Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 36-year collaboration with the legendary guitarist Andrés Segovia resulted in 35 works featuring the guitar, including three concertos several large cycles and numerous shorter pieces. Castelnuovo-Tedesco first met Segovia at a festival in Venice in 1932 and composed a new work for the legendary guitarist almost every year afterwards. Among the towering masterpieces in guitar literature is Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Platero y Yo (Platero and I), a cycle of consisting of 28 settings, arranged into four groups of seven-movement suites with a total playing time of 1 hour and 49 minutes. Originally conceived as an accompaniment for a recitation of selections from the Nobel Prize winning Catalan poet Juan Ramon Jiménez’s collection of poetic sketches of the same name, the composer gave his permission for the work to be performed without spoken text, which is how it is performed here. You can read Jiménez’s texts in English translation while listening to the music and enjoying the wonderful illustrations for each movement by the award-winning artist Halfdan Pisket especially commissioned for this recording.

In preparation for bringing this masterwork to life, internationally acclaimed, multi prize-winning Danish guitarist Niklas Johansen not only studies the Spanish language to appreciate Jiménez’s prose-poems in their native language, but travelled to Spain, not far from Jiménez’s hometown of Moguer. The close relationship with the language and culture has lent Johansen’s interpretations a personal resonance.

This album was recorded in Fredensborg Palace Chapel by the Danish masters of sound, Preben Iwan and Mette Due who beautifully captured the exceptional acoustics. We wish to express our sincere thanks to His Majesty King Frederik X, who personally granted us permission to record in Fredensborg Palace Chapel.