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Album Title:Ave Maria
Artist:Raphaella Smits
Item Code:ALBUM-1000926
Label:Soundset Recordings
Performance Type:   Studio Recording
Genre:Classical
Sub-Genre:Guitar, Baroque

 

Raphaella Smits produces new, well-worked and generous discs in a steady stream. Now it is a baroque program, with her own transcriptions of works originally created for lute, violin or keyboard instruments.  ...Smits plays with passion and has the sense, the sensitivity and the balance that makes her able to let the music rest, it is never forced or tense. She extends her phrases toward the silence, ... everything finds a worthy conclusion in Bach's incomparable Chaconne.... Wonderful listening!"    Ange Turell - GITARR OCH LUTA

Brilliant Baroque on an 8-string ARTICLE ON MY LATEST RECORDING AVE MARIA Classical Guitar Magazine June 1 2019 Brilliant Baroque on an 8-string From the very first notes drawn from her 1980 John Gilbert 8-string guitar, Raphaella Smits captures your heart and imagination with a truly uplifting rendition of Bach/ Gounod’s Ave Maria (Prelude, BWV 846). The intimate collaboration with sound engineer Javier Salvador is immediately apparent, with a gorgeous reverb capture that is church-like without losing the sound up in the rafters. It’s a tastefully selected program of masterpieces, from Silvius Leopold Weiss’ Ciaccona, from Suite No. 10, plus his famous Fantasie No. 9, to the musical precision of Henry Purcell’s keyboard Suite No. 2. Purcell’s music never fails to surprise with its ingenious simplicity. Perhaps less heard, but extremely welcome here, is Telemann’s Siciliana, Vivace and Allegro-the Vivace displays Smits’ completely con dent control at speed. Throughout, the range of the eight strings is exploited with deep understanding of sensitivity to musical coloration. Smits caresses the Weiss Fantasie with tantalizing delicacy, which prepares us for the finale of the recording: Bach’s monumental Ciaccona from BWV 1004. The arrangement is as individual as the elegance radiating from every note, making it an absolute pleasure to truly immerse oneself in the recording. Raphaella Smits is one of a handful of artists with the ability to engage equally in the recording studio and the concert stage, and here she has produced something to be cherished for its warmth and character. This is one of the nest recordings of Baroque music on the guitar to come my way.
(TP - Classical Guitar Magazine.)