Album Notes

There was enough musical excitement for half a dozen normal guitar recitals (...) It is a triumph, no less (...) It is difficult to imagine the work being played any other way.

This was one of those rare evenings of discovery and delight. Bach, Ante Cagalj and the Zagreb Guitar Quartet between them have contributed a magnificent new work to the guitar quartet repertory.

This arrangement brought out all the music, all the delight, all the fun, all the skill of a supreme master near the end of his working life.

Colin Cooper, Classical Guitar (UK), July 2001 (on the Quartet's performance of Die Kunst der Fuge)


The sensational guitar quartet (...) For more than few years I haven't heard something so exciting - after their performance, all that one could do was to get out and scream: VIVA GUITARRA!

Zbigniew Dubiella, Classical Guitar (UK); Swiat Gitary (PL), 1998


The Zagreb Guitar Quartet was founded in 1990 by Ante Cagalj, one of the leading guitar teachers in Croatia. Mr. Cagalj assembled the Quartet from his students and he is still the ensemble's artistic director. The Quartet's current members are Darko Peluzan, Krunoslav Pehar, Tomislav Vasilj and Melita Ivkovic. This experienced ensemble of young musicians has given a multitude of concerts in Croatia and in other countries including Italy, Russia, Poland and India. It has successfully appeared at several prestigious international competitions, winning first prize at Trofeo Kawai in Tortona, Italy (1996) and at Simone Salmaso in Viareggio, Italy (1998), as well as the Grand Prix at the Ghitaralia Festival Competition in Przemysl, Poland (1998). At the Varazdin Baroque Evenings in 1998, the Quartet won the Ivan Lukacic Award for the best performance of the festival. Two years later at this same festival, the Quartet treated the audience to the world premiere of Bach's The Art of the Fugue arranged for four guitars, receiving rave reviews from the well-known magazine Classical Guitar. Some of the major festivals to which the Quartet has been invited include The Split Summer, the Bartok Festival (Szombathely, Hungary), and Florentine Summer.

The Quartet has mastered a huge repertoire ranging from Renaissance and Baroque masters to contemporary composers. It is not afraid to make excursions into jazz and other music, and has made brilliant arrangements of traditional compositions from the Croatian coast and mainland. The Zagreb Guitar Quartet members specialize in works of great masters such as Bach, Couperin and Turina, but are also distinguished by the special attention they pay to living Croatian composers amongst whom Zeljko Brkanovic, Miroslav Miletic, Anđelko Klobucar, Vlado Sunko, Adalbert Markovic, Sanda Majurec, Tomislav Uhlik, Ivo Josipovic and Kresimir Seletkovic have all dedicated original works to this artistically inquisitive ensemble.

The complete repertoire of, and basic information and news about the Zagreb Guitar Quartet have been available since 2001 at www.guitar4.com