I heard both Segovia and Bream in the Stockholm Concert-hall in the early
70's and was of course highly impressed. But naturally, we were all in awe
in those days. It was like being in heaven, sitting at the feet of the
greatest of masters whom we all revered, total guitar nerds as we were. I
remember prefering the Bream concert. Not only because he also performed on
the lute. But it was incredible to me, how those Segovia Frankfurter sausage
fingers managed to caress such glorious music out of the tiny wooden box we
spent so many hours daily trying to come to terms with.
For anyone interested, I can recommend the Opus Arte / Allegro Films DVD
containing 2 films by Christopher Nupen, about Segovia. The first called
"Segovia at los Olivos" from 1967, when he was 75 years old, the other "The
song of the guitar" filmed in beautiful Granada, in 1976, when he was 84,
according to the liner notes. Of course you can hear that age had taken it's
toll, but nevertheless I must say impressive. I only wish, that I could be
able to play only half as well if ever reaching that ripe old age!
G.
----- Original Message -----
From: "howard posner" <howardpos...@ca.rr.com>
To: "lutelist Dmth" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2013 7:31 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Segovia whatever
On Dec 15, 2013, at 9:26 AM, Tobiah <t...@tobiah.org> wrote:
I find his tone anemic, his rhythm unmusically erratic,
I certainly agree about his rhythm (and unless you've heard his recordings
from around 1930 you don't know the half of it), but he pulled a lot of
sound out of the guitar. In 1977, I heard him in the 3,200-seat Dorothy
Chandler Pavilion, a cavernous and not particularly resonant space where
the LA Philharmonic played until 2003. He was 84, and obviously having
memory or concentration problems, so what he played often bore only a
passing resemblance to what the composer wrote. But he was quite audible,
for better or worse. Mostly worse. I had never heard him live before --
though I was warned what to expect -- and as someone with pretensions,
however small, of being a guitarist, I was embarrassed for my instrument.
Apparently Segovia read my review of that concert in the Los Angeles Times
a couple days later, and threatened (I don't know to whom) never to return
to Los Angeles. "You made a lot of people very happy," someone at the
Times told me. "He's a hateful old man."
The Times music critic, Martin Bernheimer, was not among those I made
happy. He'd reviewed Segovia's LA concert the previous year, and wrote
what most critics were writing about Segovia: the guitar's a joke and
there's no good music for it, but Segovia's definitely the greatest.
Bernheimer was understandably miffed about being made to look foolish by
his newest and youngest stringer (I was 20 at the time). That review
eventually finished me as a Times stringer, a career in which I could have
earned hundreds of dollars a year.
The subject of how much Segovia helped create the classical guitar's
popularity and how much he caught the wave at the right time can be
discussed endlessly, but we should not forget 1) that the classical music
establishment looked at Segovia, and the guitar, with much condescension,
and 2) that he brought some disrepute on the instrument by atrocious
performances in his later years, when someone less egotistical would have
realized it was time to retire. Of course, his concerts in the 1930's or
1950's could have been embarrassments as well; I wouldn't know.
But Segovia was helped a lot by talking dog effect: he was hailed as the
greatest classical guitarist by lots of people who had no idea there were
any others.
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