Don't judge a book by its cover, or indeed this disc by the familiar look of most of its programme. There are many guitarists whose technical skill enables them to play music well, but fewer are true musicians who just happen to have chosen the guitar as their medium; Norbert Kraft is one of these latter. The title of the album conceals the programme's underlying purpose: it is an early homage to Segovia, the centenary of whose birth will be in 1993, paid through works that ''were either written for the great maestro... or were played by him in the form of arrangements''. The wording is careful: Falla's Homenaje was not written for Segovia, but he recorded it long ago in Miguel Llobet's version (Brunswick, 9/53—nla), and I do not recollect ever hearing him play some of the items of Villa-Lobos; the whole is however an apt statement of the essence of 'the Segovia repertoire'. The temptation to extend the 'homage' by playing the music as Segovia played it is one which Kraft wisely eschews—no sedulous ape he. His shaping of the music is refined, but his rubatos are his own and not those for which Segovia was famous (or infamous, according to your point of view), and though his tone is liquid and no less honey-coloured it, too, is his own.
The Danish guitarist Leif Christensen, tragically killed a few years ago, was the most musically gifted and technically secure of all those who were not household names; that medal must now be pinned on Norbert Kraft—and only the lack of attendant 'hype' is likely to hamper his universal recognition as what he is: one of the finest living guitarists. The magnificent quality of the recording is just one more reason why you should waste no time in seeking it out.'