The following text by “bonzoboy” was posted a couple of days ago on the Gibson Forum website:
A lot of people equate classical guitar and classical music in general as boring and snobbish and aimed at the rich ballet and opera loving crowd and figure that it would be too boring to play.That couldn’t be further from the truth.Classical music and especially guitar is absolutely exciting.I have a pretty large assortment of classical guitar recordings including quite a bit of Eliot Fisk,John Williams and Julian Bream,both together and separately and many others .It would behoove anyone to pick a copy of Eliot Fisk playing Paganini’s 24 Caprices or Pepe Romero doing Boccherini’s Guitar Quintets and Giuliani’s Complete Guitar concertos both backed by The Academy Of St. Martin In The Field with Sir Neville Mariner conducting.I have music for the guitar from its inception to present day and even back during The Rennaisance and earlier guitar/lute pieces could be just as tecnically difficult as what any shredder is doing today-I often scratch and wonder”How did he/she do that?”
I’d advise anyone who hasn’t heard any amount of classical guitar pick up any of the works that I or others have recommended.I especially endorse Eliot Fisk doing Paganini’s 24 Caprices.It’s just incredible beyond words how he could take complicated compositions meant for violin and transpose them for guitar-it’s simply “Brilliant”as is his playing,it’s mind boggling what this guy can do with a guitar in his hands-I doubt that Malmsteen could out-riff him.
Here is Eliot Fisk’s response:
I don’t know who “bonzoboy” is, but I sure would love to meet him… and not just because he says such nice things about me!
20 years ago when I made that Paganini CD I had no idea if it would be a flop or a success.
We send our CDs out into the world like messages in bottle, not knowing if they will be found or, if found, if they will be understood. Not only does “bonzoboy” get my artistic message, he suggests a fundamental problem that also concerns me: the persistent segregation of musical worlds, even now in the vaunted age of the “global economy” and the internet.
I have made many efforts to bridge the gap between so called “classical” and other styles playing with people like Joe Pass, Paco Pena or Bill Frisell. But as “bonzoboy” indicates these efforts are only a start at really having the walls “come tumblin’ down”.
So bravo to “bonzoboy” and let’s keep on fighting the “Battle of Jericho” (as the old spiritual has it!) until the walls really do “come tumblin’ down”!