Göran Söllscher - J.S. Bach Suites Sonata: Transcriptions For Guitar (1992)

Although the two are often mentioned in a single breath, the temperament, style, and even career details of Swedish classical guitarist Göran Söllsche
r and those of the controversial and famous Japanese guitar virtuoso Kazuhito Yamashita are really just about as different as one could imagine. Yamashita was thrust into the limelight while still a teenager; Söllscher, on the other hand, continued his conservatory studies until his mid-twenties and took his time building up a major international career. Yamashita puts his amazing technical skill on display each and every night (and sometimes gets criticized for doing so).

Söllscher is altogether more reserved, allowing mechanism to dominate only when he feels the music calls for it, giving warm, full-toned renditions of such standards as the Bach lute works, as opposed to flamboyant Yamashita transcriptions. It is not surprising, then, that the world's classical guitarists and classical-guitar lovers tend to sit on one side or the other of the Yamashita-Sцllscher fence as far as next-generation talents are concerned: their approaches are so radically different from one another that most listeners find themselves unable to love them both equally.