Segovia was born in
the mining town of Linares in southern
Spain in 1893. Growing up in Granada
he taught himself to play the guitar,
and made his debut, aged 16, in 1909.
To begin with he was criticised for
being self-taught, especially by those
who received their instruction from
Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909), and they
refused to grant him access to Tarrega’s
manuscripts. This lead him to vow that
he would "free the guitar from
such jailers by creating a repertoire
open to all". The identity of his
detractors is unclear but Segovia’s
name will live on as perhaps the supreme
exponent of his instrument to whom such
guitarists as Julian Bream and John
Williams acknowledge a huge debt of
gratitude. Indeed by the time of his
death, aged 94 in 1987, he had vastly
increased the guitar’s repertoire having
commissioned and had works written especially
for him by Villa-Lobos, Manuel Ponce,
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Rodrigo, Roussel
and many others. Rodrigo’s "Concierto
de Aranjuez" was written for him,
though he preferred his "Fantasia
para un gentilhombre".
This disc of Segovia
favourites is of works recorded between
1949-1952, though his recording career
spans an incredible fifty years or more.
The disc’s opener is the Castelnuovo-Tedesco
concerto with the New London Orchestra
from 1949. This is a fine account, apart
from the fact that it does sound rather
dated, the orchestral sound giving away
its 55 years. Everything else is of
Segovia alone and there are some particular
gems, especially the two Albeniz pieces
and the two by Granados. There are also
two of what Segovia called "recital
tasters" – early works he would
place at the start of his recitals before
the weightier and more modern works.
On this disc these "tasters"
are by Robert de Visée (c.1660-1725),
who is little known and therefore all
the more welcome.
This is a disc to dip
into as I doubt that many, other than
total guitar aficionados, could take
nearly 75 minutes of music mostly for
solo guitar. However, with works by
nine different composers there is no
difficulty in choosing a programme that
will help show why Segovia is still
regarded as the "guitar magician"
the disc’s title proclaims him to be.
Steve Arloff
Andrès Segovia (1893-1987) (guitar)