Virtuoso, composer, educator, music researcher - many talents were united in the person of Emilio Pujol. Nobody before him (and hardly anybody after him) had (or has) occupied himself so intensively with the tonal fine points of guitar playing as the Tárrega pupil Pujol, to whom Frank Bungarten pays homage and tribute on his latest album.

Performed on a six-string guitar (spruce/satinwood) fashioned after Antonio de Torres 1883 by guitar maker Gary Southwell (2018), this instrument was designed especially for this recording.

This allows the music to exactly correspond to the meticulousness with which Pujol formed his miniatures. For in his manual Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra, Pujol indicates a systematic path leading to the perfection of playing technique on the guitar. In his opinion such a path is necessary while working toward the goal of the “right music”.

Tonal differentiation plays a substantial role: he is precise in his prescriptions of the fingerings, indicating on which string a note is to be played (sometimes it is only a single string), and one piece is to be performed only with the left hand, which means entirely without plucking by the right hand. After Pujol’s death in 1980 most guitarists turned more toward the piano or the harpsichord; the tirando with the nail replaced the song-like, full sound of the apoyando touch with the full fingertip - and masters like Pujol were forgotten.

Expertly presented by Frank Bungarten, he proves himself the perfect advocate of this repertoire. In particular the Fifteen Variations on a Theme by Dionisio Aguado represent a genuine discovery for guitar connoisseurs. The high-resolution, carefully and lovingly balanced recording shows the composition, Bungarten’s playing, and the wonderful instrument - a Torres copy from the collection of the Paris Conservatory - in their finest audio light.