Suite Iberia

Since the Brazilian Guitar Quartet was founded in 1998, our repertoire has had two main foci: Brazilian “classical” music (much of it neglected even in our own country), and universally acclaimed masterworks by great composers such as Bach. Iberia, belonging to the latter category, was high on the list of performing and recording projects we had hoped to realize since BGQ’s inception. This CD is the fruit of a long process that involved far more than rehearsals and recording sessions. Our incessant quest for interpretive, technical, and acoustic solutions took us down pathways rarely explored in the guitar world; thus the process was a wonderful education. Our unique formation—two traditional six-string guitars and two eight-string guitars with expanded bass and treble ranges—helped us enormously in making the arrangement. We owe much of our inspiration to the recordings of the great Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha, who, indirectly, was our musical mentor.