Laura Lootens’s first collaboration with naïve, ‘Diabolico’ leads us into a world of strange tales and pacts with the devil and other ghostly apparitions which actually form the core of a magnificent journey in sound, covering an extremely varied range of styles.

A soothingly tranquil introduction, the opening movement of The Devil’s Trill Sonata of Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) here serves as a prelude to the transformations of the last of Paganini's Caprices, the supreme incarnation in music of the devil, composed by George Rochberg (1918–2005).

These Caprice Variations make up an intriguing musical kaleidoscope of fifty-one variations which sometimes remind one of Bach, Brahms, or indeed Paganini's own wild flashes of lightning, yet they are also founded upon more modern, even experimental ideas - a captivating play between past and present which Laura Lootens represents here with eleven of her favourite movements.

Afterwards comes a work by Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) himself, the Grand Sonata for violin and guitar, played here by guitar alone. In this piece, the fruit of an utterly devilish joke, Paganini made sure that the more difficult part was given to the guitar, with the violin in fact playing only a simple accompaniment.

The second part of this journey occupies more modern terrain, with three important large scale works for guitar.

With its disjointed rhythms, its exaggerated dynamic contrasts, and its sudden changes of mood, the Capriccio diabolico by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) combines scorching energy and delicately hued melodies.

The Due canzoni lidie by Nuccio D’Angelo (born in 1955), with its heady poetic sensibility, evokes two complementary aspects of some ancient, forgotten, but evidently magical world.

Finally, the German guitarist, who won the Premier Prix at the Concours Andrés Segovia in 2022, offers the indispensable and intoxicating Invocación y danza by Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999), a diptyque inspired by the flamenco tradition, its initial desperate supplication (Invocación) followed by an explosion of rhythm (Danza) as intense as it is tragic.

Throughout, Laura Lootens calmly asserts her style, with playing of intimacy, ease and refinement, as if the guitar had been transformed into a lyre.