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Overtures & Dances (2025)

Mela Guitar Quartet
classical guitar

A collection of original arrangements recorded with spatial-audio specialist label TRPTK, recorded August 2024 and released January 2025.

Overtures & Dances matured as a concept through years of touring and performing. Naturally, as we explored repertoire, we found pieces that resonated with audiences and had a special affinity with the quartet. These pieces tended to be ones that had a theatrical element in opera, ballet, or dance.

The possibilities of arrangement enabled by guitar quartet add another dimension, either using the spectrum of timbral colours of the guitar like “an orchestra in miniature” (as the great Andrés Segovia used to say), or to expand the music of one piano between four guitarists to make a rich, sustaining sonority, unobtainable with fewer guitars. We believe this collection of pieces pushes the boundaries of how guitar quartet can be used, but always in a way that best serves the storytelling, lyrical beauty, and often childlike wonder of these works.

tracklist:

Mikhail Glinka (arr. George Tarlton)
Ruslan and Lyudmila: Overture

Claude Debussy (arr. George Tarlton)
Deux Arabesques:
No. 1, Andantino con moto
No. 2, Allegretto scherzando

Camille Saint-Saëns (arr. Daniel Bovey)
Samson et Delilah, Op. 47, Act III: Bacchanale

Maurice Ravel (arr. Matthew Robinson)
Ma mère l'Oye, M. 60
I. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant. Lent
II. Petit Poucet. Très modéré
III. Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes. Mouvement de marche
IV. Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête. Mouvement de valse modéré
V. Le jardin féerique. Lent et grave

Sergei Rachmaninoff (arr. Vyacheslav Gryaznov / George Tarlton)
Polka italienne, TN ii/21

Gustav Holst (arr. George Tarlton)
A Fugal Overture, Op. 40, No. 1

Edward Elgar (arr. Zahrah Hutton)
3 Characteristic Pieces, Op. 10: No. 3, Contrasts: The Gavotte - A.D. 1700 and 1900

Engelbert Humperdinck (arr. George Tarlton)
Hänsel und Gretel: Overture

Joe Hisaishi (arr. Daniel Bovey)
My Neighbour Totoro Suite

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