Duets with the Spanish Guitar

Reception

AllMusic gave the album three stars. The recording has often been described as a masterpiece. Recording engineer Sherwood Hall III won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Classical Album at the first Grammy Awards in 1959. Terri was nominated for Best Classical Vocal Performance. It has been reported that upon hearing her version of "Bachianas Brasilieras No 5" from the album, composer Heitor Villa-Lobos stated that he considered it the best recorded performance of the work. In 2010, Duets with the Spanish Guitar was inducted into the Fanfare magazine Classical Recording Hall of Fame.

Linda Ronstadt, in her memoir Simple Dreams, wrote that her aunt, singer Luisa Espinel, was a friend of Salli Terri. "Knowing I wanted to sing, Aunt Luisa had sent me a recording, Duets with the Spanish Guitar, which featured guitarist Laurindo Almeida dueting alternately with flautist Martin Ruderman and soprano Salli Terri. It became one of my most cherished recordings." Ronstadt further states that her aunt Luisa helped with research material for her recordings, coached her Spanish pronunciation, and loaned her authentic performance costumes.

The recording is also cited in the biography of poet Anne Sexton by Diane Wood Middlebrook. "They discovered they shared a passion for Laurindo Almeida's guitar rendition of Villa-Lobos's 'Bachianas Brasileiras'. For years afterwards, the fluting voice of Salli Terri on that recording expressed for Sexton an epitome of feeling, a purity the poetry could never reach; its wordless rapture stood for the liberty of those days with Anne Wilder."

On the recording, Almeida arranges standard classical and folk repertoire with Latin musical forms, including the modenha, charo, maracatu, and boi bumba. The result, according to a 1958 issue of Hi-Fi and Music Review was "...a prize winner in my collection. Laurindo Almeida's guitar playing captures the keen poignancy and rhythmic élan of Brazilian music with superb assurance and taste...Salli Terri sings Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with a sinuousness and ecstasy which makes this the finest modern version".

The album received extensive radio airplay and has sold consistently since it was released. In 1990, the album was released by EMI as a CD titled Duets with Spanish Guitar and included six bonus tracks from subsequent recordings.

Track listing

1. "Entr'acte" (Jacques Ibert) – 3:12
2. "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5" (Heitor Villa-Lobos) – 2:24
3. "Ronde" (Émile Desportes) – 2:01
4. "Azulão" (Jaime Ovalle) – 1:28
5. "Prelude in E Minor" (Frédéric Chopin) – 2:13
6. "O Caçador" (Laurindo Almeida) – 1:47
7. "Pastorale Joyeuse" (Desportes) – 2:36
8. "Três Pontos de Santo" (Ovalle) – 4:06
9. "Tambourin" (François-Joseph Gossec) – 1:26
10. "Boi-Bumbá" (Waldemar Henrique) – 1:35
11. "Sicilienne" (Gabriel Fauré) – 4:00
12. "Para Niñar" (Paurillo Barroso) – 2:20
13. "Pièce en Forme de Habanera" (Maurice Ravel) – 2:45
14. "Maracatu" (Ernani Braga) – 3:33
15. "Pavane pour une infante défunte" (Ravel) – [bonus track] 3:53
16. "Passarinho Está Cantando" (Francisco Mignone) – [bonus track] 1:23
17. "Modinha" (Bandeiro, Ovalle) – [bonus track] 2:20
18. "Waltz from the Serenade for Strings" (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky) – [bonus track] 2:53
19. "Canción from Siete Canciones Populares Españolas" (Manuel de Falla) – [bonus track] 1:24
20. "Farrúca" (De Falla) – [bonus track] 2:38

Personnel

Awards

Grammy Awards