After a rather long hiatus the disc-doctor is back. The time away was well spent, of course, completing a degree in advanced discology, but as the saying goes, time waits for no man, and since my last examination of the classical guitar recordings catalog more discs have been released than you can shake a conductor's baton at. To ease gently back into my bi-monthly analysis of what's-hot and what's not, I'm going to stick to the artists featured in our upcoming International series. If there's anyone on that list with whom you're not already familiar, then read on for a full background check of their body or work thus far.

Any member of class who does not already own at least one David Russell recording should be made to stay behind for detention. With the possible exception of John Williams, David's recorded catalog is probably the largest that remains in print and enjoys major distribution. (The bottom-line driven decision making of the major recording labels means that sadly the huge catalogs of Bream, Romero, Fernandez and Fisk et al remain in large part confined to the depths of some great warehouse-in-the-sky, or chopped up and regurgitated in an endless stream of greatest-hits style collections that might tempt a new listener in but leave them with nowhere else to turn. But that's a topic for another column!) David's long list of outstanding recordings is an achievement that was rightly rewarded with a Grammy for his Aire Latino disc, a collection of Latin American music that includes some old chestnuts and some new discoveries, like the delicious Se Ela Perguntar.

Other highlights for me include his Barrios recording (a must for every CD collection!), last year's Spanish Legends, and his Baroque collection. All these recordings were made for the Telarc label, but don't forget about the two earlier gems released by GHA - a collection of 19th century music and a collection of Baroque transcriptions. Fabulous playing!

Michael Partington's recordings for the Rosewood label cover a broad mix of styles, and each disc is in a recital-like format, rather than featuring one particular composer. Two recordings focus on music of the 20th Century, (the imaginatively titled 20th Century Guitar and yes, you've guessed it, 20th Century Guitar, volume II). They manage to cover a number of different composers in an effort to reflect the variety of music written specifically for our instrument in the last 50 years or so. The collection Song and Dance includes music from Dowland to the present day, a traditional guitar smorgasbord with something from each of the major stylistic periods of Western Music. Refreshingly the program avoids most of the old war horses and prefers to highlight some of the often overlooked gems of the repertoire. Sonatas and Partitas presents 5 major items that arguably trace the development of large scale musical form for a solo instrument, with music from Bach, Sor, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Rodrigo and a wonderful new work written for Partington by Portland composer Bryan Johanson. This recording has received international recognition and was picked by both the Seattle Times and the PI as one of their discs of the year when it was released.

The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet have a new CD out this year featuring some of their own transcriptions. Music from Piazzolla and Albeniz, plus Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition make this disc an engaging and exciting aural experience. When listening to a guitar quartet, one finds it hard to avoid drawing comparison with the LAGQ and I'm glad to say the MGQ measure up quite well, thank you. Their ensemble is impeccable - and that's no mean feat, as anyone who's ever tried to play guitar along with someone else will testify! Their transcriptions also make good use of an extended range, made possible with the use of added frets and imaginative tunings. But, it's not all bells and whistles - their musicality is mature and intelligent and shows good stylistic variety. Rather than make all the music sound like them, they actually makes themselves sound like the music! Their other two previous recordings are dedicated to music written specifically for four guitars, and one of these is a disc of pieces commissioned by the quartet. All three recordings go a long way to proving that four guitars doesn't simply mean being able to play more notes at a time than one or two guitars - the textural and tonal possibilities are seemingly endless, and the MGQ, to their credit, strive to take them to their limit.

Adam Holzman is sadly not the household name in the guitar community that he really deserves to be. An outstanding player and teacher he has become one of the most important and influential guitarists in this country. His program at the University of Texas in Austin has been pumping out students of a very high calibre, and between him and his brother Bruce (at Florida State) their students have become the competition winners to beat. Meanwhile Adam has been slowly amassing a wealth of recordings for the Naxos label: two CDs featuring the music of Ponce (the first including the 24 Preludes and a host of shorter works, the second featuring the two 'baroque style' suites, the works for guitar and harpsichord and others); a disc devoted to the music of Antonio Lauro; a complete recording of Mertz's Bardenklange; and two discs of Fernando Sor - the Opp. 22 and 25 sonatas, both monumental and sadly underplayed works, and a mixed collection, including the Op. 54 Morceau de Concert and the recently discovered Fantasie. Adam is also credited as being the first person to perform the music of Roland Dyens in North America, and his first recording (for the HRH label) includes the atmospheric Saudade Nr. 3, as well as music by Byrd, Bach, Giuliani (the delightful Op. 71 Nr. 3 Sonatina) and Sergio Assad's Aquarelle. For more on Adam see the April 2006 issue of Classical Guitar Magazine - it's the one with him on the cover! Next time I'll be catching up on the slew of CDs that have flooded the shelves while I was writing this piece.