On this CD with virtuoso pieces for the guitar you hear music by Johann Kaspar Mertz, Antonio Giménez Manjón, Fernando Sor, Dionisio Aguado and Mauro Giuliani. The soloist Jakob Henriques was born in 1972 and received his soloist’s diploma from the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm in 1997. He has been a soloist with several Swedish orchestras, including twice with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Okku Kamu and Niklas Willén. Among his awards can be mentioned that Jakob has been awarded the maximum stipend for foreign studies from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He has won first prize and runners-up in several international guitar competitions. Jakob has had solo recitals at music festivals in Sweden, Italy, and the US. He has participated in a handful of CDs, two of which are solo recordings with original music for guitar that can regularly be heard on the Swedish Radio. He is also often engaged as jury member at international guitar festivals in Sweden and Italy, as well as being a popular teacher of master classes at several of Sweden’s conservatories. Since the spring of 2004, Jakob is the artistic director of the Swedish music festival Music Days in Gryt. Jakob is heard also on nosag CDs 063, Schubert Lieds, on 089, Jakob Henriques, guitar and on 094, Scheherazade, together with violinist Jonas Lindgård. Please visit Jakob Henriques homepage. You need Real Audio to listen to this file: Johann Kaspar Mertz: Fantaisie Hongroise Listen to all nosag CDs on the air: "YESS music" with the whole CD-catalogue of nosag records

THE CRITICS:

MusicWeb: "Jakob Henriques has won prizes in several international competitions. In this recital he shows why he has been so successful. He has a fluent technique that allows him to execute even the most difficult passages effortlessly. He has a natural feeling for rhythm and his phrasing is exquisite. He uses rubato but never overdoes it. You then add to this a beautiful sound from his instrument, very well recorded in this little Swedish church and with some air around it but not so much as to create a cathedral acoustic. The choice of music is agreeable and rather undemanding – for the listener, that is; the guitarist has a many Everests to scale, which he does with flying colours. (---) I couldn’t help playing the whole disc straight through twice after I had had my first traversal. The best way of appreciating this recital is to just sit back, shut your eyes, bask in the southern sunlight that permeates all these compositions, and enjoy the wonderful playing of this superb musician. Strongly recommended."

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