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The Guitar and Myself - by Andres Segovia
This autobiographical sketch which I am undertaking, limited by time
and
space, cannot be a river of sweeping and continuous current. Rather, it
must
be more like a chain of small lakes reflecting the past episodes of a
life.
I ask the reader’s indulgence for the frequent and sudden changes of
personalities,
subjects and scenes. In spite of the rambling character of this
narrative,
two figures will travel through it constantly: the guitar and myself...
The eminent Spanish (Catalan) composer Jaime (Jaume in Catalan language)
Pahissa (1880-1969) was likely the first Spanish musician (non
guitarist)
to
write a piece for Andrés Segovia. In 1919, he composed "Canco en
el
mar" (A
Song On The Sea), dedicated to the guitarist, when this had yet to
achieve
his fame. Written optionally for piano, the piece has never been
mentioned
by Segovia, in spite of the very respectful words he dedicated in his
autobiography to Pahissa. It has just been published in the series "The
Andrés Segovia Archive".
On 1938, one year after leaving Spain as an exiled artist, Pahissa
wrote
in
Buenos Aires a delightful set of guitar pieces entitled "Tres temas de
recuerdos" (Three Themes of Recollection), again for Segovia, but he
never
delivered them to the maestro. It was Pahissa's widow, ten years after
the
death of the composer, who sent them to Segovia with a touching letter,
on
1979. Too late for having the great guitarist to absorb such a demanding
work.
The manuscripts (there are two, both in fair copies, and needing for a
strong editorial approach) have been found in the Segovia archive at
Linares, not by myself, but by one of my cooperators, the young Italian
guitarist Luigi Attademo, one month ago. They were - so as to say - out
of
place: Segovia did not store them with his manuscript music, but among
the
pages of a publication, where nobody had been lead to search
manuscripts.
Another first rank Spanish composer - so far not related to the guitar
-
has
been added to the list of those authors who, in the first half of the
20th
century, gave their powerful contribution to the repertoire of the
instrument. Which seems really an endless mine...
AG
The distinguished composer from Colombia, Guillermo Uribe Holguin,
(1880-1971) one of the founders of the national musical life in his
country,
had written a Suite in three movements for Andrés Segovia on
1946.
It was in the Segovia museum, it has been found one month ago by the
Italian
guitarist Luigi Attademo - a close cooperator of mine in the recovery
of
the
hidden Segovia's repertoire - and it will be published in "The
Andrés
Segovia Archive" as soon as possible.
The scholar of Colombian music, who wrote also the catalogue of Uribe
Holguin works, Dr. Ellie Anne Duque, will write the introductory essay.
As usual, the publication will offer a text edited by the team
Gilardino-Biscaldi and the facsimile reproduction of the original
manuscript.
A remarkable piece indeed, and a powerful addition the the
Latin-American
guitar repertoire, outside the folkish music.
AG
==========
When going back to Spain, and settling in Madrid, Segovia was
finally able to get back from the person who had watched his papers
during
his absence, his books and his music. Well, simply and brutally said:
Segovia never had time to look at those music papers again, and he did
not
know exactly what he had and what he had missed. It was easier for him -
when somebody asked him about a paper of those years - to tell that
"they
had been missed in the Civil War", because after all and in a way, it
was
not untrue. A common friend (who perhaps reads this message) told
me
recently that, on the occasion of his last visit to Segovia's studio in
Madrid, the maestro - with indicating a dusty pile of papers, told him:
"Who
knows what there is in that mine! Somebody will take care of them one
day,
you may rest assured".
AG
===============================================
MAY 13 2004
Three years ago during these days (May 9th, 2001) I announced in this
NG as
well as in other sources of informations about the classical guitar
that I
had been allowed to open the sealed cases containing the music
manuscripts
of maestro Andrés Segovia. On that occasion, I took on myself the
responsibility of the publication of all the works written for him by
distinguished composers - mainly works which had been left unpublished
and
which Segovia had not performed. At the distance of three years, I
think I
can remark the fact that I have filled my duties: the new series "The
Andrés
Segovia Archive" - which has been completed - has made available during
these time 25 books with pieces whose relevance in the history of the
guitar
and within the frame of its repertoire go beyond any discussion. Here
the
list of the published works:
Vicente Arregui
Piezas liricas
Lennox Berkeley
Quatre Pièces pour la guitare
Pierre de Breville
Fantaisie
Gaspar Cassadó
Works for Guitar
Henri Collet
Briviesca
Ettore Desderi
Sonata in mi
Pierre-Octave Ferroud
Spiritual
Aloÿs Fornerod
Prélude op. 13
Vito Frazzi
Due pezzi
Hans Haug
Works for guitar
Raoul Laparra
Cuadros
Henri Martelli
Quatre Pièces
Federico Mompou
Canción y Danza
Suite Compostelana
Federico Moreno-Torroba
Sonata-Fantasia
Jaume Pahissa
Canço en el mar
Tres temas de recuerdos
Raymond Petit
Sicilienne
Fernande Peyrot
Thème et Variations
Ida Presti
Segovia
Pedro Sanjuan
Una leyenda
Padre José Antonio de San Sebastián (Donostia)
Errimina
Cyril Scott
Sonatina
Alexandre Tansman
Posthumous Works for Guitar
Guillermo Uribe Holguin
Pequeña Suite
To these 25 books, at the end of the program of publication, I have
added
one, with a piece written for Segovia, but not during the years of his
glory. Here, with the permission of the publisher, I reproduce the
foreword
introducing the 26th book of the series. Given or taken two or three
possible - but not certain - additions to the series, I have finished my
work with the Segovia heritage. My shoulders are now lighter and my mind
free. I thank God, destiny, life, maestro Segovia and his heirs
doña Emilia
and dr. Carlos Andrés for having choosen my person for
such a tremendous
task: I have worked as never in my life, and in my life I always worked
very
hard.
Angelo Gilardino
-----------------
A note from the composer
The collection The Andrés Segovia Archive was created with the
aim of making
available to all readers the works written for Andrés Segovia
during his
glorious life and career that were unpublished during his life and whose
manuscripts were found (by myself) among the papers of the maestro in
the
Segovia Museum at Linares. Through the courtesy of their owner, Mrs.
Emilia
Segovia de Salobreña, and through the legal arrangements with
the heirs of
the composers concerned, a significant number of important works for
guitar
have been rescued from silence and added to the guitar repertoire of the
20th century - mainly the first half of the century.
Although I was neither a student nor a follower of Andrés
Segovia during his
life, the task and responsibility of supervising the publication of this
wealth of music fell to me as one of the duties connected with my
appointment (in 1997) as the Artistic Director of the Andrés
Segovia
Foundation (which is the Museum created at Linares by the Segovia
family and
by the Spanish authorities to commemorate the great artist). I accepted
this
responsibility fully aware of how difficult it might be to fulfil, with
respect both to Segovia's memory and to the expectations of all those
who
were passionate about or interested in his artistic heritage.
During my years in this post I have worked hard to perform my duties
both as
an artistic director of the Foundation and as the general editor of the
works published in The Andrés Segovia Archive. These duties
called on my
skills and background as a composer only in connection with the
editorial
work of publishing the newly found works. As a composer in my own
right, I
have only once composed a piece related directly to the activities of
the
Foundation, when, following a suggestion by the Segovia estate, I wrote
a
piece for string orchestra as part of the ceremonies for the return of
the
maestro's mortal remains to Linares, in June 2002. For that event I did
not
feel I could write a piece of my own to celebrate Segovia's memory,
because
my respect for his art encompassed an awareness of how distant I was as
a
composer from his beautiful world. Thus, I created a suite for string
orchestra (Retrato de Andrés Segovia) by orchestrating four
pieces for solo
guitar which had been composed for him by authors whom he loved (Manuel
Ponce, Hans Haug, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco).
It was on the occasion of the premiere of the Retrato at Linares that I
was
asked by a friend, the distinguished Italian guitarist
Frédéric Zigante, to
write a solo guitar piece as a memorial to Andrés Segovia. He
told me he
believed I could do it, and I was somewhat surprised because I did not
believe I could at all. But in the following months, during the summer
of
2002, whilst teaching in my Summer School at Muzzano (a beautiful
village in
Northern Italy, close to the Alps), I thought of the affection Segovia
had
shown for the composers of my country, from Girolamo Frescobaldi,
Domenico
Scarlatti and Luigi Boccherini to Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and I
thought
that I could attempt to become one of them, by composing a piece as my
part
in a dialogue with Segovia, in the musical language which he liked. The
fact
that such a dialogue could no longer take place in this world was not
to me
an obstacle: telling something to somebody sub specie aeternitatis
instead
of talking in the real world is far from being alien to my way of being,
especially if this "something" is told in music.
When Segovia was in this world, I did not seek his friendship - though
our
mutual respect was complete and sincere. I did not ask him for his
assistance in the form of testimonials about my skills as a musician
(which,
such as they are, are revealed by my own works), or scholarships to
enable
me to attend his courses (which I never attended), or recommendations to
influential music organizers (whose attentions were never among my
aims).
This is why I take the liberty of offering to Segovia a musical homage:
I
was and I am free of obligations to him; and this is why I maintain also
that a piece written for Segovia after his death is not out of place in
a
series which hosts the works written for him when he was alive, young
and
powerful. It is an offering whose reward I will receive in the only
terms I
appreciate: and for describing them, I have no words.
Angelo Gilardino
Vercelli, October 2003.
================================================
2004
Your question has caught me unprepared. There were 12 cases to open, so
it
is easy to conclude that my selection was a very strict one. But
consider:
1) Segovia did not separate manuscripts from printed music - so his
archive
was a jam of the most commonly available publications (which he used to
buy
as a common customer and were only in a minor part sent to him
complimentarily), of less known publications, of photocopies (yes,
though
sent to him by composers: some of them used to send him not one, but
two,
three, four copies, and a piece is represented by 12 photocopies), and
of
manuscripts. 2) Discriminating as he was in picking up his repertoire
and
programs, as a librarian he had no basket, and he guarded everything,
absolutely everything, even the most amateurish piece dedicated to him
by an
unknown guitarist-composer. I asked his wife Doña Emilia about a
composer
who is largely represented in the archive with a bunch of works, and she
told me of the horror Segovia felt when approached by that man, who
used to
give him a new piece each time he had a chance to attend a concert of
the
maestro: even so, all his dreadful works are there. 3) A lot of
manuscripts
of pieces which are published and known are there, just to give
thoughts to
a reader who compares the printed versions with the original ones. So, I
would say that I have sorted out of that pool a glass of water. But I am
sure that nothing deserving care and diffusion has been uncarefully left
buried. I did not trust myself to have been able to explore all the
documents, so I proposed an ex-student of mine, a very good guitarist
and a
cultivated musician, dr. Luigi Attademo, to furtherly examine all the
material independently from me. He did. At this point, to guess that a
significan piece can be there in the shadow is impossible. The works
whose
existence we know of, but which haven't been found, are lost once
forever:
Medtner, Joaquin Nin, Allende (surely), Kodaly (perhaps), the 6th Villa
Lobos Prelude (if it ever existed), etc., I feel hopeless about rescuing
them.
Segovia wrote a partial autobiography (published in English by MacMillan)and several autobiographic articles, published by Guitar Review. In the Segovia Museum at Linares there are many letters written to him by different senders and copies of letters he wrote to various recipients.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: ALL WRITINGS AND COMPILATION BY REZA GANJAVI ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAWS.
My last stock pick went from $4 to $30 (DNDN). Here's my new pick: BCON Clean Technology/Alternative Energy Investment Tip: stock symbol: "BCON"(Nasdaq) Beacon Power Corporation is starting to build the world's first flywheel plant for Grid Frequency Regulation ($1Bil/year market). Beacon's zero-emissions solution
has faster response and higher efficiency than coal-burning
plants. Beacon has won the support of major Grid operators, the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Dept. of Energy with a recent
$24M Grant and a $43M Loan Guarantee. I believe the stock is a strong
buy at the current price.
Increasing revenues at high margins is just a matter of time. Do your own research. See www.beaconpower.com for more information.