Guitar Recital - Denis
Azabagic
Federico Moreno Torroba was the first composer to respond to Segovia's
appeal for new, original repertory for the guitar, something he wisely regarded
as essential to the instrument's revival in the twentieth century. This was to
have long-range effect: One day when I (the present writer) was with Segovia in
his hotel room he showed me a pile of scores on which he was to work; holding
the manuscript of Torroba's Castles of Spain, he said that though he had
just received it he was giving it priority: "He put me first all
those years ago and I will always put him first" and so he did for
the rest of his life. The Sonatina was first performed by Segovia in
Paris (1925) to an invited audience that included Maurice Ravel, who was much
impressed by it. A seductively lyrical Andante is framed by two quicker
movements with lively Spanish dance rhythms. In Spain Torroba is famous for his
many zarzuelas but in the outside world he is best known for his many
works for the guitar, an instrument he did not play.
The Paraguayan guitarist Agustín Barrios Mangoré had great respect for
the music of Johann Sebastian Bach; he is said to have been the first guitarist
to playa whole suite of Bach in concert. La catedral originally
consisted of two movements: the Andante religioso was his response to
the experience of hearing Bach's organ music in Montevideo Cathedral; the Allegro
solemne represents the contrasting bustle of activity in the streets
outside the Cathedral. The Preludio was added in El Salvador about
nineteen years later, subtitled Saudade (yearning). The work as a whole
represents an amalgam of Barrios' Chopinesque romanticism, his veneration of
Bach's music and, in the Allegro solemne, guitar virtuosity. His own
recording of La Catedral in its two-movement form was made in 1925, but
his first recording pre-dates 1910, nineteen years before Segovia's first
session with EMI.
Between 1923 and 1932 Manuel Ponce wrote five sonata-form works for
Andrès Segovia, of which the Sonatina Meridional (1932) was the last,
but none was added in the last sixteen years of his life. Ponce was Mexican but
the Campo (countryside) is that of Spain, as the Copla (couplet)
clearly shows in its evocation of the cante hondo of Andalusia. Its
melody has characteristic melismatic flourishes. It pauses briefly on a
'Dorian' dominant before giving way to the Fiesta, a kaleidoscope of
moods and colours, the perfect complement to the other two movements. As the
end approaches a solo 'voice' enters, apasionado, with further echoes of
Andalusia, and is punctuated by a guitar whose chords add another hemiola (3/4
versus 6/8 time) to those in the Copla. It is a work that encapsulates
the three principal elements of Ponce's style: the classical the romantic and,
in spirit only, the folkloric.
Antonio José was born in Burgos and died in a nearby village, shot by
Franco's Falangist militia, by whom he had been captured two months earlier.
During his short life he occupied only two modest posts, as music teacher in a
Jesuit school and conductor of the city choir in Burgos, but his friends
included liberal artists such as García Lorca (who was also shot two months
earlier) and Salvador Dali, and was championed by the musicologist José Subirá.
Even this distinguished support was insufficient to keep his music in the
public consciousness and it was not until 1980 that interest was aroused by a
monograph "Antonio José, Musician of Castile" by three distinguished
writers. The Sonata was completed on 23rd August 1933 and though the first
movement was performed on 23rd November 1934 by Regino Sainz de la Maza it
appears to have had few performances in its entirety until after its first
publication in 1990. The Sonata was originally conceived as a three-movement work, to which
José later added the Pavana triste, originally written as an independent
piece. It is arguably the most important sonata-form work for the guitar by any
Spanish composer of the pre-war years, not least since it is free from
Spanishry.
The virtuoso pianist
and composer Antonio Ruiz Pipó was born in Granada. He studied the piano with
Alicia de Larrocha and composition with Salvador Bacarisse and others. The
latter part of his productive life was spent in France where, in addition to
pursuing his performing career, he taught at the École Normale de Musique and
the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris. In his youth he played the guitar a
little and this provided him with a working knowledge of the instrument, for
which he wrote numerous works. His music is consistently tonal, his treatment
and harmonization of his thematic material (often deceptively simple-sounding)
is sophisticated, and he revels in sharp contrasts of mood and colour. These
characteristics of his temperament are also evident in the three Estancias (dwelling
places or sojourns in South America, ranches). They are dedicated respectively
to Karl Scheit, Alberto Ponce and Angelo Gilardino.
After the death of
Claude Debussy in 1918 Manuel de Falla was asked to write an article for the
memorial issue of Revue musicale. He did so and added apiece of music,
the Homenaje, pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy, simultaneously
satisfying Miguel Llobet's earlier request for a work. It was first printed as
a supplement to the December 1920 issue of the Revue musicale. Falla had
no detailed knowledge of the workings of the guitar but he borrowed one and,
after two weeks, he produced the Homenaje, a remarkable achievement for
a composer who polished and agonized over his works at great length. The
published score carried some left-hand fingering (barré positions) which
were most probably his own. The first commercial edition was published in
England, together with Falla's immediately-made adaptation for the piano which
is worthy of study, since it contains articulations that are easily possible on
the guitar but which were absent from the guitar edition of Llobet. It is a
brief work, an habanera (not a funeral march), which, as Julian Bream
has said, gives the feeling of being much longer than it is, such is the spell
it casts. Near the end Falla inserts a quotation from Debussy's Soirée dans
Grenade, a memory of his evening meeting with its composer in that city.
Carlos Rafael Rivera
has already acquired a substantial reputation as a composer of folkloric-influenced
music such as his Motet for twelve singers, based on Tibetan Buddhist
chants, and his guitar quartet Cumba-Quin with its infectious Afro-Cuban
rhythms. His works have been widely performed and recorded, and he has received
awards from ASCAP (the American royalty-protection society) and the Guitar
Foundation of America. He is at present studying for a Masters Degree in
Composition as Graduate Assistant at the Thornton Music School, part of the
University of Southern California.
Rivera writes: "Whirler
of the dance was inspired by the name given to Terpsichore (the Greco-Roman
Muse of Dance) by the Greek poet Hesiod. The Prelude is fanfare-like and
reminiscent of Spanish folk-music. The Evocation is of dignified
character, a solemn, personal prayer. The Dance which closes the work is
based on African tribal rhythms. Through tense contrasts between pizzicato and
ordinario passages, the familiar harmonic world of the Prelude returns,
bringing the work to an exhilarating close". To this should be added that,
throughout, it reveals an intimate technical knowledge of the guitar's
capabilities.
John W. Duarte