New from DOREMI: recently discovered recordings of the legendary guitar duo of Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya live in concert at the Orford Arts Centre in Quebec. In 1962, Presti and Lagoya came to teach at the Jeunesses Musicales summer camp near Mount Orford, returning yearly until Presti’s sudden and tragic death at the age of 42 only five years later. Fortunately, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recorded their sold-out recitals from 1962 and 1963, and included excerpts on two transcription discs meant for broadcast only – with dates for them to be destroyed. Happily, a small number escaped this fate, and DOREMI is honoured to announce the first ever release of music from these concerts. To this we add a recording from the French Radio Network, also meant only for limited radio broadcast.

Beautifully recorded, the sound is far more natural and nuanced than that of their commercial recordings. The programmes provide a panorama of their varied repertoire, including a plethora of superb baroque transcriptions made by Lagoya – a Sonata by the baroque lutenist Lauffensteiner, Vivaldi’s violin concerto Op.3 no.9, and Handel’s keyboard Chaconne – the first two works never commercially recorded by the duo. Sor’s celebrated duet, ‘L’Encouragement’, written for himself and his student Napoléon Coste, is given a sumptuous treatment, and contemporary French composers who wrote for Presti-Lagoya are represented by Daniel-Lesur’s Élégie. Two arrangements by Lagoya round out the recitals, Poulenc’s Improvisation no.12, and Albeniz’s famous Tango. Never heard for well over half a century, here are substantial excerpts from concerts by arguably the greatest guitar duo of the twentieth century – Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya.