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Cannes Classical Award Winner ! SUSANNE MEBES & JOAQUIM FREIRE GUITARS FUGAS Y FANDANGOS Music for two guitars Musique pour deux guitares Mario CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Les Guitares Bien Temperées op.199 Sonatina canonica op. 196 Fuga Elegiaca Enrique GRANADOS Intermedio & Fandango de Candil (new transcriptions from 'Goyescas') Manuel DE FALLA Première Danse Espagnole (from 'La Vie Brève) Danse de la Meunière (from 'El Sombrero de tres picos') CD: LC 44401 FANFARE The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors (USA) «Given the evidence of their past recordings, Mebes and Freire ought to constitute a compelling guitar duo - or maybe not. With solo artists of this caliber, ensemble playing often proves more than problematical. In this case, the result is greater than the sum of its estimable parts. The mercurial Mebes and the more classically reserved Freire play off against each other's strengths, striking a balance that never wavers and that provides the wherewithal for nine extremely convincing and enjoyable performances. The programming cachet of this release lies in its combination of fugue, that most cerebral of musical forms, with the fandango ‹ among the most visceral of musical manifestations. The result is music of the head and the heart that is, like this duo, mutually reinforcing. After a taut and spiky performance of Falla's "Premiere Danse espagnole" from 'La Vida Breve' (transcribed by Pujol and arranged by Mebes and Freire for two guitars) ‹ a reading that throws the metrically plodding gentility of Bream and Williams into relief, the duo shows the depth of its interpretive insight in the three preludes and fugues culled from Castelnuovo-Tedesco's 'Les Guitares bien tempérées', op. 199. This is fine ensemble. The two voices are totally subsumed into the music's constantly evolving textures and provide performances that are at once fully calculated and spontaneous... I hope Mebes/Freire get around to recording the remaining twenty-one preludes and fugues. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's challenging 'Sonatina canonica' is given areading that highlightes its ubiquitous counterpoint and, in the end, makes music of the whole enterprise anyway. The remaining Granados and Falla pieces are given idiomatically consonant and thoroughly delightful readings. The sound is up to Léman Classics' high standards. This one is, not surprisingly, a winner.» William Zagorski LUISTER (Netherlands/Belgium) Mebes and Freire: Two of a kind «... an interpretation in total unison, perfectly united in timbres...Their pleasure of playing as well as their spirit and clarity makes one remotely think of the famous ad-hoc duo Bream/Williams. A better recommendation is hardly imaginable.» more about Susanne Mebes & Joaquim Freire ... more about Susanne Mebes... more about Joaquim Freire ...