Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra

Written for Norbert Kraft, the Guitar Concerto consists of six short movements, played without a break. While writing the work I was conscious of the Fibonacci number series by which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, thus: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55.... This series affected the shaping of the piece to a certain extent and can be sensed immediately in the guitar line of the opening toccata.

Of all my concertos, this is the most neglected, having only been performed once, which is strange since I consider it to be better than most twentieth-century guitar concertos. As one of the two orchestras participating in the original commission, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra was supposed to play it but never did. I complained both to the MSO and to the Canada Council who imposed this condition when they provided the funds, but I received no satisfaction from either the commissioner or the patron. As a result I prohibited any of my works from being performed by the MSO, a resolution in force now for many years without grief to either party. R. Murray Schafer