William Carter’s two exquisite volumes of a selection of Fernando Sor’s equally exquisite shorter gems have pretty much spoilt me for life and remain the benchmarks against which all subsequent recordings are measured. However, comparing Spanish guitarist Ricardo Gallén’s brilliant, incisive performances of four of the five works in which Sor employed sonata form with Carter’s inward-looking evocations of the 19th-century salon is doing both players a disservice. Both use copies of 19th-century guitars – Carter a Tony Johnson, Gallén an Arnoldo García after Fabricatore – but where Carter uses the flesh of the fingertips, as did Sor in his day, García uses the nails, as did Sor’s famous contemporary Dionisio Aguado. Where Carter favours gut strings, Gallén prefers nylon.

Luckily, both performers do have one work in common, so a useful comparison can be made at least on some level. The work in question is one of Sor’s finest: the Grand Solo, Op 14. Here, having the advantage of long nails, Gallén unquestionably offers a crisper attack and a brassier orchestral illusion; his dynamic range is also correspondingly larger than Carter’s and his interpretation more redolent of the theatre than of the salon. Carter is more suggestive, getting the listener to do the work; the net result is a richer, more subtle listening experience.

Ultimately we are presented with two complementary and equally compelling views of different facets of Sor’s art. I for one am glad to have both.