Charlotte! Adieu! [CD]

With Charlotte! Adieu!, guitarist Philipp Schmidt dedicates his album to the young musician Charlotte Beslay (nee Levavasseur), a student of Fernando Sor and a talented pianist whose playing is said to have impressed even Rossini. Her early death in 1835 - she died at the age of only about twenty while giving birth to her son - left a deep impression on Sor. In moving memory of her, he composed the Fantaisie elegiaque, Op. 59, whose conclusion bears the words 'Charlotte! Adieu!': a musical farewell full of sincerity and sorrow. In addition to this central work, the album presents selected etudes, lecons, and character pieces from Op. 6, Op. 29, Op. 31, and Op. 35, as well as the meditative miniature Le Calme, Op. 50, and the virtuoso Variations on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 9. On a historical Romantic guitar, Philipp Schmidt allows Sor's music to shine anew in it's original clarity, warmth, and poetic expressiveness.