SCG:[AG_post] Re: Barrios-Segovia

Re: Barrios-Segovia

Subject: Re: Barrios-Segovia

From: "Angelo Gilardino" <winter@xxxxxxxx>

Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 22:57:56 +0100

> -----Messaggio originale----- > Inviato: sabato 18 marzo 2000 21.57 > A: winter@net4u.it; cguitar-list@eskimo.com > Oggetto: Re: Barrios-Segovia > > > Ciao, Angelo: > > Thanks for your thoughtful and illuminating posts on the relationship > between Segovia and Barrios. Strictly from reading Stover's description > of the relations between the men, I had taken an impression that Segovia > was patronizing, if not actually disdainful, of Barrios as untutored and > unorthodox--steel strings, popular/native tunes, etc. Ciao Richard (as an Italian speaking you surely know what "ciao" means), we all admire Barrios' music and we all feel moved by his kind and innocent humanity. I have told what I feel for Barrios in the Study I wrote as a Homage to him and that is, not casually, entitled "Sacrificio". Still, I can hardly accept that our complain for Barrios unrewarding life should be payed by looking for a guilty, and with giving to this guilty the name of Andrés Segovia. Historically speaking, we cannot count Segovia among Barrios' enemies. If we want to do this, we have to give faith to gossips. > It is clear from the letter you quote, however, that Maestro S. was not > at all disdainful of the yet-to-become Cacique Mangore. It is truly a > pity that Don Bordo did not forward a copy of "La Catedral" to Segovia. Actually, Barrios asked Borda y Pagola to send a copy to him, who would have forwarded it to Segovia. Borda y Pagola lived in Uruguay, and Barrios wrote that letter of November 22, ten days before Segovia's leaving from Buenos Aires... Barrios was so responsible of his music that, in order to have it on paper and not only entrusted with the memory of its author, Borda y Pagola once decided to lock Barrios in a room, with obliging him to write it. Another time Barrios forgot a folder of his manuscripts on the coach of a lady whom he was interested to. Did such a person need enemies outside himself for creating obstacles to his own career? > I am intrigued--although I probably should not be--by your reference to > the "unremitting (and quite avoidable) illness [Barrios}contracted at a > relatively young age, an illness of which he perfectly knew." Would you > mind describing what this illness was? > Paresis from tertiary syphilis was, regrettably, a common fate of > musicians of his age--with poor Scott Joplin an apparent example. Wine, > women, song and . . . You have catched the point. Barrios used to invent plays on words about his illness - albeit they were a bit tragical. He spent a half of his life under the notion that he was condemned, and during the last years of his life his playing was disturbed by hand trembling - a typical sign of that illness. Guessing for guessing, why not thinking that Segovia felt compassion for him, when they met, a few months before Barrios' death, at El Salvador? They were two great artists, and both them knew who the other one was...Segovia enjoyed fame and success because - with his gifts - he was a very intelligent man with a strong "animus vincendi". The fame and the success that were only partly accorded to Barrios, who was a sweet and self-shadowing person, with no "animus pugnandi", during his life, are now fully and warmly given to his music: history has already made justice... Angelo Gilardino Composer and Editor The Artistic Director of the "Andrés Segovia" Foundation of Spain --- Editor of the series of 20th century guitar music Edizioni Musicali Bèrben --- via Failla, 7 13100 Vercelli Italia tel. & fax 0161-255346 email <winter@net4u.it>

SDG - Soli Deo Gloria

Last Modified: 06/10/10 14:35

Angelo Gilardino Net Postings 1998-2000

Re: Barrios-Segovia