Notes on the Program

By Michael Bane

The modern classical guitar repertoire takes shape in late 19th-century Spain. It is then and there that the guitar outgrows its salon identity and metamorphoses into the concert instrument we know today.

Few did more to bring about this transformation than Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), whose compositions and transcriptions gave the guitar the passionate voice we still hear as Spanish. No composition more vividly evokes that voice than Capricho árabe, his atmospheric conjuring of Islamic Spain, from 1892. Built atop hypnotic harmonies, the work unspools a languorous melody whose arabesque-like ornaments hint at a distant past. Meanwhile, Prelude No. 18 in D major (ca. 1889-1909) is a delicate miniature in the tradition of Tárrega’s own influences, Chopin and Mendelssohn.

Each of the next three pieces finds its muse in Spain itself, whether a crimson fortress, a Moorish palace, or the sound of flamenco, and each bears Tárrega’s imprint. Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) was not a guitarist but a pianist, yet his music radiates the sights and sounds of Spain and of the guitar in particular. Tárrega and his student Miguel Llobet (1878-1938) were among the first to recognize the guitaristic qualities of Albéniz’s compositions, and they produced idiomatic transcriptions of Torre Bermeja (1888) and Asturias (Leyenda), from Suite española No. 1, Op. 47 (1892), and many other works by their fellow Spaniard. So sensitive were their treatments that today these pieces are as often performed on the guitar as on the piano. Torre Bermeja is an ardent serenade inspired by the red-hued fortifications of Granada. The repeated-note ostinato of Asturias (Leyenda) evokes the frenetic energy of flamenco. Recuerdos de la Alhambra (1896), Tárrega’s most famous piece, renders the Alhambra as a shimmering tremolo, an illusion of singer and accompanist that remains one of the instrument’s most recognizable sounds.

The Spanish section of the program concludes with Miguel Llobet, among Tárrega’s most important students. A leading virtuoso, Llobet concertized throughout the world and composed Romantic miniatures of his own. But he also took a keen interest in the folk music of his native Catalonia, and El testament d’Amèlia (1900) is one of many folk songs he arranged for guitar. It tells of the last bequests of a dying woman. Llobet’s restrained arrangement keeps the folk melody plain while using dark-hued chords and crystalline harmonics to express the scene’s essential melancholy.

The passions aroused by the guitar were never confined to Spain, and the next works come from two Italians who each found inspiration in Spanish culture. Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) hailed from the Kingdom of Naples, then ruled by the Spanish Crown, and from 1729 until his death lived and worked in Spain. There he composed most of his 550 or so keyboard sonatas, brief works brimming with attractive tunes and intricate ornamentation. Their relatively thin textures mean that these sonatas lie well on the fretboard, and modern guitarists have enthusiastically made them their own. The Sonata in D major, K. 492 (ca.1775), is a sprightly jaunt enlivened by 32nd-note flourishes near its conclusion. Like Scarlatti, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) left his native Italy for foreign shores, arriving in the United States in 1939. His Capriccio Diabolico (Homage to Paganini), Op. 85 (1935) is an expressive showpiece and a devilish homage to Niccolò Paganini, who was a master of the guitar as well as the violin.

From Italy we cross the Atlantic to Spain’s former American colonies, where the guitar became a vehicle for many national voices in the 20th century. Paraguay’s Agustín Barrios (1885-1944) is considered by many to be the instrument’s finest composer-performer. Famed for dances and character pieces in the style of his native land’s folk music, he was equally adept in European forms like the waltz and mazurka. The Mazurka Appassionata (ca. 1919) reveals the strong influence of Chopin, both in its irregular rhythmic accents and in its contemplative demeanor.

In 1932 Barrios gave a concert in Caracas, Venezuela, attended by the young Antonio Lauro (1917-1986), then a piano student. So impressed was Lauro that he thenceforth dedicated himself to the classical guitar, becoming one of Venezuela’s leading virtuosos. As a composer he specialized in the Venezuelan waltz, a popular dance similar to the European genre but incorporating polyrhythms inherited from African and Hispanic dances. Valse No. 3 (1938-1940) is an exciting (and difficult) entry in the genre. Ana Florencia (1996) on the other hand, is one of his most winsome works, a gentle canción de cuna (or lullaby) of peaceful serenity.

The stillness of Lauro’s lullaby gives way to motion in El Decamerón Negro (The Black Decameron) (1981) by Cuban guitarist Leo Brouwer (b. 1939). This three-movement suite is based on African folk tales and tells of a warrior’s banishment, his escape on horseback, and his love for the young maiden with whom he flees. Brouwer’s music is colorful and descriptive throughout, and the second movement, La huida de los amantes por el valle de los ecos, depicts the ricocheting sounds of a horse galloping through the valley of echoes.

Brazil answers the preceding works from Spanish America with traditions of its own. As one half of the renowned Assad Duo, Sérgio Assad (b. 1952) has garnered international acclaim for his innovative compositions that often blend classical traditions with Brazilian style. The brief Cateretê opens Assad’s Suite brasileira No. 4 (2016), whose movements all draw on indigenous music. Here the source is a line dance of distant origins, marked by handclaps, foot stamps, and the viola caipira, Brazil’s country guitar. Assad sets his version in B major, a relatively uncommon key for the guitar, and the result is a surprisingly delicate reimagining of the form.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) published his own Suite populaire brésilienne, W020, for guitar in 1955, though the music was composed much earlier. All five movements, three of which you will hear on this program, are choros, a genre of popular instrumental music with origins in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. (The name is often explained as coming from the verb chorar, “to weep,” but the genre can run the emotional gamut.) These works offer a persuasive combination of Brazilian and European sensibilities: the melodies and rhythms are Brazilian in character, but these movements’ restrained elegance would not be out of place in a Parisian salon. Étude No. 12 in A minor (1953) is the last of Villa-Lobos’s famous set of concert études and tests the player’s mastery over chordal glissandos.

The program returns to Spanish-speaking Latin America for Invierno Porteño by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) excerpted from the four-movement Las cuatro estaciones porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires). The suite, both an homage to the composer’s adopted city and a nod to Antonio Vivaldi’s famous series of violin concertos, comprises four tangos, each embodying a different season in the port city. Unlike Vivaldi’s concertos, these are not showpieces but rather ensemble works originally set for a quintet of violin, piano, electric guitar, double bass, and bandoneón (a type of concertina often found in tango ensembles). Composed in 1970, the winter movement (Invierno Porteño) emits a suitably chilly atmosphere through its minor-key harmonies and plodding bassline. The work has been arranged for a number of classical and jazz ensembles over the years; today’s masterful arrangement for solo guitar is by Sérgio Assad.

In a program filled with passion, Roland Dyens (1955-2016) is given the final word with his spirited Fuoco. Born in Tunisia, Dyens spent most of his life in France, where he enjoyed a well-earned reputation as one of the nation’s leading guitarists. His compositional interests were eclectic, ranging from classical to pop to jazz. Fuoco, the third movement of the Libra Sonatine (1986), is among his most personal works. (Dyens himself was a Libra.) Dyens wrote the sonatine shortly after heart surgery, and according to the composer, its three movements chronicle his medical journey: India, before the surgery; Largo, during the procedure; and Fuoco, the aftermath. This virtuosic piece exudes vitality, especially in its lively final measures. But the irregular meter, shifting accents, and thicket of dissonances may also suggest that the road to full recovery following a crisis can be long indeed.