Christoph Denoth leads the guitar on a moonlit journey through 400 years, from Dowland’s music for lute to a 21st-century premiere.

Theme and variations is a common thread, offering the listener vivid snap-shots of a musical idea in multiple different colours and emotions. Themes undergo a metamorphosis, as they travel from one variation to another, passing on from the nocturnal evocations of Dowland and Benjamin Britten to Weiss and Steve Goss. Besides Giuliani’s virtuosic Rossini paraphrases and Piazzolla’s melancholic tangos, Denoth takes in variations on a fandango and bolero in Brouwer’s Sonata, ending with a perpetuum mobile from his Toccata de Pasquini.