To me, it is remarkable, given the difficulty of this music, that is has been only a little more than a year since several Fanfare staffers reviewed a different CD devoted entirely to Axel Borup-Jørgensen’s guitar music. That one featured guitarist Leif Hesselberg (joined, in some works by a second guitarist, Maria Camitz), and was released on the Paula label. Surprisingly, these is very little duplication of repertory between that disc and the new one reviewed here, so if you enjoyed the first one, little should hold you back from exploring the second. Borup-Jørgensen, who died in 2012, composed extensively for the guitar. That, in large part, is because accomplished guitarists wanted music from him—not just Hesselberg, but also Ingolf Olsen, Erling Møldrup, Maria Kämmerling, and Per Dybro Sørensen. All of the works on these CD were written for one of those individuals. Frederik Munk Larsen was a student of Møldrup, so he has a connection with at least one of Borup-Jørgensen’s guitar muses. While he looks young (he was born in 1974, though—I guess Scandinavians don’t age like the rest of us!) Larsen has the maturity required to give this music sufficient space in which to breathe. The composer frequently used natural harmonics in these works. Natural harmonics are produced by “lightly placing a finger in the middle of the string while plucking, resulting in a very high, pure sound.” In fact, the 10 pieces in “floating islands” (we hear just four of them here) use nothing but natural harmonics, which creates a very ethereal sound. But let’s not confuse “ethereal” with “pretty.” Borup-Jørgensen’s guitar music is seldom pretty in any conventional sense of the word. In his later works, melody and a clear sense of pulse disappear entirely. Given the brevity of pieces such as “floating islands” and the four sections of Tristrophoni, perhaps it is natural to think of Webern, but filtered through a stripped-down, Scandinavian purity of thought and economy of gesture. However, two earlier works on this CD, praeambula and “für gitarre,” are relatively lengthy—both just over 15 minutes—and less minimal in style. Structurally, they are easier to grasp, but they are more confrontational. The latter, in particular, frequently asks the guitarist to execute violent “Bartók” snaps,” in which the guitar’s strings are pulled back so hard that they rebound against the fingerboard when they are released. At times, the acoustic guitar is made to sound like its electric cousin. At other times in Borup-Jørgensen’s guitar music (not just in the two longer works), the guitar actually ceases to sound like a guitar at all, but more like a new type of electronic instrument. For me, this uncompromising music inspires more respect than affection, but perhaps the latter will come in time. It’s pretty serious, intense stuff. I don’t doubt the composer’s integrity, nor his mastery of alternate guitar worlds. Frederik Munk Larsen plays this music with fierce concentration, even when the dynamics are quiet, quieter, and quietest, as they often are in the later works.