Edin Karamazov ‎- The Lute Is A Song (2009) Lossless

From the tongue-in-cheek self-styled “second most famous lutenist in the world” comes a release that’s as unusual and distinctive as Edin Karamazov’s own playing. What other lutenist would open his disc with Leo Brouwer’s Paisaje cubano con rumba, originally for four guitars but here played on a single, multi-tracked electric guitar, and follow it by accompanying Sting on archlute as the latter sings his own “Alone with my thoughts this evening”?
Karamazov was always a great player – technically superb, musically imaginative and never afraid to take risks. But when he and Sting recorded an album of songs by English Renaissance master John Dowland (A/06), he found himself achieving almost superstar status overnight – no mean feat for a lutenist. Thus “The Lute is a Song” is in many ways designed to appeal to a broad, albeit relatively sophisticated, audience.
And appeal it should: after all, who can resist a fabulous, Eastern-sounding lute version of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor (certainly not all those Sky fans out there)? Or a lute version of Carlo Domeniconi’s Turkish delight Koyunbaba, normally heard on classical guitar but here given a mind-bending reappraisal on a 14-course Baroque lute? Purists aren’t forgotten either, a stylish account of Giovanni Zamboni’s Sonata and a superb rendering of Handel’s “Oh Lord, whose mercies numberless” from Saul with countertenor Andreas Scholl being among the choicest items in this vein.
And the most famous lutenist in the world? As Karamazov says to Sting in the latter’s amusing booklet-note, “You are, my friend…but it has nothing to do with talent!”