*** Résumé en anglais seulement ***
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hundreds of guitar music prints and booklets were produced throughout France and Italy, many of which are still extant. However, the instrument’s country of origin, Spain, only has nine remaining books for the instrument from this time. Half of these solo works come from the guitar composer Santiago de Murcia (1673-1737). His fourth book, Cifras selects de guitarra from 1722, includes a variety of Spanish variations and only resurfaced a few years ago in Santiago de Chile. The original intent of this release was to record only pieces from this recently discovered book, and a large portion of works chosen for this release are indeed from this literature. Other works are also included, however, as the producers became more and more curious about the versions of these songs contained in other books. The ensemble Private Musicke was founded in 1998. The majority of their repertoire hails from the early Renaissance to the late Baroque, and the ensemble frequently performs in viol consort formation. Their previous recordings have won numerous awards from Gramophone, BBC Music, and more.