Guitar World

Jason Vieaux provides marvellous insight into voicing when playing Bach Fuges.

The latest in my guitar masterworks series is Choro Da Saudade by Agustin Barrios, a haunting choro with elements of Bossa Nova in sections two and three of the piece. The images in this post  are taken from photographs taken in San Juan Bautista, Paraguay, the birthplace of Barrios, for which  I am grateful to svmma of flickr. 

Guitarist Rob Tucker, then playing in a dance band, first came across this piece and thought it a terrific Bossa styled guitar solo, and it inspired him to take up guitar in it’s classical style. Rob wrote many articles on Barrios, after becoming attracted to his music. It was Rob who wrote to John Williams in the ’70’s, suggesting a possible recording dedicated to this forgotten composer of guitar. Around two years later Williams responded with his first album of Barrios, dated 1977. So Choro Da Saudade played a significant part in the emergence of Barrios the composer in the following years.

The piece has been interpreted by guitarists in many different ways, such is the scope for interpretation here. I have often been haunted by the piece, and set out  the origin and feelings inherent in the music….

Origin of Choro Da Saudade.

The origin of the Choro is of course Brazil, and the type of music played by street ensembles. Some even take Choro as a type of “street serenade”. “Saudade” is a hard word to translate, it refers to nostalgia, or feelings of yearning, such as in homesickness. The musical idiom of the piece is steeped in carioca, To understand the feelings in the music, you need to understand the nature of the carioca.

When people of Brazil, or Rio De Janeiro to be more related to the idiom and the music, incur a loss they will sing you a sad song about it. But it will be followed by extemporaneous joy, such as a dance, before returning to the main theme of lament. It is this sad/happy/sad elements interspersed which forms the structure of the music in this Choro.

The first time the work was featured in a concert programme of Barrios was dated November 1929, though it’s possible “Aire Brasilero”, played as far back as 1925, may have been the same piece. The manuscript was written out by Barrios in 1929, dedicated to Americo Camargo, the son of a good friend who had died tragicly young.

The structure of the music is in three parts, played in the order of;  A, B, A, C, B, A. Note the main theme, A, keeps coming back to haunt, as in the feelings of yearning or lament.

The Cathederal at San Juan Bautista.

Guitar Techniques

Choro is a really hard piece to play well, possibly the hardest in my repertoire. It is notorious among guitarists for it’s long left hand stretches, many finding impossible to play. It may be that this piece is the first example of the hinge barre being used in guitar. This is where the left hand barre stretches across the strings, but instead of being across fret one, the tip of the finger reaches to fret two. Thus enabling the hand to reach to higher positions.

Preferred recordings

My preferred recordings of this piece would have to be Wulfin Lieske, David Rusell, and Robert Brightmore. Those renditions in my view come closest to portraying the feelings of lament, interspersed with spontaneous joy, required to do the work full justice.

To close, here is Andrea Dieci from Italy, playing Barrios Choro Da Saudade, a fine rendition.

The magic of the guitar sound, according to John Williams, is the dying away of the note…As soon as the string is plucked, the note is dying, only to be replaced by another note, until the end. The space between the notes becomes just as important as the notes themselves. It is this capturing of space, and time, that forms the essence of music. To express the in-expressible, can only be done with music.

These sentiments I think are underlined best in the work “Sakura Variations” by Yuquijiro Yocoh, played here by Lars Frandsen.

This video is an extract from the video recital “Concert Of The Desert”, played by Daniel Bolshoy. Of all the renditions of koyunbaba, this one is my personal favourite. Thanks to Daniel who gave me permission to upload the extract.

http://guitar.markantony.net/video/koyunbaba.flv<

 Koyunbaba bay in Turkey, noted for it’s beauty and it’s wild weather patterns… It is also the title of a holy man, and a solo guitar work, a modern classic, written by an Italian guitarist Carlo Domeniconi, who lived for some years in Turkey, with a keen folklore interest.

          Koyunbaba by Domeniconi

In my experience, this four movement work is one of the most talked about works in the modern guitar repertoire. Whilst a few dismiss it as a “circus piece”, reliant on it’s unconventional tuning and “tricks” for effect,  others are enchanted by it’s exotic beauty and great power. But what exactly is the piece all about?

Koyunbaba by translation means “Sheep Father” or Shepherd. The late John Duarte wrote of the work having two concepts…The natural beauty and climate of the region,  and instruments emanating from there, in this case, the Turkish national instrument, the Saz. The second concept is the Sheperd himself, and his wise words and folkloric tales, who has the wisdom, and the time, to appreciate the wondrous  beauty and awesome power of nature.

In this way, Domeniconi presents the portrait of the Koyunbaba offering a prayer for the safe delivery of his flock.

         Skodatura

A key feature is the retuning of the guitar, Skodatura. The tuning is a C# Minor chord when played open strings, enabling different harmonic possibilities. From the bottom string upwards;

6th= C#  5th=G#   4th= C#    3rd= G#    2nd=C#   1st= E.

Probably no other piece in the repertoire has such a radical retuning.

After the opening movement, during which the main theme is established, beautifully capturing a world of sparkling sunshine, a theme which haunts the whole work in different disguises, the second movement is a short series of semi quaver patterns, interspersed by improvised harmonic featured contrasts. It is then that the thrid movement, Cantabile, comes into play…

Cantabile extract

The serenity of the opening part of this movement gradually gives way to arpeggio’s of increasing tempo and intensity, reaching a climax, before dying down, until the final movement Presto, where the guitar belts out notes like hail pellets, before the final repeat of the main theme brings the work to a close.

        Technical Factors

According to Domeniconi, too many guitarists simply play the notes on the paper, without feeling the need to improvise, for which the piece gives great scope. Myself, this particular passage in the Presto  has always given me the most trouble;

These bars, which are repeated, rely on a very high speed to be really effective, andI find it so easy to fluff the rhythm. If anyone has a tip on playing this movement at high speed, I’d like to hear from you

There have been many fine recordings and performances of the work, notably, John Williams, Stein Erik Olsen, William Kanengiser, Li Jie…My personal prefrence is Daniel Bolshoy, who’s video of the work, taken from his DVD recital  Concert In The Desert will be uploading, by permission, in my next post…

Top image Koyunbaba Bay  by ByteBak of flickr.

Alternative Versions of Recuerdos de la Alhambra

Following on from last weeks post on the famous tremolo study, over the years I have noted some vastly different renditions of the piece, some by artists in different genres to classical guitar, or even non guitarists…

Singer Sarah Brightman in her album “Classics” includes the piece with words added!

Mike Oldfield played Recuerdos on different instruments, in his soundtrack to the film “The Killing Fields”. It was played right at the end, over the closing end credits. The right hand thumb strokes on the guitar were played on a percussion instrument, and the melody in short, staccato bursts on a wind instrument! It was effective, I thought, but it depends on your tolerance to alternative ways of performing this guitar masterpiece…Many might well dismiss it as distorting the original too much

Free Guitar Score

Getting back to guitar, I offer this free guitar score of Recuerdos, arranged and fingered by Stanley Yates. The main difference in this version is the opening section the melody is written  to be played on the top string, as opposed to predominately second string. I’ve seen it played this way in concert by Richard Durrant also. 

It is not clear whether Tarrega originally intended second string tremolo at this point, or second string.. On one hand, second string melody sounds more mellow, but there are nice glissando effects that can be incorporated into your performance if played on top string. And it is far easier to play that way!

Recuerdos de la Alhambra 

The fact that Recuerdos has a widespread appeal to music lovers in general, not just guitarists, is eloquence in itself. Whatever your opinions of the many recordings of this work by non guitarists, there’s no denying the  evocative appeal of the original concept, from which stemmed the inspiration to covet.

I may add more different links to alternative Recuerdos as I come across them.

Image by Lucky Girl Kris of Flickr.

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.

 I decided to make a post of a collection of what I consider guitars “magic moments”. These are not necessarily my favourite pieces, but more like certain phrases or sections of a piece which have a deep meaning for me. They may have a particular relevance, either in emotion, structure, description or compositional genius. I will describe why. Here’s my nine magic guitar moments, in no particular order…

                                ”Nocturnal” by Britten;

This is of course variations on a theme of John Dowland, “Come Heavy Sleep”, a theme which fascinated Britten all his life. But here the theme is not stated until the end, after the variations and Passacaglia, right at the end. The part which makes the hairs on my back stand up is the modulation after the end of the passacaglia, into Dowland’s beautiful theme, beautifully captured by Julian Bream in his recording. It’s like discovering what the work has been all about, almost like discovering the meaning of life itself…

                          “Koyunbaba” by Dominiconi.

Following the intro, the opening chord of C# Minor sparkles like sunshine into a whole new world, underlining the harmonic possibilities of the C# minor tuning employed in this work. The beautiful landscape of Koyunbaba, Turkey, noted for it’s wild geography and wild weather patterns, is captured in the piece, interspersed with folkloric elements. To me it is the Shepherd, who has the wisdom, and time, to appreciate the beauty, and awesome power, of nature.

                           “Sueno en La Floresta” by Agustin Barrios Mangore.

The first, and main theme, following the intro, must surely be one of the most beautiful and endearing themes ever written for the guitar. With it’s soaring melody and quick, lateral finger movements of the accompaniment, “A Dream in the Forest”, it’s rough translation, simply breathes fresh air from the first note to the last, a beautiful journey drifting from a range of themes to it’s conclusion. The key of G Major has never sounded lovelier on guitar.

               Adagio, 2nd movement, “Concerto de Arranjuez”, Rodrigo.

The haunting melody was described by Pepe Romero as the composer communicating his grief with God over the loss of his child after his wifes miscarriage. I’ve always pictured a lost traveller in the Desert, seeing a distant Oasis, while listening to this classic movement.

              2nd movement “Guitar Concerto” by Castelnuovo Tedesco.

This gem of a Concerto is often overlooked by guitarists and moreover, listeners, placing it perhaps in the shadow of the Rodrigo Arranjuez. But it deserves better recognition, the  theme of 2nd movement is the composers tender farewell to Italy, the land he has grown up in, but forced to leave for reasons of politics.

                              ”Maxixe” by Agustin Barrios Mangore.

The slurred bass line passage followed by block chord modulation back to the intro in the home key is a great example of Barrios improvisation, and demonstrates his ability to blend themes together. Moreover, it makes a total mockery of Segovia’s earlier dismissal of Barrios compositional talent.

                                 “Sonata Mongoliana” by Stepan Rak.

The bass melody against multi ligado treble accompaniment superbly captures the vast, open plains of the region, and provides a real stimulus to the imagination for those who have not visited the country. Later, when the melody changes to Rak’s majestic multi string tremolo, one can imagine local folklore, and elements of east Asian culture.

                           “Carillon” by Benvenuto Terzi.

It’s a feature of Terzi’s music, the use of right hand harmonics against left hand ligado’s. In this instance, the piece is an imitation of a wind up music box, and the key is to gradually slow down, not in a musical way, rall, but the way a music box does! Until finally stopping, in the middle of the tune. The effect, for those with enough technique to pull it off (not me ) is stunning. Listen to Massimo Laura’s fantastic recording of Terzi ( a much too neglected composer) to hear for yourself, those who have not heard the piece.

                          “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Fransisco Tarrega.

Quite simply, the whole piece. How could I compile a list without including the most requested and best loved guitar work (in my ezperience) Wherever I’ve played, this tremolo study by Tarrega is requested and best received by non guitarist listeners. It is a perrenial classic, and for me, my favourite part is the change to A major from the tonic minor.

So those are among my favourite guitar moments. I’d like to hear yours

image thanks to The Thiers of flickr.

I started a series called “masterworks” which is aimed as an appreciation of my opinion of the classical guitars finest compositions.

Vals no. 3 by Agustin Barrios Mangore is sometimes called “vals Romantica”. It’s plaintive, Chopinesque  melody shelters two different themes, the final one, third subject, in the tonic major key, is more animated, sparkling and landler like in it’s gaiety, but always the sad theme returns to haunt. I call it Barrios “Tragic Clown” piece, beautifully played here by David Russell.

“A Dream In The Forest”, guitar work in tremelo by Agustin Barrios Mangore, one of the most beautiful pieces written for the guitar, in my view, played here by David Russell, a masterful rendition.