The Aleph Guitar Quartet is one of the most interesting and innovative ensembles in the guitar world. They have performed groundbreaking pieces and have greatly strengthened the position of the guitar in the world of contemporary music. The pieces performed here have all been commissioned by the Quartet.

The French-born guitarist Roland Dyens began studying his instrument at the age of nine. By age 33, he was listed as one of the world’s best by The Guitarist Magazine. Dyens is currently a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Known also as a brilliant arranger, Dyens has chosen some of the most memorable guitar repertoire by late 18th and early 19th - century composers and arranged it for solo guitar and string quartet, specifically the Quatuor Arthur LeBlanc: seven études by the 19th century Catalan composer Fernando Sor; and one of the six Rossiniana composed by Mauro Giuliani on themes from Rossini operas. Dyens also performs Giuliani’s Variations on a Theme by Handel and Sor’s Grand Solo, opus 14 for solo guitar.

In his day Caspar Joseph Mertz (b.1806) was one of the most sought-after musicians in Europe, the court guitarist of Empress Carolina Augusta whose performances (together with his wife Josephine Plantin on piano) became famous throughout Austria, Hungary and Germany. Today he is best remembered for the successful Barden-Klänge, a cycle in which the guitar language of his time was enhanced to a stylistic expressiveness that parted sharply from contemporary works and which was more closely associated with the new, evocative aesthetics of the Romantic composers.

Gone are the days when Kazuhito Yamashita amazed and delighted us with his remarkable transcriptions of "Pictures at an exhibition" or Dvorak's "New World" transcription. 53 years later (Yamashita was born in 1961) has reached impeccable artistic maturity. His prodigious musicality and remarkable virtuosity can be evidenced throughout this double album.

The "Baroque Favorites for Guitar" title of this CD implies that it might be a greatest-hits compilation or a collection of tunes aimed at newcomers to classical music, and the presence of the not-really-Albinoni Adagio among the contents reinforces this impression. In fact, it is nothing of the sort. It is the product of a long study on Isbin's part (of course, this isn't the kind of detail the marketing department is looking for!), study that has resulted in quite distinctive music making. The album includes mostly transcribed concertos, with a few solo works.

It's curious why there are not more compositions for cello and guitar duo. The two overlap greatly in range, have wonderfully complementary timbres, and possess virtually none of the inherent balance problems encountered when pairing the cello with the more commonplace piano. The guitar is often thought of in term of Spanish or Latin-influenced music, and though there have been many compositions written for the cello by composers from these parts of the world, precious few have bothered to incorporate the guitar as a duo partner.

Music both old and new, but all of it inspired by the timeless modal harmony of medieval and Mediterranean cultures: this is the subject of John Williams's brilliant guitar disc for Sony, which also features his debut as a composer. The main work is his own "Aeolian Suite" for guitar and chamber orchestra, based on both original and 14th-century tunes (one of which, the "Saltarello," appeared on early-music pioneer David Munrow's disc called Instruments of the Middle Ages). The suite is a lovely piece of writing, deftly composed, and neither tacky nor pretentious. It's paired with an inspired assortment of spiritually related but diverse arrangements and original pieces by Satie, Theodorakis, Domeniconi, and an emotionally intense four-movement work called "Stélé," by Australian composer Phillip Houghton. Naturally, Williams performs each piece expertly, but most important, he makes his instrument sing, and that's just what the music demands. Simply super.

The playing of many professional classical guitarists leaves me cold. Where they flawlessly execute a score, Bream has spaciously conceived the music using something it seems is in short supply- a disciplined imagination. Each note, instead of sounding like part of an automatic process, sounds conceived and executed deliberately. Bream attended conservatory, where he was told not to bring his "gypsy instrument".

Over the last 20 years, the Naxos label has done a great deal to obtain its reputation as one of the leading classical guitar labels. Its very first guitarist was Gerald Garcia, who was not slow to show the way forward by extending the rather limited guitar repertoire by making arrangements of pieces originally written for other instruments. This is what he has done here, too: None of the music on this disc was written for guitar, it is all arranged by Garcia himself, who plays a modern guitar and definitely not a baroque instrument.