During his career John Williams has not only explored the basic classical literature for guitar, he has also expanded it by inspiring, commissioning and arranging music from different cultures and in different styles, thereby transform the instrument's repertoire. To celebrate this outstanding and ongoing recording career Sony Classical has released a 2 CD retrospective entitled John Williams: The Ultimate Guitar Collection. This thiry-nine track compilation includes key tracks from all John's recent releases including last year's El Diablo Suelto, a celebration of Venezualan guitar music, and 2001's Magic Box on which John joined forces with fellow musicians John Etheridge, Chris Laurence, Paul Clarvis and Richard Harvey to explore the continuing tradition of guitar music in Africa and Madagascar and 1997's The Black Decameron on which John performed music by the comtemporary Cuban composer Leo Brouwer. The Magic Box album also includes guest appearances by Francis Bebey and the African Children's Choir. Designed very much as a gateway into John's substantial recorded catalogue the new album inlcudes many of the great standards of the classical guitar repertoire including Albéniz' Asturias, Stanley Meyer's Cavatina from the film Deerhunter and the ever popular second movement from Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranuez. More populist fare includes transcriptions for guitar and orchestra of the theme tunes from Schindler's List and The Godfather, by namesake John Williams and Nino Rota respectively, both taken from the ...Plays the Movies album released in 1997, the traditional tune El Condor Pasa and the anonymous Romance for Guitar and Orchestra. John is also represented as a composer on the new collection with the Aeolian Chant from The Guitarist.