An air of deja souvent ecoute hangs over this programme, only one item of which has less than three other currently listed recordings (Asturias has 16!); it is back to the cliche of 'Spanish music' and the bosom of the 'Segovia repertoire', the guitar's most familiar public image. Haven't things moved on a little from there? Yes, of course they have, though few guitarists of Hispanic origin (Ramirez is Chilean by birth and two of his three teachers were Spanish 'conservatives') encourage the notion. In his notes he states that ''Spanish music has shown, that the sources of tonality have not yet run dry'', but the same might be said of that of many other countries. Nor does he mention that the composers who formed Spain's neo-romantic spearhead travelled north to study, distancing themselves from Italian influence, not Viennese classicism—by then long overtaken by romanticism.
In the presence of such familiar repertory it would be unrealistic to expect interpretatively revelatory performances and, indeed, such are not forthcoming. What we have is very good ones by a musical, clean and disciplined player, with a few of the vibrato-laden languishings for which Segovia was famous—and some enthusiastic rasgueados and hard sounds to which Segovia would have reacted disapprovingly. It is a fine recording but inessential to anyone who already has some of the excellent alternative versions of these pieces, and it is a curious way for a young artist to announce his individuality to the record-buying public.'