Guitar World

Wherever I have played my guitar, the most requested and recognised  piece has always been Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Tarrega. It is easy to understand why. The rippling tremolo melody on the guitar is a classic evocation of the water running from the fountains, which can be found everywhere outside the great Alhambra Palace, which is built on a hill overlooking the beautiful city of Granada, Spain.

The last time I played it in public I was asked for a recommendation of a recording of this piece, not too easy because it is one of the guitar’s most coveted works, and there have been many fine recordings.

                                      Vocal Qualities

I find it interesting to listen to the different “accents” in recordings. As I mentioned in a previous post, the guitar has vocal qualities, many times reflecting the idiom, even the artistic personality of the player.

Examples below, listen to a brief extract of some recordings of the opening section…

Andres Segovia      John Williams          Karin Schaupp

I find the  Segovia version the most “Spanish” sounding, or idiomatic. Although John Williams has seamless tremolo, I doubt his is more like a classical interpretation, as opposed to an evocation, which this piece is intended to be. Note also Segovia’s heavy accentuation in the bass. The Karin Schaupp is my prefered rendition, overall.

Here is Pepe Romero playing the whole piece, you bear in mind though the background in this video is San Fransisco!

 It was this Segovia recording which inspired Julian Bream to take up the classical guitar in the first place, after his Father brought home the record. Bream states in his My Life In Music DVD, “the piece was very beautiful too, but it was the sound, more than anything which I found so inspiring”…

In the days of Segovia recordings they used a ribbon microphone, which made the sound so mellifluous, according to Bream. Interesting to note that, even in these high tech days, in terms of sound  asthetics, we can still glean quality    from the early years of sound recording.

                                       Origin of Recuerdos De La Alhambra.

“Recuerdos”, as it is often referred to by guitarists, is also known as Improvisacion, A Granada! Cantiga Arabe, Estudio de Tremolo. The principle theme was conceived by Tarrega after visiting the Palace in the late afternoon, setting sun with his student Conception Gomez, better known as Dona Concha, then 35 years old, who had inherited a great fortune after the death of her husband. The first manuscript was inscribed by Tarrega to Concha, translating;

“Since I can’t offer you a gift of greater value on the day of your saint, accept this, my poor little poetic note, an impression of what my soul felt before the great marvel of the Alhambra we admired together in Granada”. It is dated December 8 1899, Malega.

Original manuscript

                                            Appreciation

Recuerdos is probably the most famous example of guitar tremolo. Though there have been many refinements of tremolo technique over the years, most notably by Agustin Barrios and more recently Stepan Rak’s expanding of the technique, in my experience no piece for guitar expresses itself better than this one, it’s evergreen qualities and lush tonalities make it a perennial classic, requested and loved by guitarists and audiences alike.

Someone later asked the great Spanish composer Manuel De Falla his opinion of the point where the guitar can be taken seriously, as a concert instrument. Falla replied that to recognise all the beauty and great emotion capable of being contained within a guitar, it was only necassary to cite one example; Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Fransisco Tarrega.

It was my pleasure this week to interview Dutch born guitarist composer Maria Linnemann. She has composed many beautiful pieces for the guitar, displaying a gift for writing expressive music for performing musicians, and also charming works for student repertoire.

I am always interested in how music is written, and inspirations behind it, as well as compositional techniques. Therefore, I am very grateful to Maria for giving me this insight, and for the time she took with me.

What influenced you to take up guitar, did you see yourself as a composer at the outset or did this evolve?

 I took up the guitar in 1973 because the head of my music school, where I taught the piano on a part-time basis, asked me to teach it! When I met my guitar tutor, everything else faded into the background, and from that day, the guitar became my whole life. I practised seven hours a day, and visited my tutor (a retired musician)every morning to play him my latest efforts, to drink coffee and to listen with him to the great masters of the guitar on record:  Presti and Lagoya, Segovia, Louise Walker, Llobet, Julian Bream and John Williams. All these great masters were/are not only great guitarists but also great musicians, as was my tutor, so my ‘formative’ years on the guitar were the best one could wish for!

Do you compose around the guitars figuration, like the discovering  what works well with open strings, or around certain chords, or do you compose music first, then adapt it to the guitar?

 I never adapt any piece for the guitar - my pieces have ‘emerged’ as guitar pieces.
 I think I have to say that they ‘gestate’ for a while in my head, without my being aware of it,
 and then come to the fore in a fairly complete ’sketch’ state; that is, no melody is there without there
 being an implicit harmonic structure beneath it.

When composing, does the melody come to you first, then build an arrangement around the melody, or do you begin with harmony?

Some pieces I have written down very quickly as a sketch and there have been very few details to ‘hone’. Other pieces have needed hours of ‘fine’ work, even though they have been written down in a fairly complete state. One note or two may be not what is needed, and the whole piece is ‘nothing’ until those tiny ‘problems’ are solved, when suddenly the piece stands. One thing I do not do is to sit down and ‘experiment’ with chords or melody phrases, as I have heard other musicians say they do.

I myself actually composed a very little, usually when I discovered certain fingerings or chords which I tried to build melodies around! But I felt I lacked the basic training to develop my ideas. Other words, I had a day job or was happy with my amateur status!

 As a child I taught myself the theory of harmony and counterpoint at the piano; this I
 knew was essential for a musician of any kind, in order to understand the language of our music.
 In England children learning an instrument also learned theory, and so I had a good basis from
 which to teach myself the more complex theory.

Which guitar composers do you most admire?

 The guitar composers I most admire are Tarrega, Llobet, Villa Lobos, Rodrigo. I also love the
 small compositions of Sor and Carulli! Of course there are many other composers whose works
 I love!

Quite a few of your works are romantic in nature, examples Murmurs is a two lovers whispering, Canzone D’Amore recalling the fulfillment of a dream… Is it the nature of the guitar which leans you towards romantic expression, or is that coming from Maria, the person?

Well, it has to be both, doesn’t it? Yes, both!

Is there any particular work you are most pleased with? Or one that you feel encapsulates your feelings for guitar and music best.

Well, I think I have mentioned in the past that the duet: ‘What I saw in your Eyes’ is my
 ‘signature’ piece. If it is possible for any one piece to encapsulate my feelings for the
 guitar and music more than any other, it has to be this one, I believe. But twenty years
 ago I would have said it was the duet ‘Juliette’, and ten years ago I would have said that
‘Recaptured Moment’ was the piece… You will notice that they are all duets, ‘dialogues’…
But I cannot really say that there is a particular piece that I am ‘most pleased with’!

Thank you very much Maria! And here is the lovely duet in question “What I Saw In Your Eyes”, which very soon I hope to play
 

Here is a link to purchase Maria’s music.

Italian guitar composer Benvenuto Terzi (1892-1980) considered the guitar his “second profession”, his family were Pharmacists, and he himself was an accountant for 35 years, yet it was for the legacy of his guitar compositions that is is remembered with affection today.

Born into an era which was considered difficult to make a living out of playing the guitar, Terzi’s nature was humble, an overtly romantic soul, which shone through in his music from the start. A man who was shy of displays of ostentaity, Terzi prefered to immerse himself in the music and his guitar, desiring his audience to be conscious of only the music, not the performer.

His compositions often made use of right hand harmonics, played against a left hand trill. This is to be found most effectively in his work “Nevicata” (Snowfall) an evocation of the countryside in winter.

Listen to this phrase, which is followed by the answering phrase…
The effect is charming, akin to birdsong, as though the composer is communicating his love of nature through his guitar….

Nevicata

” Imitando L’Arpa” is a beautiful, harp like piece, with the melody over arpeggio’s. Extract.

Imitations come to the fore again in “Carillon”, with the guitar assuming the role of a wind up music box. The effect here to be attained is to slow down, not as in rallentando, but the way a music box would slow down, until it finally runs out of power and dies altogether!

Many pieces he wrote were based on childhood recollections, and the melody and harmony is blessed with an innocence, almost child like wonder of discovering the beauty of the world. “Serra Di Maggio (an evening in May) makes use yet again of right hand harmonics against a left hand trill, and the piece does convey the atmosphere of a jaunty evening stroll along the promenade in late spring/early summer.

“Campane a Festa” (Holiday Chimes) Melanconie Autunnali (Autumns Melancolia) and “Nostalgie” (Nostalgias) are other poetical minatures of charm and elegence.

Terzi was in contact with prominent players of his era, and among his private papers can be found correspondence with Andres Segovia, Emilio Pujol, and Miguel Llobet, esteemed guitaristic figures who went along diverse paths to develop the guitar as a concert instrument, and to revolutionise it’s playing technique, taking over from where previous European guitar virtuoso’s like Fernando Sor and Fransisco Tarrega left off.

He died in 1980, yet even today, some of the guitars best performers have never heard his work, or not familiar with it. The legacy of his genius is left only partly discovered, perhaps as one may well expect from an modest man, but nevertheless, it’s a legacy which is deserving of more exposure.

Suggested recording; Carillon by Massimo Laura.