The name of Vladimir Ivanovich Morkov (1801–1864) is known only to those Western listeners who have been faithfully following the recent revival of the Russian seven-string guitar. But even in the context outside of the Russian guitar, Morkov stands out as a musician, music critic, composer, arranger, and pedagogue of the highest order. It is rather that the disappearance of the Russian seven-string after the 1917 October Revolution let the world almost completely forget this exceptional scholar and artist. THE CZAR’S GUITARS consist of Oleg Timofeyev, the world’s renowned expert on the Russian guitar tradition and John Schneiderman, the critically acclaimed virtuoso of plucked instruments (Baroque lute, European and Russian guitars).
