As the innovative, world-renowned guitarist Smaro Gregoriadou says in her notes for this stunning new recording, her fourth for Delos, its music offers “encouragement and hope,” and illuminates with “a different kind of light, a different sort of fire.”

The program begins with her beautiful transcription of Bach’s beloved Solo Violin Sonata #2 and offers Britten’s fascinating Nocturnal, along with works by Gubaidulina and Hétu. As Raymond Tuttle put it, in a Fanfare review of one of Smaro’s earlier Delos releases, “Gregoriadou evokes musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, and Wanda Landowska in her willingness to find a new way to express herself and to reanimate the music.”