What a delight this cd is. From the spacious opening phrase of Irish Landscapes, to the angry and intensely sad final notes of Just Another Day In May, Peter Finger plays the guitar like no other. His compositions are complex and riveting, weaving through their various themes and sub-themes, breaking at times into runs of blistering speed or layers of chords, but the listener is never lost, and the melodies always return to the familiar. And while Finger plays like the virtuoso he is, the listener never feels that he is witnessing a contest – the compositions are refined and every note adds to the whole.
There are pieces of such emotional intensity here that I have to stop whatever I’m doing and just listen. Just Another Day In May is one of those pieces, and it’s a good way to end the collection – I always need 10 seconds of silence to recover afterwards.
Ever since I discovered Peter Finger’s work more than two years ago, I have been collecting all his recordings. This is the cd I bought and sent to a friend after she expressed amazement upon hearing parts of it. And while I now have a number of Mr. Finger’s cd’s in my collection, this was where I started, and it is probably a good beginning for you, too.