Intelligently illuminated

Guitarists Raoul Morat and Christian Fergo studied with Frank Bungarten at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, where they also joined forces to form a guitar duo. The duo formation can open up much more piano literature to the instrument than the solo guitar, for one obvious reason: as the guitar soloist only has one hand to produce the sound - he has to shorten the strings with the other - he lacks the harmonic and contrapuntal richness of the two-handed piano literature. However, two guitars ensure lossless reproduction of the piano part. The two have already ventured into Schubert's works in 2016, when they performed a Winter journey-cycle. So now Impromptus, Moments musicaux and Valses sentimentales, which will have appealed to many a guitarist. One of the Moments musicaux was already arranged by the important guitarist Francisco Tarrega in the 19th century. Now Morat and Fergo are presenting an entire collection of these character pieces, probably not entirely coincidentally on an Austrian label called Challenge Records.

At first you are a little startled: the first Impromptu from Schubert's Opus 90 begins in the original with a quadruple octave G in fortissimo. This sounds rather pathetic on two guitars. However, the further the guitar duo Morat-Fergo work their way through the musical text, the more you get caught up in the maelstrom of the music and the more and more you are fascinated. The guitars have a wealth of sound techniques at their disposal, harmonics, vibratos, pizzicati, the sounds of different positions of the plucking fingers and so on. The Lucerne duo uses them wisely and extremely tastefully to make Schubert's music iridescent in all its colors. The result is a filigree, transparent sound that makes the selected pieces appear delicate, but also modern.

The duo thus expands the repertoire of the instrument, which is truly not blessed with high-quality works from the late classical and early romantic periods, in an extremely convincing way. They strive for additional historical rootedness by recording the pieces on copies of guitars from Schubert's time. However, this hardly guarantees that the pieces are contemporary, even if the sound of the historical instruments can point to the time when the originals were written. However, it can be assumed that these piano works would have sounded strange if played on guitars at that time. The appeal of the arrangements lies in general interpretative and creative principles, rather than in efforts to make historically-informed music. The result is convincing because it illuminates the music in a timeless and intelligent way. The two recorded the CD in a concert hall at Marienmüster Abbey, partly financed by crowdfunding.