piazzolla would have smiled). The recording is exemplary. Auditors are encouraged to play it at full room volume in order to savor the fine and completely natural frequency balance, and to get a sense of the stunning dynamic range that four guitars can produce in the hands of four artists.