 | No. 254 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast254 |
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For a
reason that I really can’t explain, we haven’t programmed a lot of guitar music
on our Friday podcasts. This oversight is remedied today with this set of
selections played brilliantly by Spain’s Narciso Yepes, who is considered one
of the finest virtuoso classical guitarists of the twentieth century
Yepes’ father
gave him his first guitar when he was four years old, and took the boy five
miles on a donkey to and from lessons three days a week. Later his family moved
to Valencia when the Spanish Civil War started in 1936. When he was 13, he was
accepted to study at the Conservatorio de Valencia with the pianist and
composer Vicente Asencio. Here he followed courses in harmony,
composition, and performance.
According
to Yepes, Asencio "was a pianist who loathed the guitar because a
guitarist couldn't play scales very fast and very legato, as on a piano or a
violin" Through practice and improvement in his technique, Yepes could
match Asencio's piano scales on the guitar. Yepes is credited by many with
developing the A-M-I technique of playing notes with the ring (Anular), middle
(Medio), and index (Indice) fingers of the right hand.
In 1947 he
made his Madrid début (performing Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de
Aranjuez with Ataúlfo Argenta conducting the Spanish National Orchestra).
The overwhelming success of this performance brought him renown from critics
and public alike. Soon afterwards, he began to tour, visiting Switzerland,
Italy, Germany, and France.
In 1950,
after performing in Paris, he spent a year studying interpretation under the
violinist George Enescu, and the pianist Walter Gieseking. He also studied
informally with Nadia Boulanger. This was followed by a long period in Italy
where he profited from contact with artists of every kind.
In 1964,
Yepes performed the Concierto de Aranjuez with the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra, premièring the ten-string guitar, which he invented in
collaboration with the renowned guitar maker José Ramírez III. After 1964,
Yepes used the ten-string guitar exclusively, touring all six inhabited
continents, performing in recitals as well as with the world's leading
orchestras, giving an average of 130 performances each year.
Apart from
being a consummate musician, Yepes was also a significant scholar. His research
into forgotten manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries resulted
in the rediscovery of numerous works for guitar or lute. Among these, I
programmed his Suite Española after the lute music of Gaspar Sanz.
In addition
to the solo works by Sanz, I programmed a few guitar standards by fellow
Spaniard Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea known for such pieces as Recuerdos
de la Alhambra. He is often called "the father of classical
guitar" and is considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Heitor
Villa-Lobos wrote
numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works influenced by both
Brazilian folk music and by stylistic elements from the European classical
tradition. His Etudes for guitar (1929) were dedicated to Andrés Segovia while
his 5 Preludes (1940) were dedicated to Arminda Neves d’Almeida, a.k.a.
"Mindinha", both are important works in the guitar repertory. I have
programmed today Yepes in the preludes and in the concerto for guitar and small
orchestra.
The theme to
the 1952 film Forbidden Games (Orig. French Jeux interdits)
by René Clément is a work "Romance" which Yepes claims to have
written when he was a young boy. Despite Yepes's claims of composing it, the
piece ("Romance") has often been attributed to other authors –
"Estudio en Mi de Rubira", "Spanish Romance", "Romance
de España", "Romance de Amor", "Romance of the
Guitar", "Romanza" and "Romance d'Amour" among other
names; the earliest known recording of the work dates from a cylinder from
around 1900.
Yepes died
after a nearly 50-year career in 1997, 20 years ago this past May.
I think you will love this music too.
