Sérgio & Odair Assad – Saga Dos Migrantes (1996)

Let's just get this out of the way: this is probably the apex of the Assad Brothers' output, which is to say it is probably the greatest classical guitar (duo) record of all times (with the close and sole competition coming from their other records). 

As siblings, Sérgio and Odair always sounded like they made the absolute best of the opportunity to build, pretty much from the cradle, an artistic understanding and a technical synchronicity that bordered on the telepathic. However, even for them, this record sounds like an aesthetic singularity; that freak event when the (conjoined) expressive capabilities of (in this case) musicians transcend the technical constraints of their instruments of choice. 

This is beyond the conventions of classical (guitar) music, but from within - where and when technique becomes a meaningless word, and you can make the instrument bend time and sound like whatever fits your aesthetic needs at any point; not to check your virtuoso card or showcase freakish extended techniques (even though they did enjoy at some point doing their two-guys-four-hands-one-guitar parlor trick, to round up their live shows), but as a pure expressive necessity (and ability) to produce the exact sound that best delivers the idea and emotion at every single point. 

That actually makes them almost co-composers of every piece they did not write (the title suite here is from Sérgio, and one of his best), not only given the absurd richness of their interpretations (as in the way they always make me think more highly of Gismonti's music than Egberto himself performing it usually does), but because, even then, they still manage not to make the pieces about them (as opposed to, say, Al Di Meola’s apish mangling of Piazzolla’s extraordinary Tango Suite - originally written for (and extraordinarily recorded by) the Assad, for good reason). 

In fact, I don’t even think the Assad qualified as a "guitar duo" at this point. When you get to the never-ending layers, textures and nuances of their reading of Ginastera’s first piano sonata, the whole experience turns into something akin to seeing a human being in the middle of the street suddenly take flight, or simply listening to Pawn Hearts: you know some general law of nature was being broken.