A fine program, recorded in January 1989, with the two great masterpieces of 20th Century British guitar (and two Julian Bream commissions), Britten's 1963 Nocturnal and Tippett's The Blue Guitar from 20 years later, and a commission by guitarist Norbert Kraft, Le Cri de Merlin by Canadian R. Murray Schafer (1987).Kraft is a very atmospheric performer but not always the most precise. Recorded in January 1989, he plays the old ordering of the movements of Tippett's The Blue Guitar, as performed by Julian Bream and as originally published, with the fast movement, "Juggling", at the end. Tippett later changed his mind and reverted to the original order in which he had composed those three movements, with Juggling in the middle, building a slow / fast / slower arch. That's how it was recorded by all subsequent versions, starting with David Tanenbaum in May-June 1990 on New Albion (Acoustic Counterpoint). Kraft offers a good version of The Blue Guitar, very atmospheric and with some great personal touches (like his very dry and explosive strumming of the chords, notated forte and "strong" by Tippett, in the passage starting at 2:40 in the first piece, "Transformation"), though not devoid of surprising rhythmic errors. That his beat should be very flexible (or his rubato very pronounced) at the beginning of "Transformation", changing some 3/4 measures into 2/4, or in the other slow movement, "Dreaming", may be ascribed to an acceptable interpretive freedom and expressiveness, although in new music I'm not sure that it is as welcome as in the much-trodden standard repertory. I would also have been inclined to attribute the missing beat of silence at 1:46 in the second piece, "juggling", to an editing blooper. But that his "tapping" rhythm at 1:55 and after in the same is wrong can be attributed only to him. Among the versions I've heard, David Tanenbaum and Craig Ogden on Nimbus (Tippett: The Blue Guitar - 20th Century Guitar Classics) are equally atmospheric and more precise rhythmically (I'd even call Tanenbaum "strict"), and Ogden, at a more pressing tempo, brings out better the scherzando nature of "Juggling".Kraft is equally atmospheric in Britten's Nocturnal, although the concluding Passacaglia elicits more of a funeral and almost menacing atmosphere when taken (as Ogden does) slower than Kraft's relatively swift tempo. But in the penultimate section of same movement, starting at 2:44,, before the appearance of the Dowland air on which the whole composition is based, Kraft doesn't play the rhythms of the pervading ground bass as written - and one wonders why, as they pose no difficulty.None of those small inaccuracies are truly important and none are likely to impair enjoyment, but listeners who'd want both atmosphere AND to hear the pieces exactly as their composers notated them are advised to go to Ogden, my reference in both works. Furthermore, with at TT of 71:34 vs Kraft's 52:13 and, at the time of writing, an offer price that can hardly be lower, Ogden also offers much better value for money.But those reservations notwithstanding, it is the piece of Schafer that is the prize of this recital and makes it still worthwhile, not primarily because it is its premiere and, so far as I know, only recording, but because it is a great piece. R. Murray Schafer is a composer whose tonal imagination I've had occasion to admire and laud (see for instance my review of his string quartets, 5 String Quartets), and once again this extended guitar piece (in six movements playing without break, with a total duration of circa 17:30 minutes) makes use of many advanced techniques, micro-tonal slides, bizarre manners of strumming, wild tremolos and flurries in the high-pitched registers, but all at the service of great color and evocativeness. The piece is inspired by the composer's and the interpreter's shared love of "the solitude and beauty of the country" and of "the secluded wilderness". It evokes the Arthurian wizard Merlin, retreating into the forest to flee the advance of civilization which is weakening his powers, and "seeking solace with the birds and animals". To further quote the liner notes, "various programmatic motifs are introduced, modified, superimposed and repeated, suggesting the random order of sounds emerging from a forest soundscape". Even those "extraneous" sounds of fingers sliding on metal strings, which seem to be the plague of guitar playing, seem here to be integrated in the music's very fabric, as in the piano music of Cowell or Crumb (track 15 at 1:12 for instance). At the end, real sounds of birds are introduced, as in Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus, "suggesting the full integration of the music and its source of inspiration".