SCG:[AG_post] Re: Castelnuovo

Re: Castelnuovo

Subject: Re: Castelnuovo

From: "Angelo Gilardino" <winter@xxxxxxxx>

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 10:32:36 +0100

> -----Messaggio originale----- > Inviato: martedì 14 dicembre 1999 9.24 > A: Rogluthier@NOSpam.Com > Oggetto: Re: Castelnuovo > > > > > Dear Roger, > I think that it would be very > interesting if > David Sussman wrote a piece about his work on the Platero suite. He has > obviously put a huge amount of effort into the work, especially to have > memorised it. > Do hear the Segovia versions of the pieces. He plays them > magnificently, as I said in a previous posting, I think they are > among his > greatest performances. Interestingly, no one commented on this > statement. Did > everyone agree, or has Segovia gone out of fashion? If anyone is > interested > in hearing this CD, then there are ten movements of the Platero, and the > Quintet for guitar and string quartet, available on Preludio PRL2162. I > believe that these are the only movements that Segovia recorded, > but AG will > be able to confirm this. Yes, I confirm, Segovia recorded ten of the 28 pieces of "Platero y yo". A performance of the whole cycle with the Spanish actor José Ferrer was featured, but it never took place. Mario, with his great appreciation of the art of Segovia, was not enthusiast of those recordings, not because of the playing in itself, which was great, but because of the form of his pieces that, with missing the narrator, often resulted weak and somewhat wandering: it is a point that I have stressed in my foreword, and I am glad to see that complete performances are nowadays commonly given, thus allowing the work to show its inner balance between music and text. These pieces require certain editorial adjustements, but we have to pay attention to the various motivations that may suggest the work of an editor. We have points where a chord or a voice texture is unplayable at all, and then the changes are unavoidable. We have points which sound rather dull - eg they require a large stretch and they pay in return a poor sound - and with a change can be easily improved, by making them both easier and better sounding: here the changes are not strictly essential, but no experienced player would miss the chance of looking for the easier and the better, when there is all to earn and nothing to miss. So far, editing is a fair job. Then we may have passages which are perfectly playable and which sound well, and there is no object need of changing them: still there are hundreds of editorial changes that Segovia did, not only in "Platero" but everywhere in all the music he played only for fitting the music consistent with his personal taste. It is easy to realize that this sort of editorial work, no matter how masterful and respectable, has to remain within the borders of the practice of a single guitarist. Of course we cannot count these changes with the number of mistakes made by the composer or as a measure of a certain amount of unproperty in a composer's guitar writing. We should not forget that Segovia edited absolutely everything he played, included the works of master guitarist-composers like Fernando Sor and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Generally speaking, instrumental music composed by masters show a perfect balance between the effort required to the player and the result in terms of sound. There are many guitar pieces which are good only on paper, because they ask the performed a level of skill comparable to that of a pianist who performs the Sonata in B minor by Liszt or Islamey by Balakirev, and give as a result a sound comparable to a one finger child performance of a popular song: no edition will succeed in repairing this endemic failure. Edition can set up to perfection a piece which is already successful as it stood from the composer's pen, and can deal only with details. None of my guitar works has ONE single note out of place: this is the least I can do as a guitarist-composer who, in the first part of his career, edited and premiered about 200 new guitar pieces. Still, I am astonished to see how the most gifted and clever among my interpreters can show me a better solution of a passage which I wrote in a way, and that may come out better in another one which I never dreamt of. Angelo Gilardino Composer and Editor The Artistic Director of the "Andrés Segovia" Foundation of Spain 13100 Vercelli, Italia via Failla, 7 tel. & fax + 0161 255346 email <winter@net4u.it> http://www.seicorde.it/Gilardino/

SDG - Soli Deo Gloria

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Re: Castelnuovo