Hey!

We're back from our summer break, and while some of you are probably traveling and enjoying a well-deserved time off, playing concerts or preparing for them, there have been lots of new releases and exciting musical developments.

Laura Snowden has released a beautiful first single from her debut album, we had the pleasure of interviewing the wonderful musician and guitarist Ricardo Gallén about polyphony on the guitar, and we discovered an album by Misael Barraza-Diaz that really packs a punch and has been an excellent companion for us during this break. Leon Albert is also resuming his routine with his practice pieces, this time diligently conjuring up enharmonic equivalents.

Before we get started with the content, however, we would like to share something with you that we are really excited about:

For more than a year and almost 30 issues, we have been putting our heart and soul into this newsletter. So far, we have managed everything ourselves, in terms of both time and finances, from research and writing to editing and translation, and everything else that goes on behind the scenes to get it into your inbox. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful team: Christian (translation) and Fab (Management).

Now we are all the happier to have found a great partner in Duke Guitars, who will support us in continuing to fill this newsletter with exciting artists and stories in the future.

A big thank you to Duke Guitars and, of course, to you, who have been with us for so long.

We hope you enjoy reading, listening, and watching.

Stefan and Willi

YOUTUBE FIND OF THE WEEK
with Laura Snowden

We may have raved about Laura Snowden's music here and there in this newsletter before. But as Laura consistently composes such wonderful music that is always unusual, unique in style, and always enriched with a touch of magic, there’s no getting around her.

Today's video of the week is the first single, the prelude, so to speak, to her debut album, The Changing Sky, which will be released in October.

What's unusual this time is the combination of guitar and saxophone. The fact that Laura herself plays the accompaniment to her composition shows that the music is her main focus. After all, with a debut single, she could easily have put herself and her guitar in the spotlight. The wonderfully melancholic melody line of the saxophone and the sparse, delicate accompaniment create the magic here.

We are thrilled. Once again. And: looking forward to the album!

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
with Misael Barraza-Diaz

After the summer break, we want to offer you something special with our album of the week, too. And here it is! (We're listing the track order for once, so you can savor it as you read.)

Ponce's “Intermezzo,” Bach's “Overture in the French Style (B minor),” Haydn's “Theme and Variations in C Major,” Assad's “Un bouquet pour Julia.”

Now take your time and let the tracks be served to you by the exceptional Mexican guitarist Misael Barraza-Diaz. Precise, suspenseful, unobtrusively virtuosic, and multifaceted. In short: tasteful!

We are impressed by the CD! Believe us, after listening to the first movement of Bach, pressing the stop button will be a cause of great inner turmoil.

Enjoy!

MORNING-ROUTINE
A coffee with Leon Albert

Hi Leon, what’s the routine for this week?

Pointless thought loops are extremely annoying, unless they become music. That was the case with this piece.

The routine and challenge of this edition is probably the topic of enharmonic equivalence. I would appreciate feedback on whether you think I should have notated it differently. I chose what I thought was the most logical approach in terms of music theory. Only you can decide whether that is good for readability. Please let me know! If it is not easy to read, at least you will be preparing yourselves for those suboptimal cases that occur time and again in practice.

KNOW-HOW
with Ricardo Gallén

What happens when multiple voices on the guitar not only overlap, but move through a piece like independent characters, in dialog, in conflict? Ricardo Gallén, known to most as a guitarist and teacher, is a real pro in making these relationships audible and how to compose polyphonic music in such a way that each line retains its own weight.
We asked him how he approaches new pieces, how he recognizes the roles of the individual voices, how he passes this intuition on to his students, and what he personally finds most difficult and at the same time most beautiful about working with independent voices. At the end he also provides a refreshing answer to our poster question, which we hope will inspire you in the coming weeks! We are very grateful to Ricardo Gallén for taking the time to answer our questions.

Hi Ricardo, when you begin working on a new polyphonic piece, what helps you first get a sense of the musical texture?
When I approach a polyphonic piece, I begin far from the guitar: I sit at the piano and play each voice on its own, letting it speak, breathe, and reveal its direction. This way, I don’t just see notes; I hear characters in conversation. Once I understand who carries the narrative at every moment, I trace the tension and release – cadences, dissonances, suspensions – that give life to the texture. I always strip the music down to its “skeleton,” like a simple basso continuo, before carefully rebuilding the full score. Only then I return to the guitar, working on articulation, fingering, and ornamentation so each voice keeps its identity within the whole.

How can understanding the structural role of each voice help us play polyphonic music more clearly and expressively?
Understanding the structural role of each voice is essential for historically informed interpretation of polyphony. Baroque composers like Bach wrote voices as characters in dialogue, not as equal notes. Knowing which voice carries the subject and which offers support allows us to shape dynamics, articulation, and tone accordingly – projecting the theme, softening accompaniment, and even adjusting hand balance to create clear layers. It also informs phrasing and breathing, aligning with Baroque rhetoric where music “speaks.” This hierarchy prevents flat dynamics and transforms a fugue from an academic exercise into a vivid, historically grounded musical discourse.

When working with students, how do you help them develop a deeper awareness of the individual voices in polyphonic music – beyond the visual or mechanical aspect of the score?
I ask my students to handwrite a three- or four-voice fugue, each voice on a separate staff. Once each horizontal line is written, using several sheets of acetate and different colored markers, I have them add on each transparent sheet – overlaid on the score – the articulatory silences, on another the slurs for musical phrasing, dynamics, fingering for each hand, and finally one sheet for the basso continuo chords. This way, by layering the sheets, they can see all the information together or isolate a single layer to work on specific aspects. Of course, all of this must be supported by reading the most important historical treatises and listening period instrument recordings.

What do you personally find most challenging – or most rewarding – about shaping independent voices on the guitar?
The guitar is inherently homophonic, favoring chords and resonance, yet performers strive to create the illusion of polyphony comparable to a harpsichord or string trio. The primary challenge lies in sustain: the sound decays rapidly, requiring careful planning of shifts, fingerings, and string choices to enable each voice to “sing.” Awkward fingerings are often employed to maintain a consistent timbre within a single voice. Articulation and dynamics are equally crucial, allowing one line to remain legato while another is detached, or one goes in crescendo as another does in decrescendo. The reward? When it stops sounding like guitar music and becomes a living dialogue of voices.

In your work with transcriptions of polyphonic keyboard or lute music: what principles guide your choices when adapting a score to the guitar’s limitations and strengths?
In any contrapuntal music, the independence and logic of the voices is sacred. If a note is structurally part of a voice (a subject entry, a suspension, a passing tone that defines the line), I’ll do everything to keep it – even if it requires a non-standard fingering. But if a note is purely a doubling or a filling tone that doesn’t alter the contrapuntal logic, I might omit it when necessary to preserve the line’s flow. But I try to avoid “guitaristic” shortcuts that distort the voice leading – for example, I won’t collapse two independent voices onto one string if it kills their independence. I often choose a technically harder fingering because it gives a clearer polyphonic result.

Imagine you could have one sentence printed on a poster to be put up in huge numbers at all the (classical) music festivals in the world. What sentence would that be?
Learn the rules, break them, innovate.

More about Ricardo: https://ricardogallen.com/

FEEL-GOOD TUNE OF THE WEEK
with ATOS Trio

An upbeat and positive melody! It makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. Or take a look at the sky in the middle of the day. Stress? Bad news? Put on your headphones, let your hair blow in the wind and jump on the good mood train!

Our feel-good tune of the week!

OUTRO

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to send us your suggestions and comments directly in response to this issue. As always, you can find new music discoveries, including artists we wrote about in today's issue, in our Spotify playlist for the newsletter, which we have linked below.

Be good to each other.

Stay tuned!  

Stefan & Willi

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New Classical Guitar is a newsletter by Willi Leinen and Stefan Degel from TMBM. You can find our music and more information about our journey at http://t-m-b-m.com/.

On Spotify, we curate a playlist with our favorite pieces. Feel free to follow our New Classical Guitar Playlist at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZwxJRAsW9Zs2JiS2eLy6a?si=9b2a737f01c043a4 and recommend new additions.