SCG:[AG_post] Re: Barrios and Segovia (long)

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Re: Barrios and Segovia (long)

To: <cguitar-list@xxxxxxxxxx>

Subject: Re: Barrios and Segovia (long)

From: "Angelo Gilardino" <winter@xxxxxxxx>

Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 06:59:25 +0100

> -----Messaggio originale----- > Inviato: lunedì 20 marzo 2000 22.52 > A: cguitar-list@eskimo.com; Angelo Gilardino > Oggetto: Re: Barrios and Segovia (long) > > > > Mr. Gilardino will not be surprised to learn that I disagree rather > strongly with him on this subject but nevertheless I hope that we can > look into this theory and its many attendant suppositions in an amicable > and civilized way. I cannot remember having taken exception from this natural rule all my life through, so far. > But I'd like to begin on a note of agreement. Like Mr. Gilardino, I also > would expect Andres Segovia to have been constantly in search of > information about the different approaches to guitar playing. But he was > also an autodidact entirely accustomed to finding his own solutions and > when he writes in his autobiography that he was constantly in search of > the best way to use his right hand and that eventually he just 'fell in' > to the way which suited him best, this rings completely true to me. Agree, of course. Still, as a very clever autodidact, he never missed the power of his watching and observing. Being an autodidact means not to have a teacher, not missing to learn from everybody. > Mr. Gilardino's view of the technical evolution of the guitar would seem > to be based on the belief that there has been an historical continuity > in the various 'schools' of playing and this would seem to pre-suppose > that these schools were highly detailed in their approach. If there was > such a continuity or such a detailed methodology, one might ask what > happened to it. I never said this, because I do not think so. In fact, one of the very first sentences of my treatise about technique, published on 1981, is: we have many methods, but not a methodology. > But in the more recent past, what can we say constitutes the 'Segovia > School' as evidenced by his many 'students'? Actually I do not know. "Segovia School" is a locution of which all what I think is that I am glad not having been its inventor. > With such a gap of methodological continuity in Segovia' s students, why > should we suppose that any great continuity, any fully elaborated > 'school', existed in the past with such players as Aguado. I do not in fact. Where did I say I do? > As for the > use of the fingers 'de costado' this is, after all, a very natural and > intuitive way of playing, as so many beginners discover spontaneously > for themselves even today. Aguado was the first teacher and author to produce a clear and complete description of such a way of attacking the string and of the results in terms of tone (power and color). If it was a natural and intuitive way of playing before him, I do not know, but this would not lessen his historical merits anyway. > In fact, it is only very recently that reliable (in the sense of > communicable and effective) 'schools' of playing have emerged, those of > Jose Tomas and of Pepe Romero for example. We have a lot of guitar schools nowadays, thank Godness, and I am glad to represent a part of what is commonly called the Italian school. > When we listen to Segovia, we hear the extensive use of tone colour > which was the very basis of his concept of the guitar, a basis > facilitated by the use of short and rounded nails. When we listen to > Barrios, do we hare any evidence of even the most minor variations of > tone colour? We do not: this would have been hard indeed to achieve with > long nails and steel strings. > > In short, the musical and technical approaches of these two players > could not have been more different. I never said they were similar. I only said - and this is quite another kind of statement - that Segovia may have watched a mechanical feature in the way of Barrios' playing, which he may have incorporated in his own technique. A technique is not a way of playing in an aesthetical sense, and of a technical device two players can do totally different use, with different aesthetical purposes and results. I said that Segovia had firstly in his life the chance of observing a player (Barrios) instructed at the principle of Aguado (via Manjon): nothing more. Segovia had been able to make useful for himself the lessons of Agustinillo, a flamenco player who taught him when a was a child. In fact, when Segovia turned from flamenco to classical guitar, he had already developped a remarkable skill...As for the Tarrega school features he absorbed, the guitar history still suffers of a gap: Segovia never mentioned his connection with Salvador Garcia, but I have re-constructed it with the help of Melchor Rodriguez, the publisher of Ediciones Musicales Soneto, Madrid, who was a Garcia's student. It was a strong connection, and Segovia "learnt" (in his own way, that of a genius) a lot from it. All of this happened before Segovia first Argentinian tour (1921). > Returning to Segovia, we might at this point introduce an informed > witness to his development as a player: that passionate 'lexicographer' > of the guitar, Domingo Prat. > > Prat was living in Barcelona when he first heard Segovia in 1916, five > years before Segovia's meeting with Barrios. > Prat later moved to Buenos Aires and is thought to have been the first > to teach the 'school' of Tarrega in South America. But he clearly sees > no connection between that school and Segovia's way of playing. He sees no connection because he sees no school of Tarrega. He strongly refuses that a Tarrega school ever existed, and he spends pages with demonstrating the fundaments of his refusal. Why do you refer to him as to an exponent of Tarrega's school with missing that he denies the existence of such a thing? >If Segovia's playing had owed anything to Tarrega, would not Prat, a > student of Miguel Llobet, have been the first to mention it? No. Prat ignored a series of facts. Before leaving Spain, he lived in Barcelona. Pancha Verda (Garcia) lived near Valencia, and he was not connected with the tertulia of Tarrega's students and followers, including Prat - he got the lessons of Tarrega totally outside those grounds. So distant he was, that Pujol does not mention him either in his Tarrega's biography. I repeat, this is an uncovered chapter of the history of Spanish guitar. On the other side, Prat knew very relevant things about Segovia, which he did not write - albeit he left them appearing among the lines. See the voice: Sanz (Paco, not Gaspar) for instance... > Likewise, > if Segovia's playing had later owed anything to Barrios, would not Prat, > who attended the former's concerts in Buenos Aires, have been the first > both to hear of it and notice it for himself? No, surely no. Barrios was destroyed by the classical guitar milieu of Buenos Aires - the worst, heaviest review he ever got in his life was written by Senor Anido, the father of Mimita, strictly related to Prat. It is enough to read the miserable account Prat gives of Barrios in his dictionary to perceive what the situation was: Prat understand nothing of Barrios and Barrios never was acknowledged in Argentina - the unique remarkable activity he did there was recording. Anyway, and again, I stress that I did not write that a feature of Barrios' playing was adopted by Segovia as such, with the same purpose and results. I indicated the origin of the inspiration of the "new sound" of Segovia after his first Argentinian tour, not a model Segovia copied and that should have been recognizable in terms of school. I always dealt with this subject with the acknowledgement that Segovia observed with the look of a genius, not with the look of a student. Only in the case of a student or ex-student the features of a school are detectable as such, a genius makes them something of his own, and uses them in a way of his own. > If we place the hearsay evidence of an overheard remark made by a guitar > maker in Madrid against the expert and silent witness of Prat, to which > should we give more credence? That maker had built the guitar Segovia was playing at that epoque, and would have played until 1936 (Ramirez was just a label), and that maker dealt directly with the subject of Segovia's tone change, before and after Argentina. Prat never entered directly this subject, so we haven't two different statements at the same regard, but just one. > There is, of course, no way of knowing how either of these > players sounded. We have an accurate description of the Aguado technique by the author, and a lot of informations about Tarrega's technique from his pupils. It is not relevant to my thesis to know how they (Aguado an Tarrega), played, because I dealt with Segovia tone as the result ALSO of the fusion of these preceding techniques, not ONLY of these preceding "tones" (please forgive me for the use of capital letters) . I am not deterministic: Aguado+Tarrega=Segovia. I indicated the "materials" - so as to say, or the outside references - which Segovia has used in his construction, not the architecture of his tone, which is due - of course - only to his "daimon". The musical analysis of what Beethoven learnt from Haydn doesn't explain Beethoven music, but informs us about the path he followed for becoming Beethoven: it is clear that, among all those who learnt the fuchsian counterpoint from Haydn, only Beethoven was able to take that advantage. > To be substantive, any theory must surely be drawn from the whole body > of evidence and not simply from hearsay, however interesting this may > seem. Nevertheless I wish Mr. Gilardino every success with his research > and I await his further findings with much interest. > However, on the substantiation he has so far given, I must admit notd > only to very great reservations but also an urge to question why he > should wish to take his revisionism to such an unlikely extreme. I think there is a certain balance between what I wrote - quite un-boldly and with a lot of prudence: with always using the cautious patterns "I think, I believe" - and the hypothesis I suggest. With respect to what a Barrios' editor has definitely stated (Segovia took lessons from Barrios), what I suggest is surely a mild and very moderate account. Perhaps some readers who have measured my words with a meter different from yours, could find that the unlikely extreme in not in what I say, but in your reading of it: this too is a hypothesis, respectfully offered, with many thanks for your attention. 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>

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Re: Barrios and Segovia (long)