Agustin Barrios: Collected by Chris Erwich and Frederick Sheppard: Edited by Chris Erwich
Les Productions D’Oz: 166 pages (Ring Bound)
This is the final volume in the set of these ground – breaking volumes. Just a glance at the indexes to the first six volumes (that I haven’t seen, but which is printed at the end of volume 8) is very exciting, and so thorough, and littered with pieces that weren’t available 40 years ago, when I did, what was then thought to be, the complete transcriptions from the recordings, or what was then available in the printed editions of the discovered manuscripts.
After a very thorough 6 pages covering a number of subjects, including the fascinating and at times confusing list of Barrios’ waltzes, there are then 22 transcriptions done by Erwich from the recordings, and then 14 pieces listed as being revised by him, the reasoning behind usually being that the pieces concerned were incomplete, but signed by Barrios, for example, Sante Fe, Invocacion a la Luna, and Romance de la India Muerta to name but three. Then finally there are four pieces from Rico Stover’s archives, revised by Erwich, and lastly, an addendum of three works, revised and arranged by him, making a total of 43 pieces in total, an impressive list.
As I said in my review of Volume 7, I do not intend to compare and contrast any of this material with my own versions from 4 decades ago, but Chris Erwich has been able to compile all this personally, with the help of others, whereas I only had access to the recordings from cassette copies I acquired from Rico Stover.
Therefore as such this set of eight volumes of what is , at the moment anyway, the complete Barrios, is thoroughly mind – boggling in its care ton attention, to detail, and to scope, and I applaud everyone concerned for what is a wonderful set of books.
Chris Dumigan
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