The long wait is over for guitar-music aficionados. Sony Classical is now issuing the first-ever complete collection of recordings by the incomparable John Williams. This Original Jacket Collection comprises 57 original albums made over four decades, including his style-crossing collaborations and a DVD. And Williams's recordings of more than 60 works will now be available on CD for the first time, all mastered from the original tapes.
Born in Melbourne but living in London from an early age, John Williams studied at the Royal College of Music and in Siena with Andrés Segovia, who called him a prince of the guitar'. In the years following his acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut in 1958, he gave enormously successful concerts in Paris, Madrid and the Soviet Union, and in 1963 he made his debuts in Japan
and the USA. Described by guitar authority Graham Wade as perhaps the most technically accomplished guitarist the world has seen', Williams was one of the first classical musicians to play at London's iconic Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club and he has also appeared in rock concerts playing steel-strung acoustic and electric instruments, and with his own groups Sky, Attacca, and John Williams and Friends'. His recording of the Cavatina' from The Deer Hunter hit the pop charts (of course it's included in this collection). The long and distinguished list of his musical collaborators includes fellow guitar legend Julian Bream as well as Paco Peña, Itzhak Perlman and André Previn. Composers including Leo Brouwer, Stephen Dodgson and André Previn have
written for him. Williams made his first album - Bach and Spanish repertoire - for Columbia Masterworks in 1964, and seven years later received a special award from CBS Records to celebrate having sold one million records, a unique feat at the
time for a classical musician. Among his most recent Sony Classical releases are The Magic Box', a compilation of classical, folk, world and country music from 2002, and Places Between: John Williams and John Etheridge Live in Dublin'. The complete collection naturally contains these and everything else Williams recorded in between, by composers ranging from Byrd, Dowland, Couperin, Scarlatti and Handel to Paganini, Elgar, Fauré, Falla, Albeniz, Britten, Villa-Lobos, Takemitsu, Theodorakis, Brouwer as well as film music by Nino Rota, Henry Mancini and Ennio Morricone. There's also his intoxicating disc of Venezuelan guitar music, showcasing exceptional solo playing that is both rhythmically charged and lyrically impulsive ... It would be difficult to imagine a finer tribute to a remarkable and appealing musical tradition than this one ... In a word: brilliant' (ClassicsToday). The new box contains no fewer than three different Williams recordings of that most popular of all guitar works, Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez - from 1964 with the Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, from 1974 with Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra, and from 1983 with Frémaux and the Philharmonia Orchestra - plus a performance of its much-loved Adagio in Williams's celebrated 1993 Seville Concert'. That entire concert is presented here too, on both CD and DVD - the latter also including a bonus documentary portrait of the artist. Reviewing his second studio recording of
the concerto, Gramophone in January 1975 proclaimed: John Williams himself has already made one of the finest (versions), yet if possible even more conclusively this new one must be counted a winner, irresistible from first to last. Williams before showed himself the most formidable technician,
rigorously precise: now he shows himself as that and more, giving Rodrigo's ideas extra flair and imagination.' A host of other irresistible Williams recordings came about when he teamed
up with Julian Bream in the 1970s to play guitar duets. The album's huge success led to two sequels. RCA later repackaged the three LPs onto two CDs, adding tracks from the artists' Together - Live' recording. BBC Music Magazine wrote: Bream and Williams make a dream duo, and the three
Together LPs from the seventies are arguably the finest ever made of music for two guitars ... Be warned: buy one, and you'll want the other. That won't be a problem for buyers of this box set: both CDs containing all the "Together" tracks are included in this vast CD/DVD collection.
CD8. MS 7327. Concertos by Vivaldi and Giuliani
CD9. 32 16 0398 . Songs for Voice and Guitar
CD10. M 30057. John Williams Plays Spanish Music
CD11. M 32686. Songs of Freedom - Theodorakis
CD12. M 31194. Music for Guitar and Harpsichord
CD13. LSC-3257. Together (Julian and John)
CD14. 72979. Gowers Chamber Concerto, Scarlatti Sonatas
CD15. M 31963. Previn and Ponce Concertos
CD16. M 35123. Music from England, Japan, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico
CD17. ARL1-0456. Together Again (Julian and John 2)
CD18. 73350. Gowers. Rhapsody for Guitar, Villa-Lobos. 5 Preludes
CD19. M 33208. Rodrigo & Villa-Lobos
CD20-21. M2 33510. Bach. Complete Lute Music
CD22. M 35108. John Williams and Friends
CD23. M 34508. Duos for Guitar and Violin
CD24. M 35172. Castenuovo-Tedesco, Arnold and Dodgson Concertos
CD25. M 35145. Barrios
CD26. M 36680. Malcolm Arnold and Leo Brouwer Concertos
CD27. M 35820. Manuel Ponce
CD28. ARL2-3090. Julian Bream & John Williams Live
CD29. IM 36671. Guitar Quintets
CD30. IM 36679. Echoes of Spain - Albeniz
CD31. SE 37726. Stevie
CD32. IM 37250. John Williams and Peter Hurford Play Bach
CD33. M 37791. Portrait of John Williams
CD34. FM 37825. The Guitar is the Song. A Folksong Collection
CD35. IM 37848. Rodrigo
CD36. IM 39560. Bach, Handel, Marcello. Concertos
CD37. FM 42119. Echoes of London
CD38. FM 42332. Paul Hart Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra
CD39. FM 44575. Fragments of a Dream
CD40. M 44518. The Baroque Album
CD41. MK 44898. Spirit of the Guitar. Music of the Americas
CD42. MK 45948. Leyenda
CD43. SK 46556. Vivaldi Concertos
CD44. SK 46720. Takemitsu
CD45. SK 48480. Iberia
CD46. SK 53359. The Seville Concert
CD47. SK 53361. From Australia
CD48. SK 64396. The Great Paraguayan (From The Jungles of Paraguay)
CD49. SK 68337. Concertos by Harvey and Gray
CD50. SK 62007. The Mantis & the Moon
CD51. SK63000. John Williams Plays the Movies (and The World of John Williams)
CD52. SK 63173. The Black Decameron
CD53. SK 60586. The Guitarist
CD54. SK 63385. Schubert and Giuliani
CD55. SK 89483. The Magic Box
CD56. SK 90451. El Diablo Suelto
CD57. 88697009072. Places Between
CD58. Collaborations (compilation)
DVD59. SVD53475. The Seville Concert (DVD)