Duarte: Orchestral and Concertante Works for Guitar, Vol. 2

John W. Duarte was born in Sheffield, England on 2 October 1919. His father was a Scottish soldier, who died in 1919, and he was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents. He started playing the ukulele, but soon moved to the guitar at the age of 15.

The advent of guitar phenomenon John Williams, whom Duarte taught for 18 months before the young musician's entry into the Royal College of Music, London, gave the composer an opportunity to expand his chamber music oeuvre. An article by Williams's father, Len, in The Classic Guitar Journal (January-April 1956) informed readers that 'Duarte is already at work' on what became the Concertante Quartet Op.22, a substantial work in four movements. The 1st movement, in a Neo-Baroque style, is in Sonata form with a substantial guitar cadenza. The sharp-eared listener may hear a reference to the folk song 'Barbara Allen'. The 2nd movement is a lovely lilting siciliana, and the opening theme is first a guitar solo, then for violin with a guitar descant in the style of Renaissance divisions. The 3rd movement, also arranged as a guitar duet for the Presti/Lagoya duo in 1964 under the title Badinerie, also suggests baroque origins.

In 2021 the composer's son, Christopher Duarte, discovered some folk songs arranged for guitar and small orchestra among his father's manuscripts. There is no mention of these arrangements in his list of works and no correspondence relating to their creation, but from the composer's handwriting these probably date from the mid-late 1950s and may have been written for John Williams to play with fellow RCM students. Next Market Day, scored for piccolo, snare drum and strings, is an energetic rendering of an Irish love song which Duarte revisited several times.