Sor: Mes Ennuis (Favourite Works Vol. 1)

This new CD from Frank Bungarten presents world premiere recordings of selected guitar works of Fernando Sor. The fact that Fernando Sor's extensive oeuvre is hardly known beyond the etudes probably has to do with his renunciation of outward virtuosity while at the same time maintaining the highest technical standards. It takes a master like Frank Bungarten to lend glowing expressivity and delicate elegance to works that at first sight seem brittle.

Sor does not make easy work for guitarists: where his contemporaries increasingly produce pleasing salon pieces or shine with virtuoso bravura, he writes sonatas of enormous scope, and instead of at least delivering an extravagant finale, he ends with an almost timid minuet. For the listener, many of the smaller pieces seem simple and unpretentious - at least when Frank Bungarten's playing makes us forget the enormous difficulties within the music.

Sor explores the expressive possibilities of the guitar in uncompromising depth, especially the cantabile playing and the complexity of the movement are unparalleled. This is not repertoire for the large concert hall. In the intimate atmosphere of the salon or the living room at home, however, a universe of dreamlike nuances of musical expression opens up to the attentive listener. The finely balanced recording technique never pushes itself into the foreground and allows a deep immersion in this world of sound, which begins to sparkle particularly attractively in the three-dimensional reproduction.

Frank Bungarten has been proclaimed "OPUS KLASSIK 2018 INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR". After already two previous Echo-Klassik awards in the same prestigious category, he once more establishes his position as Germany's most recognized classical guitarist.

Being honoured at an early age by legendary maestro Andrés Segovia unleashed the start of Bungarten's international career. For almost four decades he has played countless concerts in more than 40 countries around the world and his painstakingly conceived recordingsdedicated to the heavyweights of the repertoryform the essence of his artistic life's work. Bungarten's Bach transcriptions, Sor studies, the "Cancion y Danza" compilation and his complete Villa-Lobos are long-established, bestselling classics.

As a passionate professor of guitar he teaches an elite group of international students, formerly in Lucerne, Switzerland, and currently at the University of Music in Hannover and at various workshops and master classes worldwide.