Recording the Classical

Guitar

Recording the Classical Guitar charts the evolution of classical guitar

recording practice from the early twentieth century to the present day,
encompassing the careers of many of the instrument’s most infuential
practitioners from the acoustic era to the advent of the CD. A key
focus is on the ways in which guitarists’ recorded repertoire programs
have shaped the identity of the instrument, particularly where national
allegiances and musical aesthetics are concerned. The book also con-
siders the ways in which changing approaches to recording practice
have conditioned guitarists’ conceptions of the instrument’s ideal rep-
resentation in recorded form and situates these in relation to the de-
velopment of classical music recording aesthetics more generally. An
important addition to the growing body of literature in the feld of
phonomusicology, the book will be of interest to both guitarists and
producers as well as students of record production and historians of
classical music recording.

Mark Marrington studied classical guitar as an undergraduate before

training as a musicologist in the late 1990s and undertaking doctoral
work focused on twentieth-century British music and the composer
Denis ApIvor. Later, he became interested in record production and
recording technologies leading him to a period of research into the
impact of digital production tools (principally the Digital Audio
Workstation) upon musical creativity in a number of genre contexts.
This book is essentially a marriage of these two perspectives. Mark is
currently Senior Lecturer in Music Production at York St. John Uni-
versity and his academic writing has been published by Cambridge
University Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge, Future Technol-
ogy Press, British Music, Soundboard, Classical Guitar, the Musical
Times and the Journal on the Art of Record Production.
Perspectives on Music Production
Series Editors:
Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, York St John University, UK
Jay Hodgson, Western University, Ontario, Canada
Mark Marrington, York St John University, UK

This series collects detailed and experientially informed considerations

of record production from a multitude of perspectives, by authors
working in a wide array of academic, creative and professional con-
texts. We solicit the perspectives of scholars of every disciplinary stripe,
alongside recordists and recording musicians themselves, to provide a
fully comprehensive analytic point-of-view on each component stage
of music production. Each volume in the series thus focuses directly
on a distinct stage of music production, from pre-production through
recording (audio engineering), mixing, mastering, to marketing and
promotions.

Pop Music Production

Manufactured Pop and Boy Bands of the 1990s
Phil Harding
Edited by Mike Collins

Cloud-Based Music Production

Sampling, Synthesis, and Hip-Hop
Matthew T. Shelvock

Gender in Music Production

Edited by Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Jay Hodgson, Liesl King and
Mark Marrington

Mastering in Music
Edited by Russ Hepworth-Sawyer and Jay Hodgson

Innovation in Music
Future Opportunities
Edited by Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Justin Paterson and Rob Toulson

Recording the Classical Guitar

Mark Marrington

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

Perspectives-on-Music-Production/book-series/POMP
Recording the
Classical Guitar

Mark Marrington
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2021 Mark Marrington

The right of Mark Marrington to be identified as author of this work

has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced

or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or

registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-1-138-55468-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-55470-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14913-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by codeMantra
 In loving memory of my grandparents,
Anthony Marrington and Anne Marrington
Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements xi

1 Recordings and the Evolving Identity of the Classical

Guitar in the Twentieth Century 1
Defning the Terms of the Study 1
Narratives of the Classical Guitar in the Twentieth Century 7
The Recording Model Established 8
The Recording Model Consolidated 11
The Recording Model Interrogated 11
The Recording Model Deconstructed 12

PART ONE THE RECORDING MODEL ESTABLISHED 15

2 The Classical Guitar in the Early Period of Recording: Spain 17
Introduction: Evaluating the Early Period of Classical
Guitar Recording 17
The Technological Conditions of Early Recording 18
Recording Plucked String Instruments 20
Early Classical Guitar Recording in Spain, 1897–1936 24
The Recordings of Miguel Llobet 27
Spanish Guitarists on the Regal Label 30
Other Signifcant Recordings Made by Spanish Guitarists
During the 1920s and 1930s 33
3 Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 38
Introduction 38
Segovia’s First Recording 38
Segovia at HMV: Repertoire and Recording Strategy 39
The Reception of Segovia’s HMV Recordings 46
The Sound of Segovia’s HMV Recordings: Early Classical
Guitar Recording Aesthetics 49
The HMV Recordings and Later Critical Perspectives on
Segovia’s Performance Style 56

vii
viii Contents

4 The Classical Guitar in the Early Period of Recording:

Latin America 62
Introduction 62
Edison, Victor and the Classical Guitar in Cuba and Mexico 63
Mexican and Cuban Guitarists Recording in the Late 1920s
and Early 1930s 66
Classical Guitar Recording in the Rio de la Plata and the
Legacy of Agustín Barrios 68
The Eclectic Roots of Solo Guitar Recording in Brazil 78

PART TWO THE RECORDING MODEL CONSOLIDATED 85

5 Segovia at American Decca 87
Introduction 87
Early Post-war Recordings and the Transition to LP 87
Return to Abbey Road 91
Segovia at American Decca: Redefning the Classical
Guitar in the Post-war Period 93
The LP and the Structure of Segovia’s Early Recorded
Programs 94
Repertoire Programming and Evolution of the Segovian
Album Concept 98
Segovia in the Studio 106
Segovia’s Recordings and the Aesthetics of
“High Fidelity” 109
Acoustics in Classical Guitar Performance:
A Brief Digression 111
The Sound of Segovia’s American Decca Recordings 115
6 The North American Backdrop to Segovia 120
Introduction 120
The Foundations of the North American Classical Guitar
Marketplace 120
The Recordings of the Spanish Music Center 124
The Spanish Music Center and Lo-Fi Recording Aesthetics 128
The Recording Career of Rey de la Torre 131
Laurindo Almeida’s Recordings of the 1950s and 1960s 135
The Sound of Almeida’s Recordings 138
The Classical Guitar and American Popular Music and Jazz 141
7 Developments in Latin America 146
Introduction 146
The Documentation of Latin American Guitar Music 146
The Emergence of the Brazilian Classical Guitar 147
Guitarists of the Rio de la Plata 152
Alirio Díaz and Venezuelan Music 157
Contents ix

The Classical Guitar in Mexico 159

Cuban Perspectives on the Classical Guitar 163

PART THREE THE RECORDING MODEL INTERROGATED 167

8 Nationalism and Modernism in the Recordings of
Julian Bream 169
Introduction 169
Early Recordings for Decca and Westminster 169
Recording Aesthetics: Westminster’s “Natural Balance” 175
Re-thinking the Classical Guitar Album Program: Bream
at RCA 177
Modernizing the Repertoire: 20th Century Guitar, ’70s and
Dedication 180
Bream’s Quest for an Acoustic Aesthetic 184
Re-orienting Recorded Guitar Perspective After Bream 189
Bream and the Recording Process 192
9 Non-conformity in the Recordings of John Williams 197
Introduction 197
Early Recordings: Delysé, Westminster and CBS 197
Williams’ Early Recording Aesthetic 203
Recording and Repertoire Experiments After 1970 204
Constructing the Solo Guitar Recording 210
Crossover Projects from Changes to Sky 212
Williams’ Changing Attitude to Recorded Classical Guitar
Sound 217
Multi-tracking the Classical Guitar 221
10 The Wider European Context 224
Introduction 224
Spain: The Early Recordings of Narciso Yepes 224
Yepes at Deutsche Grammophon 228
Spanish Contemporaries of Yepes 232
Guitarists in Austria 235
The Recordings of Siegfried Behrend and Anton Stingl 240
The Emerging Czechoslovakian Guitar Scene 245
Classical Guitar Recording in France 246

PART FOUR THE RECORDING MODEL DECONSTRUCTED 255

11 Post-Segovian Narratives of the Classical Guitar 257
Introduction 257
The Classical Guitar and the Recording Industry at the End
of the 1960s 257
x Contents

The Assimilation of the Bream Paradigm 259

Leo Brouwer and the Avant-garde Classical Guitar 264
The Album Program Re-imagined 266
The Rise of the North American Progressives 267
Contemporary Eastern European Perspectives 272
Traversing Boundaries: The Recordings of Liona Boyd 274
Popular Music as Repertoire: The Classical Guitar Canon
Infltrated 280
12 Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 287
Introduction 287
Segovia’s Legacy in North America: Christopher Parkening 287
The Spanish Perspective Retained 291
Recordings and the Classical Guitar Transcription 295
Historical Composer Recording Projects 300
Latin America and the Classical Guitar Canon 306
Audiophile Recording and the Classical Guitar 314
Recapturing Liveness: Classical Guitarists and “Direct to
Disc” Recording 319
13 Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 327
Introduction 327
The Consolidation of the Progressive Paradigm 327
The Revival of the Classical Guitarist-Composer 330
Classical Guitar Recording in Britain Since the 1990s 333
North American Perspectives After 1990 338
Popular Music and the Canonization of The Beatles 345
The Canon Upheld: The Recordings of David Russell 347
The Segovian Paradigm Reinstated 349
The Repertoire Documented: The Naxos Guitar Collection 352
The Emergence of the Specialist Classical Guitar Recordist 356
New Critical Perspectives on Classical Guitar Sound 357
Extensions of the Audiophile Recording Aesthetic 359
14 Two Contemporary “House” Guitarists and the Future of
Classical Guitar Recording Practice 362
Introduction 362
Xuefei Yang 362
Miloš Karadaglić 364
Concluding Remarks 368

Archives and Bibliography 371

Select Discography 400
Index 415
Preface and Acknowledgements

My principal purpose in writing this book has been to construct a read-

able and informative history of the recorded classical guitar couched
within a structure governed by particular lines of enquiry drawn from
the relatively recent discipline of phonomusicology. While my inten-
tion has been to encompass as broad a perspective as possible on the
developments that have occurred in classical guitar recording since the
early 1900s, it has not been possible within the limits of a monograph
to document every classical guitarist who has ever recorded, nor offer
focused discussion of every seminal classical guitar recording that has
been issued. It is also likely that certain areas of “national” focus will
be found by the more informed reader to be thinner in their documen-
tation than might ideally be preferred, or in some cases absent. Regard-
ing the Latin American scene, for example, I recognize that the history
of the classical guitar in this territory is a specialism in itself, with its
own acknowledged experts, and that I have only been able to scratch
the surface here. I also accept that the study might appear at certain
times to be particularly Euro-centric, while at others to be adopting a
more pronounced Anglo-American perspective. To a large extent this
has been determined by the particular patterns of emphasis that have
emerged as this study has proceeded, but it also naturally refects the
inclination of my own knowledge as someone whose experience of the
classical guitar and its music has largely been garnered in a European
context. Given these “limitations” I advise the reader to remember that
the rationale behind the selection of content for this book serves, frst
and foremost, the narrative as expressed in the various subheadings
found in the table of contents. In response to those critics who fnd
gaps in the history, or feel that a particular area of focus has not been
elaborated enough, I would stress that as well as attempting to an-
swer its own questions this book also aims, in the spirit of academic
enquiry, to leave space for others to take up the book’s threads and
further elaborate the content. There remains much for scope for ex-
ploration in a feld which has so far received very little attention from
scholars, with the notable exception of two excellent dissertations by
Sidney José Molina Júnior (2006) and Taylor Jonathon Greene (2011).
I wish to acknowledge the direct contribution of a number of indi-
viduals to the preparation of this book, beginning with guitarist and
writer John Lehmann-Haupt who generously allowed me access to
xi
xii Preface and Acknowledgements

audio relating to his interview with Segovia’s producer Israel Horowitz

recorded in the early 2000s. Through this I was able to obtain many
valuable leads concerning the production circumstances of Segovia’s
American Decca recordings (as documented in Lehmann-Haupt’s ex-
cellent essay for the 2002 DGG re-issues) as well as gain fascinating
insight into Horowitz’s experiences of working with the maestro. I also
wish to thank Mike Ross-Trevor, John Williams’ principal recording
engineer at CBS during the 1970s and 1980s, who kindly gave his time
to discussing, in two in-depth interviews, his experiences of working
on a number of now iconic Williams LPs. I am also grateful to Alice
Artzt and Craig Ogden for agreeing to speak to me at often awkward
times about their multifaceted and distinguished recording careers, as
well as entertaining my various email queries and, in the case of Al-
ice, my requests for recordings. Both conversations yielded numerous
insights into classical guitar recording practice from the artist’s per-
spective. Likewise, I wish to thank guitarist Simon James for taking
the time to put into writing an informative account of his experiences
of making classical guitar recordings since the 1980s. Thanks also to
mastering engineer Paul Baily (an editor of Julian Bream’s late record-
ings for EMI) who helped me to understand a number of the funda-
mental issues that lie at the heart of classical guitar recording practice
at an early stage in this book’s development. My gratitude also to Jay
Hodgson for taking the time to read and review the pre-publication
draft of this book and Russ Hepworth Sawyer for his enthusiastic en-
dorsement of the project. As regards the logistics of acquiring mate-
rials, I wish to acknowledge the assistance of Belfer Cylinders Digital
Connection at Syracuse University, who generously provided high res-
olution audio copies of Sebastián Hidalgo’s cylinder recordings and
the Inter-Library Loans department at York St. John University, who
were tireless in their felding of my diverse and often challenging re-
quests for sources. Thanks also to the editorial team at Routledge for
their patience and encouragement over the course of this book’s de-
velopment, and to Alison for her thorough and detailed copyediting
of the manuscript. Lastly, and most importantly, for their love and
support during the years of researching and writing this book, I thank
my father, my wife Rebekah and our sons, Dylan and Jacob.

A NOTE ON RECORDING DATES

I have endeavored as far as possible to assign correct dates to record-
ings, a process which obviously becomes more problematic the earlier
the recording. Sources for dates have for the most part been drawn
from catalogs and discographies which have been correlated with the
recorded artefacts themselves (using LP liner notes, disc labels etc) as
well as the review literature. The dates given for recordings in the text
should be assumed to refer to the year of issue unless otherwise stated,
the exception usually being when the date of the actual recording
sessions themselves is cited.
1
Recordings and the Evolving
Identity of the Classical Guitar in
the Twentieth Century

DEFINING THE TERMS OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this book is to trace the evolution of the classical guitar
in the twentieth century as an idea expressed in recorded form. In large
part it constitutes a survey of the recording careers of many of the most
prominent (and in some cases most obscure) classical guitarists active
in Europe, North America and Latin America from the early twentieth
century to the 2010s. The main focus is on evaluating, primarily through
a consideration of artists’ recorded programs and their critical recep-
tion, the specifc contributions that classical guitarists’ recordings have
made to the identity of the classical guitar as a musical instrument. In
addition, a number of recordings are considered in terms of the circum-
stances of their production, with a view to providing an overview of the
evolving aesthetics of classical guitar recording practice which are often
closely bound up with the instrument’s musical presentation. The book
aims to provide both a resource for the classical guitar specialist wishing
to study the historical evolution of classical guitar recording practice
and, more generally, a model for the historical interrogation of classical
music recording practice in reference to a specifc instrumental context.
In terms of its general relevance to the broad feld of Music Produc-
tion Studies, as encapsulated within the Perspectives on Music Produc-
tion series, this book may be regarded as a “phonomusicological” text.
Phonomusicology (a term coined by Stephen Cottrell in 2010) is a rel-
atively new branch of contemporary musicology that has emerged in
the light of the explosion of academic literature concerned with prior-
itizing the musical recording as the object of study. Cottrell describes
phonomusicology as an approach to the study of music

focused […] on the ways in which music-makers interact with re-

cording technology, how they use this to support and sustain the
musical traditions with which they identify, and what they reveal to
us about their musical creativity and performance practice through
the cultural artefacts they produce.
(Cottrell 2010: 32)

1
2 C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity

Transplanting this definition to the context of the present study, the

primary objective of this book is to illustrate the ways in which record-
ing practice has supported and sustained particular traditions of the
classical guitar during the twentieth century and, furthermore, con-
stituted a central site of debate concerning the question of what the
musical traditions of the classical guitar actually are.
A key assumption that underlies this study is that recordings p ­ ossess a
“rhetorical” character, meaning that they have the capacity to persua-
sively communicate ideas regarding an area of musical practice, in this
instance the classical guitar. Indeed, it is arguable that during the course
of the twentieth century recordings have had as much to communicate,
if not more, than live concertizing where ideas about the classical guitar
are concerned. This is not to deny the importance of the concert tradition
of performance, which has played a vital role in defining the structure
of the classical guitar recording. However, r­elative to recordings con-
certs are by their nature an inherently fragmentary and ephemeral entity
that makes them a far less effective means of sustaining a discourse of
musical ideas. Recordings in comparison constitute a permanent record
of a musical event which can be conveniently recalled and scrutinized,
while their limitless repeatability gives them the capacity to naturalize a
particular musical perspective in a way that a live performance never can
(unless of course it was recorded). As recordings accumulate over time,
they come to constitute an archive of cultural history whose constitu-
ent elements can be readily examined and considered in relation to one
another. Through this it is possible to extrapolate specific criteria that
at any given time have delimited the boundaries of a particular area of
musical activity and discern the processes by which this may be modified
as practitioners build upon, refine or reject preceding traditions.
For the purposes of this book then, recordings are understood to
embody a narrative of the classical guitar’s history, repertoire and per-
formance practice. For guitarists, they have provided a vital means of
self-orientation, enabling reflection upon the evolution of personal
artistry in relation to the heritage of their predecessors’ recorded work.
For the critic and general listener, recordings have been as important
as live concert performances in engendering knowledge of the classi-
cal guitar and securing their investment in the musical aesthetics that
it embodies. In situations which have precluded the live experience,
for example, due to the constraints of physical location, recordings
have arguably become the principal means by which knowledge of the
classical guitar has been disseminated. John Schneider encapsulates
the importance of recordings for the dissemination of the idea of the
classical guitar in the following remarks made in his inaugural Just for
the Record column in the American periodical, Soundboard:

It is now generally accepted that the efforts of Andrés Segovia are

the prime cause of the classic guitar’s phenomenal resurgence in
this century. But I often wonder, would the maestro’s tireless globe-
trotting have accomplished this incredible feat without the advent
C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity 3

of sound recording? Playing to thousands at a time no doubt in-

creased the awareness of the instrument, but I am convinced that
it was the intimacy of recordings that brought the magic of the
guitar into the hearts of so many. A microphone always has the
best seat in the house, and sitting a few feet away from the guitar
has always been the best vantage point for what has been, until the
advent of amplification, essentially a chamber instrument. That
is exactly where a recording puts you—at the feet of the master,
a position of honor traditionally reserved for only the most de-
voted acolyte, now available to anyone for the price of a CD. This
almost voyeuristic intimacy has won millions of new admirers for
the classical guitar, fans who have become strangely loyal to an
instrument that was, only a few generations ago, just an obscure
museum piece.
(Schneider 1994a: 44)

In his foreword to Enrique Robichaud’s book, Guitar’s Top 100 (2013),

classical guitar musicologist Graham Wade affirms the value of re-
cordings as a repository of knowledge concerning the classical guitar
when he states: “Among the thousands of 78 rpms, long playing re-
cords, compact discs, tapes, films and DVDs of recorded guitar music,
the instrument’s true history is for ever preserved for us and for future
generations”. Wade’s suggestion that it is through recordings that the
“true history” of the instrument is preserved, raises further pertinent
questions where the premise of this book is concerned. Should such
a statement be taken to imply, for example, that what recording me-
dia have preserved of the classical guitar for posterity already existed
“out there” prior to the advent of recording? Was the classical gui-
tar therefore already a well-defined concept with a clearly delineated
history and prior repertoire, that only needed to be discovered and
documented by recordists? From one perspective, the answer to this
question is “yes”. In the early years of recording, recordists captured
aspects of guitar performance practice taking place in Spain and parts
of Latin America – styles of playing and repertoire – that would cer-
tainly accord with criteria used to define classical guitar performance
today. To what extent, however, do our criteria for making such a
­judgment derive from the presence of these recordings? Are they a
­reflection of objective historical knowledge of classical guitar culture
as it then existed, or have they themselves served to construct our idea
of the classical guitar?
Robichaud’s book also offers a useful illustrative vehicle for con-
sidering the way in which recordings, when considered collectively as
a body of material, can amount to a potent statement concerning the
traditions of the classical guitar. Described by the author as “a guide
to classical guitar’s most recorded music”, Robichaud ranks 100 clas-
sical guitar pieces in accordance with the number of recordings that
have been made of each. The resulting list affirms a widely held con-
ception of the classical guitar as an instrument whose musical identity
4 C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity

derives primarily from its association with composers of Spanish and

Latin American origin operating within a tightly defined historical
context and within certain stylistic parameters. Specifically the most
highly recorded works in Robichaud’s list were conceived between the
mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries,with a particular empha-
sis on pieces by Francisco Tárrega and Agustín Barrios Mangoré and
the prominence of composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos, Antonio
Lauro, Manuel Ponce, Joaquín Turina, Federico Moreno Torroba and
Joaquín Rodrigo.
Of equal interest however is the repertoire that is de-prioritized or
marginalized by the criteria employed in Robichaud’s selection. Per-
haps surprisingly no works by J. S. Bach are included, despite the cen-
trality of Bach’s music to the repertoire of many classical guitarists
since Segovia. The earlier period is instead represented by a handful
of works by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish composers
­associated with the vihuela and Baroque guitar: Alonso Mudarra’s
Fantasía que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico, Gaspar
Sanz’s Canarios, and two works by Luys de Narváez – his Diferen-
cias sobre Guardame las Vacas and Canción del Emperador. Of the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (the formative period
of the six-string guitar) only five Fernando Sor compositions are pres-
ent, including the well-known Variations on a Theme of Mozart Op.
9 (a piece which ranks highly) and the Grand Solo, four by Mauro
­Giuliani and one by Johann Kaspar Mertz. Very little of the reper-
toire in R­ obichaud’s ­selection reflects twentieth-century “modernist”
tendencies, with the exception of two British works, Britten’s Noctur-
nal and William ­Walton’s Bagatelles, Swiss composer Frank Martin’s
Quatre Pièces Brèves and Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s
Sonata Op.47. On the other hand, the more “accessible” side of the
contemporary repertoire is well represented, with five works by Cuban
guitarist Leo Brouwer, three by Tunisian-born French guitarist Roland
Dyens and one by American guitarist Andrew York (his Sunburst).
An interpretation of Robichaud’s data might give rise to the conclu-
sion that the repertoire emphasized (the works by Tárrega, Ponce, Tor-
roba, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Villa-Lobos in particular) reflects the
dominance of the Segovian “paradigm”, meaning a musical aesthetic
coherent with the concept of the classical guitar that was prioritized
and widely disseminated by Andrés Segovia from the early to mid-twen-
tieth century. The earlier pieces included by the vihuelists might also
be seen to reflect a perspective on the classical guitar tradition that was
advocated by Segovia (building on the work of Spanish contemporaries
such as Emilio Pujol), which held that certain plucked string music pre-­
dating the era of the six-string guitar could also qualify as repertoire
for the instrument. At the same time, however, other recurrent elements
of Robichaud’s list reflect “revisionist” trends in relation to the Sego-
vian perspective. The strong presence of Barrios, for example, implies
the late twentieth-century modification of the classical guitar canon in
recognition of the importance of certain previously excluded strands
C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity 5

of Latin American classical guitar music. The presence of post-war

British works and Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves also hints at a form of
dissent against the Segovian repertoire perspective, in this instance re-
ferring to progressive agenda of Julian Bream in the 1960s and 1970s.
Such observations serve to illustrate the extent to which, when con-
sidering a body of recorded musical material, a range of ideological
positions may potentially be inferred from its content.
Obviously in Robichaud’s case the statistical criteria employed for
his survey, based on the relative popularity of particular works, are
not likely to yield the most all-encompassing view of the idea of the
classical guitar in recorded form. The repertoire included in Robi-
chaud’s rankings represents only a small part of the literature of the
instrument that guitar scholarship, concertizing and recordings have
revealed over the last century. Such lists also cannot convey the broad
range of motivations for recording particular works, nor the reasons
for avoiding others, which have much to do with the ideological tradi-
tions that surround guitar performance and repertoire choice. Pieces
may be recorded, for example, to demonstrate artistic prowess and
technical range, or to stake out a particular claim to a particular area
of repertoire. They may also indicate allegiance to a particular musical
aesthetic, and, by implication, a lack of allegiance to another. This is a
central objective of the study of classical guitar recordings undertaken
in this book, namely, to account for the principal criteria that have
determined their creation.
A second phonomusicological consideration of this study concerns
what Cottrell has described as “the variety of articulations between
recording technology, musical performance and creativity in the re-
cording context” (Cottrell 2010: 19). Central to this are the ways in
which the changing technological conditions of recording have fos-
tered particular values concerning the presentation of classical gui-
tar performances on record. Various lines of enquiry can be raised
in regard to this area. For example, one might consider the ways in
which classical guitarists have evolved particular sonic settings for
their recorded performances which are designed to reinforce their con-
ception of the guitar as a particular kind of musical instrument. Here
one might consider contrasting notions of the ideal experience of the
guitar in a particular acoustic environment such as a concert hall, in
contradistinction to the more “artificial” perspective engendered by
studio-based recording approaches. When classical guitarists make re-
cordings they are also required to collaborate with a range of person-
nel (engineers, producers, editors and so on), and the specialisms such
people bring to the recording situation will also to varying degrees de-
termine the character of what is produced. This book therefore offers
discussion of classical guitarists’ associations with such personnel and
the ideas they bring to the conception of the classical guitar record-
ing. Also of importance has been the evolution of the technological
medium itself, which has impacted considerably upon the possibili-
ties for the construction of recordings. For example, in the early days
6 C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity

of recording there were various constraints on the way that an artist

could envisage a performance in a recording context, not least the re-
striction on the amount of time available to record within. Since the
1950s, however, a variety of facilities (increased capacities of storage
media, multi-tracking, close editing, use of effects etc) have gradually
become available that have enabled the potential of classical guitar re-
cordings to be limitlessly re-imagined. This has dramatically altered
both performer and audience expectations of what a classical guitar
performance actually is, which contrasts sharply with notions of the
“live” concert experience.
A final phonomusicological dimension of this study concerns what
Symes, in his book Setting the Record Straight (2004), has called the
“discourses of the phonograph”, namely the textual culture that has
accompanied the experience of musical recordings over the decades.
This refers in particular to the substantial body of critical writing
on classical guitar recordings that has accrued in publications such
as Gramophone in the UK and High Fidelity in the US. Such com-
mentary is harnessed throughout this book as a means of tracing
changing critical perspectives on the classical guitar in reference to
questions concerning, for example, its standing as a vehicle for the
performance of serious music, the ideal nature of its repertoire, con-
ventions concerning musical interpretation and the role of the record-
ing in effectively representing the instrument. Also of importance to
this study have been album liner (or “sleeve”) notes, whose central-
ity to the construction of the narrative of classical guitar recording
cannot be overstated. Liner notes serve both as potent statements of
agenda concerning the purposes of classical guitar recordings at any
given moment and sources of critical insight into the musical culture
they reflect.
At this juncture it is pertinent to define what is meant by the “clas-
sical” guitar for the purposes of this book. The following are some of
the principal criteria, which will be elaborated as the book progresses:

1. It refers primarily to the modern six-string Spanish-derived instru-

ment which came into its own at the end of the eighteenth century,
strung initially with gut and later nylon strings (Tyler and Sparks
2002). This does not preclude mention of the modern guitar’s pre-
decessors such as the lute, vihuela and Baroque guitar, particularly
given that the repertoire associated with these instruments has of-
ten been co-opted by classical guitarists in the twentieth century.
However, such instruments are not themselves central to the main
narrative.
2. It refers to an instrument employed, principally in a soloistic ca-
pacity, in the performance of a particular repertoire associated
with the Western “classical” tradition. The purpose of this study,
however, is to illustrate that the notion of precisely what consti-
tutes “classical” guitar is problematic and has remained in flux as
C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity 7

the instrument has been purposefully situated in a wide range of

musical contexts. In the twentieth century recordings have become
a key site of debate concerning the meaning of “classical” where
the classical guitar is concerned. The notion that the classical gui-
tar is principally a “soloistic” instrument is also subject to modi-
fication as the instrument begins to be incorporated into a variety
of ensemble settings, particularly from the 1950s onwards.
3. It refers to an instrument whose performances are experienced
in particular circumstances and in terms of a particular relation-
ship between performer and audience. This implies, for example,
a venue of a certain kind, such as a concert hall, which engenders
a formalized mode of musical experience for the listener who is
situated in relation to the performer according to certain conven-
tions. Received ideas concerning the experience of classical guitar
performance have particular importance in relation to changing
notions of recording practice.

NARRATIVES OF THE CLASSICAL GUITAR IN THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY
To reiterate, this book is concerned with two main questions. Firstly,
how have recordings functioned to construct ideas of the classical
guitar and its repertoire in the twentieth century? Secondly, how has
classical guitar recording practice reflected changing ideals concerning
the sonic presentation of this repertoire in recorded form? The for-
mer question is answered through a survey, in a number of different
global and cultural contexts, of the repertoire programming strategies
of guitarists in their recordings with a particular emphasis on how
this has contributed to the evolving narrative of the classical guitar.
The latter is addressed in reference to the concerns shown by guitar-
ists, particularly those who were able to maintain long-term recording
careers, with the role of recording practice in shaping the presentation
of their musical aesthetic. In order to manage these two perspectives
effectively this book’s structure has been modelled in reference to cer-
tain extant historical accounts of recorded music whose remit is sim-
ilar. An important influence here has been Timothy Day’s A Century
of Recorded Music (2002), which at the time of writing remains the
definitive history of classical music recording in the twentieth century.
In the course of his account Day touches upon key issues concerning
both the representation of repertoire in recorded form and changing
notions of recording aesthetics, both of which are central to the pres-
ent book. Also important has been Robert Dixon and John Godrich’s
Recording the Blues (1970), which chronologically surveys the devel-
opment of a specific musical genre in recorded form within a tightly
defined time frame. In particular the book’s focus on the early history
of blues recording as a means of highlighting “the ways in which the
8 C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity

companies discovered talent, how they recorded the singers and how
they marketed the records” (1970: 6) is mirrored in the first part of
Recording the Classical Guitar, which concerns the construction of the
market for recorded classical guitar music in the early era of the music
industry. Finally, this book’s strategy for presenting historical informa-
tion owes something to Pekka Gronow and Ilpo Saunio’s An Interna-
tional History of the Recording Industry (1998). While their account is
broadly chronological in its structure it breaks down the commentary
into a series of vignettes which allows for deviation into a wide range
of topic areas relating to musical developments, careers of particular
musicians and various contextual factors. In the present account this
approach has also been deemed the most practical way to facilitate the
discussion of the variously separate and closely intertwined themes of
recorded repertoire and recording practice. While this book is essen-
tially historical in terms of its overarching structure, a strictly histori-
cal approach is not necessarily adhered to within individual chapters.
This allows for the flexibility to encompass areas of approximately
contemporaneous but contrasting recording activity and to maneu-
ver backwards and forwards within time frames, as demanded by the
book’s thematic threads. There is also variation in how the two main
themes – ­repertoire and recording practice – are dealt with. For exam-
ple, sometimes recording practice is considered in the same context as
the discussion of an artist’s repertoire strategizing, while at other times
it may be treated as a separate concern.
In terms of the overarching thematic structure of this book, the
evolution of the classical guitar recording is pursued in reference to
four phases, expressed in the headings below. Here the term “recording
model” is used to refer to a central set of ideas concerning the classi-
cal guitar and its musical identity that had accrued in classical guitar
recordings by the early 1940s, which were then over time subject to
increasing modification.

1. The recording model established.

2. The recording model consolidated.
3. The recording model interrogated.
4. The recording model deconstructed.

THE RECORDING MODEL ESTABLISHED

In the first part of the book the early era of classical guitar recording
is surveyed, covering the period from approximately the 1890s to the
early 1940s, during which time the “model” for classical guitar record-
ing is established. Broadly speaking recordings in this period reflect the
position of the culture of the classical guitar as it had crystallized by
the early twentieth century. In comparison to other important solo in-
struments such as the piano and the violin, the notion of the classical
guitar was a vaguely sketched one. Recordings at this time draw upon
the performance practice associated with body of musical literature
C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity 9

conceived for the relatively recently evolved six-string guitar, com-

posed by guitarists themselves or alternatively sourced through the
transcription and arrangement of music from non-guitaristic contexts
(such as the piano, cello and violin). This refers to a musical aesthetic
propagated from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth
century by the small group of guitarists associated with the Spanish
school of Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909), which was carried forward
into the early era of recording by guitarists that he had taught, Mi-
guel Llobet, Emilio Pujol and Daniel Fortea. In turn these guitarists
transmitted Tárrega’s ideas to the younger guitarists that they, or their
associates, had taught. The presence of the Tárrega school is apparent
not only in Spain, but also in certain parts of Latin America where
his ideas had begun to be spread by Spanish emigrés and touring con-
cert artists in the early twentieth century, particularly in the Rio de la
Plata area. Thus the Tárrega tradition, in terms of both its repertoire
associations and performance aesthetic, is a readily identifiable thread
in early guitar recordings made in both Spain and Latin America and
indeed, while less dominant in certain contexts (in the recordings of
Barrios for example) it represents the central tenet of the classical gui-
tar’s identity in recorded form at this time.
It should also be added that the evolution of the classical guitar
during this period took place against the backdrop of the emerging
concert tradition, which gave rise to the phenomenon of public recital-
ist. Where the classical guitar was concerned public recitals had begun
with the generation of Sor, Dionisio Aguado and Giuliani in the early
nineteenth century with concerts being typically undertaken for small
private gatherings or in salons (Turnbull 1974). By the time of Tárrega
and his disciples, classical guitar concerts were being organized along
the lines of what William Weber (2008) has termed the “miscellany” or
“miscellaneous” program, meaning a selection of pieces by a range of
different composers, often contrasting in style and genre. In the early
era of classical guitar recording the miscellaneous concert program
was necessarily fragmented by the limitations of the recorded medium
which permitted the issue of no more than one or two pieces at a time
(a single cylinder or two sides of 78 rpm record). However, with the
advent of the early 78 rpm boxed “album” format in the 1940s and the
LP in the early 1950s, the miscellaneous recital structure was revived
and became an important organizing principle for classical guitar re-
cordings until well into the 1960s.
While for the many guitarists the Tárrega school represented a
repertoire tradition to be propagated and maintained, for others it
constituted a basis upon which to build something new. This was the
case with Andrés Segovia, the subject of Chapter 3, for whom the
Spanish school was the foundation for the development of the highly
individualized classical guitar concept that he was to later widely
publicize in his recordings. Segovia began by incorporating pieces
and transcriptions by Tárrega into his repertoire, alongside mis-
cellaneous works then available to him by early nineteenth-century
10 C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity

composers such as Fernando Sor and his own transcriptions of

composers such as Chopin and Mendelssohn, as a means of con-
structing a repertoire that would be sufficient to sustain a concert ca-
reer (Segovia 1976). However, once Segovia had achieved a presence
on the global stage (following his Paris debut in 1924) he began to
extend his ­repertoire to include music by contemporary composers
from a wider range of national and cultural contexts (such as Manuel
Ponce, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Federico Moreno Torroba, Joa-
quín Turina and Villa-Lobos) who had become interested in writing
for him in the light of his growing fame. The fact that many of these
composers did not play the guitar was also an important departure,
not least because it meant that the music they wrote would be free
of ­guitaristic cliche. Indeed the theme of the non-guitarist composer
is a central and recurrent one in the recordings of classical guitar-
ists in the twentieth century. While the traditional Spanish thread of
­Segovia’s repertoire was retained, and indeed often emphasized (for
example, he continued to play works by Sor and Tárrega), it now ap-
peared in the context of an increasing musical cosmopolitanism. At
the same time, Segovia also made a point of looking further into the
classical guitar’s European past for repertoire opportunities. This in-
cluded not only the Spanish tradition – particularly the music of the
sixteenth-century vihuelists – but also Northern European music,
with Bach in particular coming to represent an important facet of
his pre-nineteenth century music transcribing activity. The evolution
of Segovia’s repertoire strategizing during this early period is readily
reflected in his recordings for the HMV label from the late 1920s
onwards, which became a principal vehicle for advocating on behalf
of his vision of the classical guitar. With a view to evaluating the
reasons for the impact of Segovia’s recordings Chapter 3 also offers
some consideration of the aesthetics of these recordings in terms of
their sound which played an important role in convincing the critical
establishment of the viability of the guitar for the performance of
serious music.
While Segovia’s concept of the classical guitar began to become
globally disseminated via his recordings, a number of traditions of
solo guitar performance had also been evolving in Latin America,
some of which, as noted above, had been strongly informed by the
Spanish influence, while others, such as those of Brazil, had evolved
much more independently. Chapter 4 outlines these developments in
detail with reference to early guitar recording in Cuba, Mexico, the
Rio de la Plata and Brazil, all territories which produced concepts of
the classical guitar that would later be adopted into mainstream prac-
tice. At this point the notion of the Latin American “corrective” is
introduced, which refers to the fact that the Latin American contribu-
tion to the idea of the classical guitar tended to be overlooked until the
1970s. By examining the recordings made in these territories during
this period, a clearer sense of the Latin American contribution to the
classical guitar can be discerned.
C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity 11

THE RECORDING MODEL CONSOLIDATED

Having considered the defining features of the early classical guitar
recording model, namely the nineteenth-century Spanish traditions of
the classical guitar and Latin American derivations thereof, and its
evolution in the recordings of Segovia, the second part of the book
considers the ways in which these perspectives were consolidated in
the recordings of guitarists in North America and Latin America from
the 1950s to the 1970s. “Consolidation” here implies the centralization
of certain fundamental tenets of the classical guitar repertoire within
the context of the LP format. Naturally a principal focus of the com-
mentary (Chapter 5) is on Segovia’s career with American Decca, over
the course of which he fully documented his conception of the clas-
sical guitar. In particular the impact of the LP on Segovia’s manner
of representing the guitar program in a revived form of the “miscel-
laneous” recital format is discussed. Further attention is also given to
his recording practice which, in line with developments in recording
aesthetics at this time, was now concerned with the representation of
the instrument in a concert hall setting. Chapter 6 considers the wider
North American scene, focusing on the increasing penetration of
Latin American concepts of the classical guitar into North America,
with particular reference to activities of the Spanish Music Center and
the careers of José Rey de la Torre and Laurindo Almeida. The chap-
ter also considers the growing interaction between the classical guitar
and popular music forms which laid the foundation for later repertoire
eclecticism. Chapter 7 furthers the idea of the Latin American correc-
tive, through consideration of pertinent developments within the Latin
American continent as reflected in classical guitarists’ recordings in
Brazil, the Rio de la Plata, Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, which were
to have important consequences for the evolution of the mainstream
classical guitar repertoire in later decades.

THE RECORDING MODEL INTERROGATED

Part 3 of the book moves to a consideration of the ways in which
the classical guitar concept, as enshrined in the recordings of Sego-
via in particular, begins to be interrogated by the new generation
of guitarists that emerged during the 1950s, whose situation in Eu-
rope placed them to some degree outside the orbit of the Spanish
and Latin American influence. Interrogation in this context refers
to the sustained questioning of the repertoire norms that had been
bequeathed by the preceding models of classical guitar recording.
Rather than leading to outright rejection however, in this context it
is common to find received traditions of the repertoire being main-
tained in guitarists’ recordings but at the same time reconciled with
new musical perspectives derived from individual guitarist’s cultural
and aesthetic concerns. Of particular relevance here are the activi-
ties of the British based guitarists Julian Bream and John Williams
12 C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity

(Chapters 8 and 9), two figures whose contributions to the debates

regarding the classical guitar’s identity have been of considerable
importance. Both emerged in the context of the Segovian reper-
toire paradigm and both sought to move beyond it in their own
ways during the 1960s and 1970s. It is also at this point in the book
that classical guitar recording aesthetics begin to receive more in-
depth consideration. Both Bream and Williams, for example, were
consciously evolving in their recordings an individualized sonic
presentation which cohered with their particular positions on the
“identity” of the classical guitar. Their attitudes towards recording
practice are consequently discussed alongside their repertoire strat-
egizing. This is the period in which the standardization of classical
guitar recording practice takes place, such that the critical reception
of recordings at this time can begin to rely upon an established set
of “sonic” criteria for their evaluation.
Chapter 10 provides a wider context for the work of Bream and Wil-
liams by considering the European classical guitar scene more gener-
ally during this same period. The chapter provides a broad overview
of the recording activity taking place in the main European centers
of classical guitar activity at this time, including Spain, Austria, Ger-
many, France and Eastern Europe. A number of significant and in
many cases, often overlooked, recording artists are discussed including
Siegfried Behrend, Narciso Yepes, Luise Walker, Konrad Ragossnig,
Alberto Ponce, Alexandre Lagoya and Milan Zelenka.

THE RECORDING MODEL DECONSTRUCTED

In the final part of the book the focus moves to the ways in which
the recording model has been subject since the 1970s to an ongoing
process of deconstruction. Deconstruction in this sense refers to the
dismantling of the traditions that originally informed the recording
model discussed in Part 1. Hence Chapter 11 considers the range of
new recording “narratives” that emerged in the 1970s, which in some
cases resulted in the complete abandonment of the Segovian paradigm
in favor of a range of alternative musical aesthetics. The focus here is
initially on the legacy of the programming model of Bream and con-
temporaries such as Siegfried Behrend and Leo Brouwer, which be-
queathed a “progressive” imperative in repertoire programming. In the
case of the North American guitarists who emerged in the late 1970s
this influence prompted a sweeping of the board to lay the foundations
for a new classical guitar repertoire concept which cohered with the
broadly eclectic musical nationalism that now characterized American
art music. Also of importance was the emerging Eastern European
perspective on the repertoire which appeared by virtue of its sepa-
ration from Western influences, largely unconditioned by the Segov-
ian aesthetic position. Finally the crossover activities of Liona Boyd
(following the example of John Williams), constituted an attempt to
transplant the classical guitar almost entirely out of the concert hall
C20th Recordings and Evolving Identity 13

situation, while the admission of popular music into the recital pro-
gram served to destabilize the repertoire paradigm from within.
As Chapter 12 illustrates, however, alongside the deconstruction
of the repertoire there was a desire within certain quarters of the
classical guitar community to maintain the traditions of the in-
strument that the progressive model appeared to threaten. Here
the focus is on the ways in which guitarists, through their recording
projects, reinstated and deepened the repertoire traditions associ-
ated with Segovia and Spain more generally, as well as bolstered the
historical foundations of the repertoire through transcription and
engagement with earlier guitarist-composers. The enrichment of the
repertoire through the establishment of the music of Latin Amer-
ica within the mainstream of classical guitar performance is also
considered in relation to this. Here, attention is given both to Latin
American guitarists who achieved international careers and those
artists who contributed to the evolving nationalist conception of
the instrument within their own countries. This chapter also consid-
ers certain facets of classical guitar recording during the 1970s that
can be regarded as being inclined towards the reinstatement of the
tradition of recording that had been threatened by the artificiality
of the recording studio. The evolution of the audiophile recording
paradigm in particular constituted a bid to heighten the aesthetic
of the concert hall representation of guitar sound, while “direct to
disc” recording provided a vehicle for the return to the “liveness”
that had characterized the recordings of Segovia and other artists
of the pre-tape era.
Finally, Chapter 13 surveys developments from the 1990s to the
present day with a view to tracing the further working out of cer-
tain key facets of the narratives presented in Chapters 11 and 12. It
highlights the persistence of the “progressive” paradigm established
by Bream, for example, which continues to focus classical guitar-
ists’ attention on the problem of augmenting and broadening the
classical guitar repertoire. This is reflected in particular in trends in
the recorded output of North American classical guitarists, whose
musical preoccupations point to an ever-increasing eclecticism of
the repertoire. Also considered is the revival of the classical guitar-
ist composer in the European context and the continuing influence
of popular music perspectives on repertoire programming. At the
same time, in counterbalance to these developments, the historical
traditions of the classical guitar and the Segovian canon continue
to be explored in the long-term recording endeavors of individual
guitarists such as David Russell and certain record labels, such as
Naxos. Chapter 14, by way of a conclusion, brings the survey up to
date with a discussion of the recent recording careers of two high
profile major label guitarists – Xuefei Yang and Miloš Karadaglić –
prompting further reflection on the persistence of some of the key
narrative threads highlighted in this book.
Part One

The Recording Model

Established
2
The Classical Guitar in the
Early Period of Recording
Spain

INTRODUCTION: EVALUATING THE EARLY PERIOD OF

CLASSICAL GUITAR RECORDING
Research into early recorded classical guitar music has been scarce
until relatively recently. This has largely been due to the inaccessi-
bility of early recordings, many of which have either lain undiscov-
ered in library archives or undetectable in private collections. We are
fortunate, however, in that certain individuals have over the decades
shown great generosity in making their archives available to research-
ers. For example, the Brazilian guitarist and scholar Ronoel Simões
(1919–2010) in the 1970s provided access to recorded material that
enabled scholarship to develop around the music of the Paraguayan
guitarist-composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré (Stover 1984).1 The
re-emergence of Barrios’ 78 rpm recordings, which were among the
earliest to be made by any classical guitarist, played a vital role in
re-establishing his reputation within the mainstream of the classical
guitar repertoire, as well as facilitating the scholarly analysis of his
music.2 Another important event was the re-issue in 1980 of the com-
plete recordings made by Segovia for HMV between 1927–39, which
made it possible for the frst time to fully appreciate the trajectory of
his development as a recording artist prior to his arrival at American
Decca in 1944.
More recently, digital remastering projects – whether undertaken
for the purposes of creating online repositories of sound recordings3
or commercial re-packaging for the burgeoning “historical recordings”
marketplace – have played a signifcant role in bringing older recordings
to light. Today we are fortunate in that a number of record companies,
including Doremi, IDIS, Testament, FFSI, Chanterelle and Naxos,
have undertaken to re-issue many early recordings with the result that
a somewhat more panoramic picture has begun to emerge of classi-
cal guitar recording activity in the early part of the twentieth century.
For example, at the time of writing the Segovia and His Contemporar-
ies collection issued by the Doremi label, extends to some 12 compact
discs, surveying a broad range of recorded guitar music released over a

17
18 The Recording Model Established

considerable span of years by contemporaries of Segovia. The earliest

recording (on Volume 12) dates from c.1897–1901 and was made by
Simon Ramirez in Madrid while the latest were made in the mid-1950s,
including important early albums by José Rey de la Torre and material
from Segovia’s early American Decca period. The particular impor-
tance of this, and similar projects, is that they have afforded a unique
opportunity to evaluate the recording careers of many important but
often overlooked guitarists directly in relation to one another, enabling
in the words of Doremi series curator, Jack Silver, the restoration of
“a sense of the dimensions of the world of the classical guitar as it
developed earlier in the twentieth century” (Silver 1998). Patterns of
development can now be observed which would not necessarily have
been obvious to artists, record labels or audiences at the time these re-
cordings were made, which when correlated with the accrued critical
literature concerning their reception, enable a particularly rich picture
of the evolving identity of the classical guitar to emerge.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF

EARLY RECORDING
Before considering the early recorded classical guitar per se it is im-
portant to establish some context regarding the evolution of record-
ing practice at the beginning of the twentieth century. The guitar
(here meaning the instrument in general terms, across multiple musi-
cal contexts) was an instrument whose fortunes within the context of
the emerging recording industry were very much determined by the
evolution of technology and the possibilities this provided for captur-
ing its sound effectively. From the late 1880s through to the adoption
of the microphone in 1925, recording was subject to the restrictions
of pre-electrical, or “acoustic” process using the phonograph. This
involved the capture of sound by funnelling it, via a recording horn,
towards a diaphragm, which in turn vibrated a stylus that etched the
sound wave onto a rotating wax cylinder or disc. An instrument’s
capacity to record successfully in this context depended upon two
things. Firstly, the instrument’s amplitude – or loudness – which was
a key factor in determining whether a sound would be recorded at an
audible level. Secondly, its timbre, meaning the particular elements of
the instrument’s frequency content that were required to be accurately
preserved in order for it to be recognizable. The latter was a signifcant
issue given that the acoustic recording process captured a relatively
small range of frequencies, which at frst did not extend much below
168 Hz or much above 2000 Hz (Gelatt 1977). Given such prerequi-
sites, recording was undertaken by technicians or “recordists” who
were expert in setting up equipment and coaching musicians to achieve
the best results. These were, in effect, the frst recording engineers and
producers, among the most well-known of whom were Fred Gaisberg
(of the Gramophone Company) and Harry and Raymond Sooy (Vic-
tor), who not only oversaw the recording process but, in their capacity
Early Recording: Spain 19

as A & R men, also actively sourced musicians who were suitable to

be marketed in recorded form – or to put it another way, musicians
whose sound would translate well to disc. For example, vocal music
tended to record very satisfactorily and hence opera singers such as
Enrico Caruso, Francesco Tamagno, Nellie Melba and Adelina Patti
dominated early classical record catalogues, effectively becoming the
frst classical stars of recording.
The problem of faithfully representing instruments in early sound
recordings initially dissuaded many classical musicians from record-
ing. For example, the piano, which recorded satisfactorily in an accom-
paniment role, once under the spotlight in solo repertoire was found
wanting. Refecting on early attempts to make piano records, concert
pianist Mark Hambourg noted that “it seemed hopeless to succeed in
producing anything of the nature of pianoforte tone” which “repro-
duced on the gramophone sounded like the tinkling of a very inferior
banjo or guitar. There was apparently no way of getting the round,
mellow softness, or the deep pulsating loudness of the modern pi-
anoforte tone” (1923: 4). Similarly, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1931: 525),
recalling sessions he had undertaken for Edison Records in 1919, com-
mented that the piano “came out with a thin, tinkling tone” which
“sounded exactly like the Russian balalaika” (there is of course a cer-
tain irony here in that both pianists are comparing the inferior quality
of acoustically recorded piano timbre to the sound of plucked string
instruments!) The diffculties of capturing a wide dynamic range also
meant that there was little scope for a nuanced performance and some
pianists who recorded frequently ultimately cultivated an approach to
dynamics that was refected (undesirably) in their live performances.
This was the basis of Gerald Moore’s (1983: 52) criticism of the pianist
Ignace Jan Paderewski in live performance, who concluded “that he
felt impelled to maintain a consistently penetrating forte to register on
the soft wax of the old recording process”.
Another constraint faced by early recording engineers concerned
the limited technical possibilities for shaping the character of the re-
corded sound. As there was no means whatsoever of amending a re-
corded sound post-capture, the key to achieving a satisfactory result
lay in the careful physical placement of sound sources (i.e. the mu-
sicians) in relation to the recording horn beforehand to achieve the
best levels and balance. This was by no means a simple task, however,
as different instruments, with their varying timbres and loudness, re-
quired different placement strategies, leading to some rather uncon-
ventional performance scenarios. For example, it was typical to fnd
pianos raised up on platforms to get them closer to the height of the
recording horn and have their front and back panels removed (Bat-
ten 1956: 32–33). In some cases instruments were modifed in order
to make them more able to project – for example the so-called Stroh
violin (invented by Johann Matthias Augustus Stroh) was developed
specifcally to amplify the violin so that it could be recorded effec-
tively in a solo context.4
20 The Recording Model Established

The circumstances of recording were also problematic in other ways

for performers. In the early period there was no possibility for the mass
reproduction of a recording hence it was common to fnd several pho-
nographs being used simultaneously to record a single performance,
or alternatively (and more commonly) a performer would repeat a per-
formance over and over again for many hours so that multiple (slightly
differing copies) were produced. These unique circumstances naturally
bred a particular type of studio recording musician who was not only
adept at projecting their sound in a way that enabled it to be captured
effectively, but also seasoned in terms of the drudgery of repetitive
performance over long time periods (Hoffmann et al. 2000). Finally
there was the problem of the restricted side length of the typical 78
rpm disc, which had particular consequences for both the production
of musical recordings by the performer and their eventual experience
on the part of the listener. Typically a 10-inch 78 rpm disc held about
three minutes of music per side, while the 12-inch held slightly more
at around four minutes per side (Read and Welch 1976; Gelatt 1977;
Copeland 1991). This meant that short pieces were more conveniently
recorded (such as songs or brief classical music movements) but if
longer pieces were chosen it was necessary to either abridge them or
break them up into sections. With the advent of the microphone in
1925 and the resultant improved potential for sound capture, larger
orchestral works began to be more frequently recorded, but typically
had their individual movements split across several discs. This was an
inconvenience that became the norm for the experience of recorded
classical music until the introduction of the LP in 1948.

RECORDING PLUCKED STRING INSTRUMENTS

As has been noted, the limited frequency range that could be captured
by early recording technology combined with the need for a consis-
tently large amplitude in order to engrave sound waves that were actu-
ally audible, meant that recordists tended to favor certain instruments
more than others. In the category of plucked string instruments, the
most widely recorded instrument during the acoustic era was the banjo,
whose loud “twang” could be easily perceived on recordings. As Linn
(1994: 85–6) comments “acoustic recording equipment responded well
to the banjo’s frequency range, and the percussive sound of the instru-
ment recorded very well”, naturally making it popular with early re-
cord labels who wished to build up their catalogues. In their discussion
of popular music recording during this period, Gracyk and Hoffmann
(2000: 263–4) observe that, “since no instrument recorded better than
the banjo in the early decades of the industry” this was “a propitious
time for being a master banjoist”. Among the large number of banjoists
recording from the late 1880s onwards were Will Lyle (Edison), Parke
Hunter (Columbia), Cullen and Collins (Columbia) and Fred Van Eps
(Edison). Probably the most famous banjoist of the early recording era
was Vess L. Ossman (1868–1923), who became internationally known
Early Recording: Spain 21

through his recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company, with
whom he maintained a long-term association.5 Another plucked string
instrument whose loudness and penetrative timbral qualities were
easily picked up by the recording horn was the mandolin. Ossman’s
equivalent in this context was Samuel Siegel (1875–1948) who made
numerous cylinder recordings for Edison and Columbia in the early
1900s and was the frst mandolinist to record on Berliner phonograph
discs (Sparks 1995: 123–25). Signifcantly Siegel also made several re-
cordings in duet with the harp guitarist Roy Butin (1877–1943) around
1908–9, which are of particular interest on account of the guitar’s more
active soloistic role beyond simple accompaniment styles.6
There is plenty of audio evidence to show that the guitar appeared
frequently on recordings from the early twentieth century onwards,
and in a variety of musical contexts. Solo guitar music was certainly
recorded although, at least as far as the quieter gut strung classical
instrument was concerned, this did not become more commonplace
until after the introduction of electrical recording in 1925. The chief
issue for guitarists was the instrument’s much smaller dynamic range
which was not necessarily problematic for recording provided that the
instrument was not being played in a dynamically nuanced manner.
This was a factor which obviously depended upon the musical context
in which the guitar was being employed. For example, guitar parts that
functioned “percussively”, emphasizing repetitive strummed or picked
patterns which were sustained at a persistent volume level, translated
better in recordings because their attack could be clearly discerned. It
is for this reason that the most successful guitar recordings of the early
period feature the instrument in its traditional “popular” accompani-
ment role, supporting the voice and other lead instruments, or as part
of the texture of larger ensembles. Thus the guitar is heard to good
effect in the many Spanish famenco recordings that were made in Bar-
celona and Madrid during the early 1900s, while in Mexico it is well
represented in recordings of bandurria groups and mariachi bands.7
From around 1909 Hawaiian steel guitarists, beginning with Joseph
Kekuku (1874–1932) and Walter Kolomoku (1889–1930), began to be
featured frequently in recordings, ushering in an international fad for
Hawaiian music that lasted until well into the 1920s. The basic Hawai-
ian line-up typically comprised a strummed guitar part, which usually
hammered out a waltz rhythm, accompanying the characteristic slide
lead. Like banjoists, Hawaiian guitarists were among the frst to cap-
italize on the possibilities of recordings for career promotion, most
notably Frank Ferera (1885–1951), who became one of the frst guitar
stars of the recording era in duet with his wife, Helen Louise.
Occasional accounts by guitarists of their experiences in the studio
prior to the electrical era provide some insight into the how the typical
steel-strung instrument was regarded by recordists. Plectrum guitarist
pioneer Nick Lucas (1897–1982), for example, has described a recording
session in the early 1920s, towards the end of the acoustic era (Sallis 1996),
in which he frst experimented with an acoustic guitar. At this time Lucas
22 The Recording Model Established

typically used a banjo in recording sessions (the occasion here was a

band performance) because the “guitar was unheard-of ” in this con-
text. Ironically, however, on this particular occasion the banjo’s loud
and penetrating tone was proving to be too much for the stylus that was
being used to cut the wax and the guitar’s smaller dynamic range now
appeared to be an advantage. When Lucas suggested to his producer
Sam Lanin that the guitar might be used as an alternative to the banjo,

He told me they wouldn’t hear it from where I was [at the back of
the room] and put me right under the horn. […] The rhythm was
smoother, and we didn’t have any trouble with the needle jumping
out of the grooves. So he said “Hey Nick, that’s all right! Keep it
in.” That was the beginning of me playing guitar on record dates.
I would say that was around 1921.
(Sallis 1996: 15)

Lucas went on to achieve great fame as an exponent of plectrum style

steel-string guitar during the 1920s and 1930s, and crafted a number
of self-contained instrumentals. The most celebrated of these – “Tea-
sin’ the frets” and “Pickin’ the Guitar” – were recorded prior to the
electrical process for the Pathé Phonograph Company in 1922.8 Their
titles, which draw attention to the guitar as the focus of the artist’s
performance, underline the increasing recognition of the guitar as a
solo instrument in the popular music sphere. Lucas notes that on these
sessions, “all I had in the studio were the musical director and the
technicians – nobody else”. It is also interesting to note that Lucas
usually performed standing up with his guitar on a strap which would
no doubt have afforded him considerable fexibility in experimenting
with his playing position in relation to the recording horn.
Where the gut-strung classical guitar was concerned the limited ca-
pacity of early recording technology to represent the instrument effec-
tively was more problematic, primarily due to the particular nature of
classical guitar music and its mode of execution. For example, classical
guitar music at this time had been evolving in relation to the musical
aesthetics of the Romantic period (derived from the piano literature in
particular), and was characterized by strong dynamic contrasts, sophis-
ticated harmony and a varied tonal palette. On the classical guitar these
musical values were communicated through the exploitation of the in-
strument’s unique capacity for tonal variety, determined by a range of
factors including the timbral character of the different strings, the po-
sition of the left hand on the fretboard, techniques such as vibrato and
the infnite variety of transients produced when sounding the strings
with the right hand fngers. However, these various qualities had to be
conveyed within the constraints of the guitar’s own “relative” dynamic
range, as summarized by classical guitarist Charles Duncan (1977: 27):

The difference between a subdued mezzo-forte and the maximum

useful intensity is simply not that great on the guitar. But on the
Early Recording: Spain 23

other hand, small – very small – increases or decreases in intensity

are quite perceptible because they are heard relative to the possible
dynamic range of the instrument.

Obviously, the successful communication of any music containing

wide variations in dynamics and tone color depended upon the gui-
tar being heard in an acoustic context in which full relative dynamic
range of the instrument was audible. Without this the music’s subtle-
ties would be lost on a listener. This was a particular problem in larger
acoustic spaces where the sound of instrument naturally dissipated at
larger distances, a factor which lay behind the resistance of some of
the most acclaimed guitarists of the period to performing in larger
auditoria, such as Miguel Llobet whose thoughts on the matter are
quoted in Segovia’s autobiography: “concert halls are too large, and
the guitar doesn’t have the power to carry from the stage to the entire
hall. The audience has to strain itself to hear us, listeners become im-
patient” (1976: 102–103).
The problem of the inaudibility of minute gradations of loudness
and softness on the guitar also had implications for recording practice,
particularly during the early acoustic period when the limited capacity
to capture soft sounds would have been a noticeable issue. The Amer-
ican guitarist Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, relates an account given by
Llobet of an early recording session he undertook for Bell Lab while
touring in the United States sometime between 1912 and 1917:

He [Llobet] tried to make a recording at the Bell Lab in Brunswick,

New Jersey, but was dissatisfed with the sound … acoustical re-
cording was good for steel strung instruments like the banjo and
mandolin, but the classical guitar with its gut strings was more
diffcult to record. The guitarist must be very close to the recording
horn and must play loudly.
(Purcell 2008)

It is likely that Llobet was playing his Torres guitar in these sessions
(Romanillos 1997), which possessed a dramatically improved capac-
ity for projection compared to its early nineteenth-century predeces-
sors. However, it is clear from this account that the problem of the
guitar’s relative dynamic range still precluded the successful capture
of its sound using acoustic recording technology and only with un-
due exaggeration could the sound be registered. Improvements in the
resonance of modern classical guitars, while signifcant for concert
performance in larger venues (as per Segovia’s campaign), only began
to become recognized as an asset for recording once the microphone
had proven that it could capture the instrument’s dynamic range and
timbral nuances more accurately. Furthermore, one can imagine that
the environments in which recordings were made in the early period –
namely small ad hoc studio set-ups as opposed to acoustically satisfy-
ing auditoria – would also have been off-putting. As will be discussed
24 The Recording Model Established

in Chapter 5, guitarists from at least the time of Aguado have regarded

resonant acoustics as a fundamental ingredient in the articulation of
their performances and the lack of these during a recording situation
would undoubtedly have had consequences for their ability to perform
comfortably in front of the microphone.

EARLY CLASSICAL GUITAR RECORDING IN SPAIN,

1897–1936
Having given an outline of the general circumstances of recording in
the early twentieth century, the remainder of this chapter considers the
emergence of the classical guitar as the subject of recording activity
in Spain, providing important context for Chapter 3’s discussion of
the early career of Andrés Segovia, whose recording activities recon-
structed the Spanish identity of the classical guitar in a wider global
context. The Spanish recording industry can be seen to have begun
with the arrival of the frst Edison phonographs in Spain during the
1880s, which were initially toured and demonstrated as objects of cu-
riosity. By the late 1890s the phonograph had reached a peak of devel-
opment that made it practical as a domestic appliance for the playback
of recorded music, necessitating the production of consumable record-
ings specifc to the needs of Spanish audiences. In response, numer-
ous gabinetes fonográfícos (phonography studios) began to appear
in various cities across Spain between approximately 1898 and 1905
(Moreda Rodríguez 2017a, 2017b). As was typical during the early re-
cording period such establishments sold imported phonographs and
other equipment while offering cylinder recording services in make-
shift studios as a means of arousing interest in purchasing their prod-
ucts. Among the most important and prolifc of these companies were
Álvaro Ureña and Viuda de Aramburo (Madrid), V. Corrons e Hijo
(Barcelona), Hijos de Blas Cuesta and Puerto y Novella (in Valencia)
and Viuda de Ablanedo (Bilbao).9 In addressing the marketplace the
recording catalogues of the gabinetes fonográfcos naturally focused on
musical forms popular in Spain at the time – namely, opera, zarzuelas
and, most importantly where the guitar was concerned, famenco.
By the early years of the twentieth century this indigenous Spanish
recording industry had begun to be supplanted by the activities of for-
eign record labels, a development that coincided with the demise of
the cylinder and its replacement by disc technology. The French arm
of the Gramophone Company (Compañía Francesa del Gramófono),
for example, was present in Barcelona from around 1903, together
with the International Zonophone Company which between 1905 and
1910 produced an important early catalogue of single-sided discs of
famenco music (Blas Vega 1995). Between 1904 and 1912 the Inter-
national Talking Machine Company also made many recordings of
famenco music which were issued under the Odeon name, a company
which it owned for a brief prior to its acquisition by Lindström. Both
Odeon and the Compañía Gramófono, using the “La Voz de su Amo”
Early Recording: Spain 25

(“His Master’s Voice”) mark, were predominant in the early Spanish

recording industry until the arrival of the New York Columbia Gra-
phophone Company in the 1920s which began operating in Donostia/
San Sebastián (in the Basque region) and issued its recordings in Spain
under the Regal label. Other recording companies whose presence also
began to be felt in Spain during this decade were the German-owned
Polydor and Parlophon interests. Parlophon became a major force in
the European recording industry during the 1930s, along with its part-
ner company Odeon, both of which after 1911 were owned by the Carl
Lindström Company (Gelatt 1977).
Given that Spain already possessed a well-established tradition of
guitar performance within its famenco culture, and that famenco mu-
sic was of great interest to the many recording companies active in
the country during the early period, it is natural that famenco should
be the vehicle by which the guitar was frst widely recorded in both a
solo and ensemble context. In effect, famenco guitarists, whose names
are well-documented from the earliest wax cylinders onwards, were the
frst high-profle guitar recording artists in Spain. For example, the re-
cords of El Mochuelo, the stage name for the singer Antonio Pozo
(1868–1937), have preserved for posterity the playing of Manuel López
(f. 1884). Early cylinders of López accompanying El Mochuelo are
extant in the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica archive, such as “Aires mon-
tañeses” and “Granadinas”, which were recorded around 1900 by the
Fono-Reyna (Sociedad Anónima Fonográfca) company in Madrid.
These capture in a surprisingly vivid manner the powerful rhythmic
character of López’s playing and illustrate the eminent suitability of
the famenco idiom for guitar recording. López also made further disc-
based recordings with El Mochuelo on the Pathé label in the late 1920s.
Another of El Mochuelo’s guitarists, Miguel Borrull Castelló
(1866–1947), is documented as both an accompanist and solo per-
former. Like López his earliest recordings were undertaken on cylin-
ders, such as “Granaínas”, made by the Viuda de Aramburo company
sometime between 1898 and 1900 in Madrid. He also recorded with
other important famenco artists of the era, such as Cojo de Málaga
(1880–1940), for the Pathé company, as can be heard on “Los verdi-
ales/Solerares”, a double-sided disc made around 1917. Signifcantly,
accounts of the period suggest that Borrull was, during his time in
Barcelona, closely associated with Francisco Tárrega. He apparently
studied and absorbed Tárrega’s techniques (Altamira 2017: 436; Prat
1934), and according to Prat (1934: 62), performed a number of Tárre-
ga’s works in public. Borrull’s son, known as Miguel Borrull Jiménez
(1899–1974) appears to have inherited these leanings. He made a num-
ber of solo famenco recordings for the Compañía del Gramófono,
including “Guajiras”/ “Motivos por Granadinas” (AE 1992) and
“Danza Gitana”/ “Soleares con Rosa” (AE 1981).10 One of these –
disc AE 2006 (made around 1928) – is of particular interest where
the classical guitar is concerned because it contains a recording of a
Tárrega piece, Adelita, today a well-established entry-level repertoire
26 The Recording Model Established

piece for the instrument. Significantly the other side of the same disc
also contains a performance, in a very free and improvisatory manner,
of an arrangement of the piano piece Granada by Albéniz, one of a
number of works by Albéniz that was commonly performed in tran-
scription by classical guitarists and associated with the evolving guitar
repertoire at this time. The July 1930 Compañía del Gramófono cata-
logue also refers to another flamenco-based artist, Antonio Hernán-
dez, a guitarist and bandurria player who was regarded in his day as
an equal to Segovia (Altamira 2017). While his recordings are for the
most part situated within the flamenco idiom, Hernández also com-
posed original music, becoming particularly well known for his evoc-
ative programmatic piece, Semana Santa en Sevilla, which he recorded
in 1927 for the Compañía del Gramófono on disc AE 2121.11 This
is an interesting multi-section composition that showcases a range of
guitar textures and techniques and contains imitations of fanfares and
snare drums (reminiscent of Agustín Barrios’ Diana Guaraní). For the
most part, however, flamenco guitarists’ explorations of non-­flamenco
forms on their recordings are infrequent. For example, one of the most
famous flamenco guitarists of the period, Ramón Montoya (1879–
1949)12 made a number of solo guitar recordings for the Compañía
del Gramófono during the 1920s which are focused firmly within the
flamenco tradition.
In recent years cylinders have come to light which suggest that the
first solo guitar recordings recognizable as “classical” guitar music
were being made in Spain during the 1890s. In particular a recent CD,
Tárrega, His Disciples and Their Students, issued in 2013 as Vol. 12 of
the Doremi Segovia and his Contemporaries series, has drawn attention
to a brown wax cylinder recording made by a certain Simon Ramirez
sometime between 1897 and 1900. The cylinder features a piece recog-
nizable as Romance de Amor, a well-known repertoire number which
has long been a staple of the beginner repertoire. This recording is of
particular interest because it predates versions of the piece that were
popularized in the mid-twentieth century by classical guitarists in the
context of film soundtracks – namely Vicente Gómez in the film Blood
and Sand and Narciso Yepes in the film Jeux Interdits.13 The record-
ing’s existence confirms that the piece is clearly older than was origi-
nally thought, and according to Jack Silver’s liner notes, may possibly
be attributable to the early nineteenth-century composer, Fernando
Sor. This particular cylinder was produced by the Viuda de Aramburo
Company in Madrid, one of the most important of the aforementioned
pioneering gabinetes fonográficos in existence at this time. Interestingly
further cylinders of recordings by Simon Ramirez have also emerged
in the John Levin collection digitized by UCSB, including a number of
duets performed with a family member, referred to as Luis.14 It is not
apparent that any of these recordings have a commercial objective nor
are they meant to be promoting performed classical guitar music per
se – rather they are documents of informal music making with guitars
that have been inadvertently preserved for posterity.
Early Recording: Spain 27

Of greater signifcance where the modern classical guitar reper-

toire is concerned is a recording (re-issued on the above-mentioned
Doremi CD), which is alleged to have been made by Francisco Tárrega
in Granada, either in 1899 or 1908 of one of his own pieces, Maria
– Gavota. While the recording is not complete, due to parts of the cyl-
inder having degraded, it nonetheless gives some sense of Tárrega’s
way of playing one of his own works. There may be other extant re-
cordings by Tárrega, which would enable a fuller picture to emerge
of his recording activity during his period, but until they emerge this
fragmentary document remains a historical curiosity. However, the re-
cordings made by two of Tárrega’s most important pupils in the 1920s
and 1930s – Miguel Llobet and Daniel Fortea – functioned to transmit
the essence of his performance ideals and interpretative approach.

THE RECORDINGS OF MIGUEL LLOBET

The recordings made by Miguel Llobet (1878–1938) for the Parlophon
and Odeon labels in the mid to late 1920s are of particular signifcance
where the emerging identity of the recorded classical guitar is con-
cerned. They provide insight into the role of the recording situation
in determining the focus of a concertizing classical guitarist on reper-
toire choices, as well as the recorded medium’s effect on the guitarist’s
approach to performing. In addition they function in a documentary
manner, affording valuable insights into guitar performance styles
of the late nineteenth century and the manner of exploitation of the
guitar’s timbral resources. While Llobet did not make a large number
of recordings he nonetheless demonstrated a commitment to the re-
cording process suffcient for him to qualify as a pioneer of classical
guitar recording at this time.
Llobet is a particularly signifcant fgure in the history of the early
twentieth-century classical guitar for two reasons. Firstly he was one
of Tárrega’s most outstanding pupils, achieving acclaim as both a con-
cert artist and an accomplished composer and arranger for the gui-
tar. He continued the Tárrega tradition of transcribing works from
the nineteenth-century piano repertoire, supplementing these with his
own original contributions and arrangements that further developed
the coloristic approach to guitar timbre that had emerged in Tárrega’s
own work. Llobet’s affliation with the Tárrega tradition is prioritized
in Parlophon’s marketing literature for Llobet’s recordings during this
period. The Parlophon Electric Suplemento No. 2 of April 1929, which
announced record numbers B25766 and B25767 (two Sor pieces and
two Catalan folk song arrangements) contains a short artist profle of
Llobet. Here the writer emphasizes in effusive language Llobet’s pre-
cocity and natural virtuosity and also makes much of the link between
Llobet and the Tárrega tradition of guitar playing, concluding that
“Llobet con su arte, propaga en el mundo entero la nueva técnica de la
guitarra descubierta por el inolvidable Tárrega” (“With his art, Llobet
transmits to the entire world the new guitar technique discovered by
28 The Recording Model Established

the never-to-be forgotten Tárrega”). Llobet’s importance as a prosely-

tizer on behalf of the Tárrega school of guitar performance, arrange-
ment and composition, makes his recordings particularly signifcant
because, as Ronald Purcell (1989) has observed, they can be used to
extrapolate ideas regarding Tárrega’s own stylistic approach. Further-
more, it is worth adding that Llobet was also Segovia’s primary link
to the Tárrega school (Segovia met Llobet around 1915) and played
an important role in shaping his own view of guitar performance
style, repertoire and interpretation as can be discerned in his 1950s
American Decca recordings. Llobet’s infuence can also be felt in the
mid-twentieth century recordings of three of his pupils who came to
prominence in the 1930s and 1940s, Maria Luisa Anido, Luise Walker
and José Rey de la Torre.
Secondly on account of his extensive global concertizing Llobet
can be seen as one of the most signifcant international emissaries of
the modern classical guitar prior to the ascent of Segovia. In 1905 he
re-located from Spain to Paris from where he conducted tours across
Europe and Great Britain and by 1910 had established himself in
Argentina (Buenos Aires), where he conducted tours of Brazil, Cen-
tral America and the Caribbean. He also made appearances in the
United States (beginning with a recital in Philadelphia in 1912) which
played an important role in establishing the idea of the classical guitar
concert in North America, thereby paving the way for Segovia in the
1930s. There is no doubt that it was his high profle as an international
concert artist that attracted the interest of recording companies, for
whom he recorded on two occasions – the frst took place either in
Barcelona (or according to Purcell (2008), possibly France) around
1925 and the second in Buenos Aires towards the end of the decade
around 1929.
Taken as a whole Llobet’s recordings can be seen as offering a unique
snapshot of the emerging classical guitar repertoire of the time. As
one would expect the pieces played here refect the content of Llobet’s
concert programs and were perhaps chosen because they had elicited
the greatest audience approval. For example, Llobet chose to record
nineteenth-century works by Fernando Sor, including the Andantino
(Op. 2 No. 3), Minuetto (Op. 11 No. 12), the famous Study in B minor
(Op. 35 No. 22), as well as Napoleon Coste’s showpiece, Studio Bril-
lante. He also recorded one work by Bach (the Sarabande from Violin
Partita No. 1, BW1002), indicating the importance of the composer
within his repertoire, and more broadly highlighting the increasing
signifcance of Bach within the context of guitar performance. It is
interesting to note, however, that unlike Fortea and other Spanish con-
temporaries, Llobet did not record original pieces by his teacher Tár-
rega. Certain repertoire choices can also be seen as refecting the more
cosmopolitan perspective that Llobet had obtained in the light of his
travels and constitute the contemporary focus of his recordings. For
example he made four recordings of arrangements of music by Latin
Early Recording: Spain 29

American composers – specifcally two pieces from Mexican composer

Manuel M. Ponce’s Tres Canciones Populares Mexicanas (arranged
by Segovia), and two pieces by Argentinian composers, “Estilo Popu-
lar Criollo”, a working of a popular song by Pedro M. Quijano, and
an arrangement for guitar duet of Huella, a well-known nationalist
composition by Julián Aguirre (1868–1924). The latter, recorded in
1929, is one of four sides Llobet made with the young Argentinian
guitarist, Maria Luisa Anido (see Chapter 4), constituting one of the
earliest classical guitar duo recordings. Llobet also chose to record
four of his well-known Catalonian folk song arrangements (El Tes-
tament d’Amèlia, La Filla del Marxant, Plany and El Mestre). These
are highly individual harmonizations of the original folk melodies and
their particular exploitation of the guitar’s resources is unique to Llo-
bet’s own individual conception of the guitar. Interestingly these ar-
rangements have provoked much discussion and debate as to whether
they can be regarded as original Llobet compositions (see Rey de la
Torre 1985; Wade and Garno 1997b). Certainly their originality rel-
ative to the guitar repertoire as it stood at the time was immediately
apparent to Llobet’s contemporaries. For example, in 1925 Emilio Pu-
jol remarked that El Mestre marked a “point of departure towards
new territories, containing within itself the seeds of later coloristic ef-
fects on the instrument”, awakening the guitar to a “new aesthetic” of
“colour and polyphony” (Jones 1998).15 It is not unreasonable to sug-
gest that Llobet’s sense of the importance of these pieces to the guitar
canon prompted him to record them in an act of self-publicization. In
doing so he provided an important document of his intended manner
of articulating their unique sonic and harmonic characteristics on the
guitar which constituted a valuable adjunct to the score editions.
The signifcance of Llobet’s recordings as evidence of nineteenth-
century classical guitar performance style more generally remains the
subject of an ongoing discussion. In 1983 the early music specialist
Robert Spencer presented a program in the BBC’s Music for Guitar
series which was devoted exclusively to the early Llobet discs (this was
probably the frst broadcast of Llobet’s recordings given that they had
only recently been issued in remastered form in 1982).16 Drawing at-
tention to Llobet’s proximity to the early nineteenth-century school
(he was born in 1878), Spencer noted that “Llobet inherited the play-
ing tradition of the Romantic era, thus his style as preserved for us in
these recordings may well refect Sor’s own way of playing his compo-
sitions”. In reference to Llobet’s recording of Sor’s well known Study
in B minor, he observes that “surprisingly he uses an inégal rhythm
which today we reserve for seventeenth and eighteenth century music
only” and that “Llobet’s playing suggests that we could also apply it
to the music of the nineteenth century”. Spencer also drew attention
to the “fuid Romantic style less in vogue today” which is most notice-
able in Llobet’s performances of his two recorded Catalan folksong
arrangements, as well as his adherence to the mission of the Tárrega
30 The Recording Model Established

school in his focus on transcriptions of works of composers such as

Mendelssohn, Albéniz and Aguirre rather than his own original com-
positions. Also, in addition to their value as a reference point for the
evolution of classical guitar performance and compositional aesthet-
ics, the Llobet discs serve as a valuable document of the sound of
the nineteenth-century Torres guitar. The luthier José Romanillos, an
acknowledged expert on the subject, observes (1997: 206–207) that
“it is known that Llobet used his 1859 Torres” on these recordings,
a fact which he suggests is corroborated by Llobet’s pupil and du-
etting partner on the 1929 discs, Maria Luisa Anido. According to
Romanillos, this particular Torres guitar had a tornavoz and that on
Llobet’s recordings “there is an indication in the texture of the sound
suggesting a certain reverberation of the tornavoz which colors the
sound quality”.17
Llobet’s early recordings were famously “reviewed” by Segovia in
his autobiography in the following terms: “It is a shame that echoes
of his great talent were not faithfully recorded. What records he was
persuaded to make are worthless and should be destroyed as an act of
respect for him and his memory” (Segovia 1976: 101–2). It is not clear
from these comments whether Segovia is referring to the sound quality
of the discs or the character of the performances themselves. In any
case these remarks should be understood in the context of a general
appraisal by Segovia of Llobet in his autobiography which is by turns
complimentary and derogatory, as suited the needs of the Segovia nar-
rative. It is certainly apparent on listening to the Llobet recordings
that they refute the assertion put forward by Segovia (1976: 101) that
Llobet’s “tone was rasping and metallic, lacking in roundness, volume
and resilience” and that he “tore grating sounds from the strings with
his fngernails”.18 Instead they show a precise and virtuosic technique
(particularly in the rapidly executed Coste Estudio), a distinctiveness
of tone and sensitivity to the guitar’s timbral resources (in the har-
monic passages of El Testament d’Amèlia for example). While there
is at times an exaggerated quality to Llobet’s playing this probably re-
fected his concern to project his sound adequately for the microphone,
a habit perhaps acquired from his previously unsuccessful experiences
with acoustic recording.

SPANISH GUITARISTS ON THE REGAL LABEL

During the 1920s and 1930s the Regal label, through its association
with the Columbia Phonograph Company, was able to make a signif-
icant impact upon the direction of Spanish music industry, provid-
ing strong competition to its main rivals, Odeon and the Compañía
del Gramófono. Despite the label’s relatively short existence between
1924 and 1936 it developed and sustained a substantial catalogue of
music which provided a broad perspective on Spanish musical life
during this period, including exponents of the emerging classical gui-
tar.19 Regal grew from the enterprises of businessman Juan Inurrieta
Early Recording: Spain 31

Ordozgoiti, who, in 1913, had established Casa Inurrieta in Donostia/

San Sebastián in the Basque region of Northern Spain. Like many of
those who moved into the recording business at this time, Inurrieta
was initially involved in the sale and manufacture of talking machines,
talking machine parts and radio equipment. He also formed an al-
liance with the Sociedad Hispano-Americana (established 1917), an
infuential company in the Spanish music industry during this period,
which became pivotal in the promotion and distribution of Regal discs
on a national scale. In 1923 Inurrieta signed agreements with both the
British arm of Columbia and its New York based American counter-
part the Columbia Phonograph Co. Inc., enabling him to market the
discs now being produced in his newly established factory in Donos-
tia under the Columbia name in association with his new Regal label.
The Regal name was registered in 1924 and remained in existence un-
til the company folded in 1936 following the merger of the Columbia
and the Gramophone Company to form EMI in 1931 (Salsidua 2013).
Nonetheless, during this relatively short period of its association with
Columbia, the Regal label accumulated a substantial catalogue of re-
cordings of music in many genres. On the one hand it issued many
discs from the existing Columbia catalogue including Anglo-American
jazz and dance band music, on other it also pursued its own Spanish
music catalogue as means of distinguishing its musical output from its
British-American partner. This included recordings of typical popular
Spanish musical forms such as zarzuelas and famenco, but also the
accumulation of a roster of outstanding Spanish classical musicians,
including the cellists Gaspar Cassadó and Antonio Sala, the violinists
Frances Costa and José Carlos Sedano, the pianist Ricardo Viñes, and
numerous acclaimed orchestral ensembles such as the Orquesta Sin-
fónica de Madrid and the Orquesta Bética de Cámara de Sevilla.
Regal’s association with Columbia also meant that it was able to
immediately beneft from the latest developments in electrical record-
ing technology that the latter company had acquired the rights to in
1924. Columbia, along with Victor had been among the frst American
recording companies to make an impact with commercially available
electrical recordings and had quickly accepted the new process fully
into its practice from 1925 onwards (Gelatt 1977).20 To distinguish its
new electrically recorded discs, Columbia used the phrase “Viva-tonal”
(“living tone”) which came to signify its mark of quality for electri-
cal recording process and implied fdelity to the sound of the music
being captured. Regal recordings were marketed in Spain using the
“Viva-tonal” logo from around 1926, alongside existing advertising
that attested to the noise-free quality of its record surfaces (“unicos
discos electricos sin ruido”). It is quite possible that it was Regal’s as-
sociation with the new electrical recording process and improved qual-
ity of recorded sound that persuaded Spanish classical guitarists to
begin to record for the label from the late 1920s onwards.
The Catálogo General de Discos “Regal” for June 1930 indicates the
extent of Regal’s recording activity by this time, listing a number of
32 The Recording Model Established

notable Spanish and Latin American guitarists. Among the more pro-
lifc is Juan Parras del Moral (c.1890–1973), a largely self-taught gui-
tarist who was closely linked to the Tárrega/Llobet circle of guitarists
in Barcelona as well as being noted for his association with Segovia
(Herrera 2011). Parras del Moral recorded a total of fve 78 rpm discs
for Regal sometime in the mid-late 1920s which were issued on the
“violeta” (violet) label. The repertoire chosen is frmly situated within
the Tárrega tradition, comprising the well-known Tárrega works,
Capricho Arabe and Recuerdos de la Alhambra as well as arrangements
of music by Albéniz – (Asturias and Granada), a “Danza Española”
by Enrique Granados (perhaps No. 5) and Malats’ Serenata Española.
Interestingly Parras del Moral’s recording of Albéniz’s Asturias (RS
5023), which is here entitled simply Preludio Español, is broken across
both sides of the disc to accommodate its greater length – a typical
example of the compromise that had to be reached when recording
longer works at this time. Parras del Moral’s Preludio Español may also
be the earliest recording of a solo guitar arrangement of this particu-
lar Albéniz work (Altamira 2017: 387) and certainly the only one cut
to a 78 rpm disc. Parras del Moral is also notable, along with Segovia,
for being among the frst to record a guitar work by Federico Moreno
Torroba (1891–1982) – his Fandanguillo (presumably from the 1926
Suite Castellana) – which is on RS 5012. A recognized composer in
his own right, Parras del Moral also included one of his own pieces,
Motivos Españoles, on the same disc.
Another artist of interest recorded by Regal on the “negra” (black)
label during this period was Víctor Doreste (1902–1966), a native of
the Canary Islands (Doreste 2006). His recordings are of particular
interest for their focus on guitar duet performance, in partnership with
fellow Canarian guitarist Ignacio Rodriguez (1894–1972). The frst of
Doreste’s three discs (DK 8004) contains arrangements for two guitars
of Capricho Arabe and Albéniz’s Sevilla (again indicating an allegiance
to the Tárrega school), the second (RS 1499) a set of variations on the
famous Canarios dance theme. Doreste’s third and fnal disc (D 8187)
offers duet arrangements of a Minuetto from Mozart’s Don Juan and
the slow movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The anomaly in
the Regal guitar catalogue is the Basque guitarist Anselmo Ojembar-
rena (dates unknown), who recorded at least three “negra” discs for
the label prior to 1930. These are all focused on Ojembarrena’s own
compositions which adopt popular Spanish dance forms such as the
pasodoble, as can be heard in Vicente Barrera (RS 566) and Recuer-
dos de Burdeos (RS 658), and famenco forms such as the Bulerías,
Soleares and Guajiras.21 In addition to acting as vehicle for the record-
ing of local Spanish musicians Regal also published the recordings of
two important Latin American guitarists made by Columbia in New
York between 1926 and 1928, whose individual contributions will be
discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. These were Guillermo Gómez
(1880–1953), a Spanish-born guitarist who emigrated to Mexico in
1900, and the Mexican-born guitarist, Francisco Salinas (1892–1993).
Early Recording: Spain 33

The most important classical guitarist to record for the Regal label
during the 1930s was Daniel Fortea (1878–1953). Fortea was a highly
infuential fgure on the Spanish guitar scene during the frst half of
the twentieth century and recognized in his day as an outstanding per-
former and a prolifc composer of note. He also founded a publishing
company, Biblioteca Musical, later known as the Biblioteca Fortea,
which contributed signifcantly to the guitar repertoire (Bone 1972;
Altamira 2017). Like the recordings of Llobet discussed above, For-
tea’s are of particular interest because he was a direct disciple of Tár-
rega, with whom he was associated from the 1890s until the latter’s
death in 1909. He recorded three double-sided discs for Regal between
approximately 1932 and 1936, two of which have in recent years resur-
faced and have been subsequently digitized for the Doremi Segovia and
His Contemporaries project (Volume 12). In terms of the repertoire
choice these discs serve both to proselytize on behalf of the Tárrega
lineage and to publicize Fortea’s own compositions: each contains a
commonly performed work or arrangement by Tárrega together with
an original piece by Fortea. The frst (DK-8569) features Tárrega’s
ubiquitous Capricho Arabe backed by Fortea’s Elegía (a la memoria
de mi maestro Tárrega). The latter is a composition in three sections
which is of interest principally for its employment of harmonics. For
his second disc (DK-8578) Fortea recorded an original piece in a dance
style, Muñecos de carton (“cardboard dolls”), alongside Granados’s
Spanish Dance No. 5. In terms of their sound, both discs highlight the
benefts accrued to classical guitar recording by the Columbia elec-
trical process, which permits the dynamic nuances of the instrument
and its timbral subtleties to be captured very effectively. For example,
the octave harmonics of the last section of Fortea’s Elegía a Tárrega
are heard very clearly and with a full tone.22 Fortea’s third and fnal
disc for Regal (DK-8940), recorded around 1935, is yet to reappear
– Biblioteca Fortea, Revista Musical (1935) indicates that it contains
Tárrega’s Canción de Cuna and Fortea’s Maruxiña y la Viudita.23 Al-
though Regal’s recordings of classical guitar music ultimately consti-
tuted a relatively small fraction of the label’s total output, it managed
nonetheless to document the sounds and performance styles of a num-
ber of signifcant artists of the period. Regal can thus be considered
one of the most important contributors to the early recorded legacy of
Spanish classical guitar music.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT RECORDINGS MADE BY SPANISH

GUITARISTS DURING THE 1920S AND 1930S
In addition to the Llobet Parlophon/Odeon discs and the varied out-
put of the Columbia/Regal catalogue, it is important to acknowledge
the recordings of several other key Spanish classical guitarists active
during this period. In 1929 Miguel Ángel Martinez (b.1899), a pupil
of Daniel Fortea, recorded a double-sided disc (B25430) for the Bar-
celona Parlophon “azul” (blue) label. Ángel was by all accounts a
34 The Recording Model Established

renowned concert artist who also performed in live radio broadcasts

during the 1930s (Altamira 2017). As might be expected given Án-
gel’s musical lineage, this recording contains two works by Tárrega,
his Danza Mora and the Gran Jota.24 In the late 1920s, the Com-
pañía del Gramófono issued three recordings (AE 2779, AE 2786,
and AE 2796) of the guitarist Alfredo Romea (1883–1955). Based in
Barcelona, Romea worked as a journalist and guitar musicologist,
becoming recognized in particular for his expertise in the works of
Fernando Sor (Mangado 1998; Altamira 2017). He is also known to
have premiered a number of contemporary works by Spanish com-
posers during his career, but unlike Segovia, did not commit any of
these to record. Romea’s recordings are listed in the Catálogo Gen-
eral de Discos marca “La Voz de su Amo” for July 1930 and appear
alongside the earliest discs made by Segovia for the company’s Brit-
ish branch in London (discussed in Chapter 3). His recordings are
of interest because, in addition to their inclusion of the obligatory
Tárrega work (in this case his Pavana), they also embrace a wider
range of music by historical guitar composers such as Fernando Sor
(an unspecifed Estudio and a Marcha), Napoleon Coste (a work re-
ferred to as “Bolero”), Julián Arcas (his Jota Aragonesa). Of particu-
lar interest are his recordings of two pieces of earlier music by French
Baroque guitarist Robert de Visée (Minuet-Danza), which refect the
infuence of the early music revival spearheaded in Spain by Emilio
Pujol. In 1932 the Compañía del Gramófono also made recordings
of Bartolome Calatayud (1882–1973), another Tárrega pupil hailing
from the island of Mallorca. The disc in question, AE 3898 (heard on
Doremi Vol. 12), is unique for its focus on Calatayud’s own composi-
tions rather than typical guitar repertoire being recorded by his con-
temporaries.25 The recordings of Romea and Calatayud, and indeed,
aforementioned artists such as Borrull and Hernández, thus indicate
the Segovia was not the only solo guitarist who was of interest to the
Gramophone Company at this time.
In addition to the Llobet/Anido discs the German Odeon label made
recordings of two other important Spanish classical guitarists during
this period. Regino Sainz de la Maza (1897–1981), was the most signif-
icant of the second generation of Spanish guitarists in the lineage of
the Tárrega school. He studied with Tárrega disciples Luis Soria, Hi-
larión Leloup (1876–1939) and Daniel Fortea and was also profoundly
infuenced by Miguel Llobet (Mairants 1967; Altamira 2017). Sainz
de la Maza made several recordings for Odeon while on tour in Brazil
in June 1929 (Antunes 2002), and these were issued in the mid-price
“morado” series. Like many of his compatriots their content strongly
foregrounds the Tárrega repertoire position. Odeon disc 203.149, for
example, contains a Scherzo-Gavota (the one named “Maria”) by Tár-
rega and the Bourrée from Bach’s Violin Partita No.1, while 203.142
contains two Tárrega works, one entitled Evocación (which is actually
Tárrega’s tremolo study, Recuerdos de la Alhambra) and the other en-
titled Reverie (which is actually the well-known Tárrega showpiece,
Early Recording: Spain 35

Sueño). Two other discs (203.229 and 203.246), Mazurca (the one
named “Marieta”) by Tárrega and a Reverie attributed to Bach. Of
particular interest is the inclusion of two original compositions by
Sainz de la Maza, El Vito and Andaluza,26 both of which were pub-
lished in sheet music form by Unión Musical Española.27 Sainz de la
Maza was also an important early advocate of the music of Joaquín
Rodrigo (Wade 2006), particularly his Concierto de Aranjuez, which
he premiered on 9 November 1940 and recorded (with the Orquesta
Nacional de España under Ataulfo Argenta) for Columbia in 1948.28
As the most performed and recorded guitar concerto of the twentieth
century, the Concierto de Aranjuez was pivotal in disseminating the
“Spanish” image of the classical guitar to a wide global audience.
Another notable guitarist recorded by Odeon during this period was
the Catalan Rosita Rodes (1906–1975). The 1931 Catálogo General de
Discos Odeon lists two Rodes’discs released in the “verde”(green) series –
disc 181.055 containing a Pavana by Sanz backed by an “Allegro bril-
lante” by Coste (perhaps the same Coste work recorded by Llobet) and
disc 181.056, featuring Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra backed by a
Bach Courante. Rodes also recorded a disc for Columbia (S-36) of the
Tárrega Gran Jota de Concierto which interestingly constituted Side
B of a 10-inch 78 rpm disc whose A-side featured a performance by
fellow Argentinian guitarist Lalyta Almiron (1914–1997) of another
Tárrega work, the Estudio Brillante de Alard. This is an unusual exam-
ple of two solo classical guitarists being issued together on a single 78
rpm disc.
It is also documented that Emilio Pujol (1886–1980) one of Tárre-
ga’s most accomplished students (and the author of his frst biogra-
phy) made a handful of recordings in London for the Gramophone
Company in the early 1930s (Hernández Ramírez 2010). Pujol was
well known to the London music scene at this time due to his asso-
ciations with such groups as the Anglo Spanish Society (Riera 1974)
and his recordings for the Gramophone Company illustrate his Span-
ish repertoire inclinations, featuring him in duet with his wife Matilde
Cuervas performing transcriptions of Granados and de Falla. Pu-
jol was also recognized for his pioneering researches into the earlier
plucked string traditions of the Baroque guitar and vihuela (including
the music of Sanz, Milan and de Visée) which he incorporated into
the guitar recital program alongside the modern Spanish repertoire.
In the mid-1930s these musicological inclinations came to the fore in
his recordings for the French Anthologie Sonore series (c. 1935/1936),
a unique scholarly project undertaken in collaboration with German
musicologist Curt Sachs whose purpose was to document in sound
ten centuries of musical history (Ginn 1935). One of the provisos was
that recordings had to be made using period instruments, which Pu-
jol duly fulflled by commissioning a replica vihuela modeled after a
museum-piece he had discovered. This instrument appears in his per-
formances of Milan, Diego Pisador, Miguel de Fuenllana and Juan
Vasquez on volumes 17 (Romances et villancicos espagnols du 16 siècle)
36 The Recording Model Established

and 40 (Musique instrumentale en Espagne au 16 siècle). In effect Pujol

initiated the frst recordings concerned with historical guitar perfor-
mance practice, pre-empting the later recording work of Julian Bream
in feld of Elizabethan music during the 1950s.

NOTES
1. Simões’ collection, which has recently been acquired by Centro Cultural
Sao Paulo, numbers around 8,500 recordings in total.
2. Many of these were frst made available in a three-volume LP series by the
small California-based El Maestro label (owned by Morris Mizrahi and
Barrios scholar Rico Stover) in 1981 and 1982.
3. For example, those held by Belfer at Syracuse University or the University
of California, Santa Barbara Library.
4. The Stroh violin was used in recordings from 1904 onwards, its most fa-
mous exponent being Charles d’Almaine. See, for example, his “Military
Serenade” (Victor V Monarch 2828).
5. For further discussion of the banjo’s importance during the early record-
ing era, particularly in the context of jazz, see Parsonage (2005).
6. See for example the 1909 recording “Gavotte Caprice” (Edison Amberol
152).
7. See Spottswood (1996) for an informative general survey of early re-
corded guitar music.
8. A double-sided disc recorded for the Pathé Actuelle (020974) label in July
1922.
9. For an excellent overview of early Spanish music industry and cylinder
recording activity, see Montejano (2005).
10. As listed in the Catálogo General de Discos marca “La Voz de su Amo” for
January 1929.
11. A digitized version of the Hernández recording can be heard on the com-
pilation album, 5 Guitarras Historicas (Pasarela 2014).
12. The uncle of the renowned famenco guitarist, Carlos Montoya.
13. Indeed Yepes was regarded as the music’s author for a number of years.
14. See, for example, Luis y Simon Ramirez, “Mazurca. genio y fgura”
(c. 1900), http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder10313
15. The text is Jones’ translation of a passage from Pujol’s article “La Guitare”
in Part 2 of Lavignac’s Encyclopédie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Con-
servatoire (1925), p. 2015.
16. Llobet’s 78 rpm discs were frst issued as a remastered 33 rpm compi-
lation, Miguel Llobet, on Richard Stover’s El Maestro label (Winnetka,
CA) in 1982.
17. The tornavoz, meaning “turned voice”, was a cylindrical metal tube
placed in Torres guitars to enhance reverberation and sustain.
18. Llobet’s pupil Rey de la Torre was particularly forthright in his refuting
of these claims by Segovia, which were also paraphrased by Wade in Tra-
ditions of the Classical Guitar (1980: 151).
19. My discussions of Regal in this section are indebted in particular to the
researches of Mikel Bilbao Salsidua (2013).
20. Namely the famous recording of “Adeste Fideles” (50013-D), appar-
ently a recording of a 4850 strong choir made at the Metropolitan Opera
House in New York.
Early Recording: Spain 37

21. It is also interesting to note that Ojembarrena apparently undertook a

trial recording for Victor in 1916, which remains unpublished. See the
UCSB archive for further details: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/
talent/detail/16161/Ojembarrena_Anselmo_de_instrumentalist_guitar
22. The time constraints of the 78 rpm format are evident however in what
appears to be a rather quick tempo for the mournful Elegia (in later mod-
ern recordings guitarists typically spread out into the time).
23. Fortea’s music has been the subject of several recordings in recent years
by performers such as David Malmberg, Manuel Babiloni and Agustín
Maruri.
24. This recording is listed in the Catálogo resumen de Parlophon: los mejores
discos, agosto de 1929 (p. 6).
25. Catalayud released a number of recordings later in his career on the
Columbia, Belter and Impacto labels.
26. The dates given for these discs by the Doremi reissues in Vol. 9 (between
1935 and 1947) are therefore incorrect.
27. Both discs are listed in the 1931 Catálogo General de Discos Odeon.
28. Sainz de la Maza re-recorded the Concierto de Aranjuez many years later
on RCA VICS 1322.
3
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939)

INTRODUCTION
Having established a context for early guitar recording in Spain this
chapter moves to a consideration of the development of the record-
ing career of Andrés Segovia between 1923 and 1939, encompassing
the period from his frst recording in Cuba to his last HMV sessions
in London prior to the Second World War. Segovia’s multi-faceted
contribution to the identity of the twentieth-century classical guitar
has been extensively documented by scholars and critics (Usillos 1973;
Clinton 1978a; Duarte 1998; Poveda 2009; Wade 1983, 1986; Wade
and Garno 1997a, 1997b). His recorded output has also received much
attention, most notably from John Duarte, whose critical writing on
Segovia’s recordings dates from the 1950s and Allan Kozinn who has
written insightfully on Segovia’s recordings since the 1970s. Also sig-
nifcant is the contribution of Graham Wade, who in his various bi-
ographies, the most substantial of which is A New Look at Segovia,
His Life, His Music (Wade and Garno 1997a, 1997b), has discussed
Segovia’s recording career relative to the wider context of the evolving
record industry. This chapter aims to build upon the existing scholar-
ship by giving focused attention to the important role that Segovia’s
recordings played in both laying the foundations for the recorded clas-
sical guitar repertoire and establishing the idea of the classical guitar
recording artist in the frst half of the twentieth century.

SEGOVIA’S FIRST RECORDING

We know from Poveda (2009) and Wade (1997a, 2001) that Segovia at-
tempted his frst recordings in Havana, Cuba in 1923. Signifcantly this
was the year of Segovia’s performing debut in the country for which he
gave two memorable concerts at the Teatro Nacional on the 11 March
and 21 March. It is also documented that he appeared at other ven-
ues in the city such as the Havana Presidium1 in April of that year.
Segovia may have undertaken the recording for private use, or perhaps
out of curiosity about the relatively new technology. Alternatively, it is

38
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 39

possible that he was approached by one of the three major American

record companies active in Cuba during this period, namely Edison,
Victor or Columbia. Poveda (2009: 1098) has suggested that the re-
cordings were made in a studio, which would perhaps indicate a
walk-in gabinete fonográfíco of the kind discussed in Chapter 2, or per-
haps a temporary facility. These recordings would of course have been
acoustic and undertaken in less than ideal conditions for a performer
accustomed to playing before an audience. Wade suggests that Segovia
may have found the results of the acoustic recording process to be un-
satisfactory due to “problems with the quality of sound reproduced”
(1997a: 68), which is in keeping with the accounts of other musicians
of this era. A brief comment given by Segovia in a 1978 BBC interview
suggests a more positive experience, however:

I made my frst recording in Havana, and I was moved, do you

know, to the bones, because I heard myself for the frst time.
When I was ten years old, I always thought it was a great pity for
me that I was going to die without listening to my playing. But
eventually, I could listen.
(cited in Wade 1986: 24)

Segovia’s comments echo those expressed by many of the frst genera-

tion of classical performers to be recorded in regard to the novelty of
the experience. The opera singer Adelina Patti, for example, on hearing
her own voice recorded for the frst time is reported to have said “Ah!
mon Dieu! maintenant je comprends pourquoi je suis Patti! Oh, oui!
Quelle voix! Quelle artiste! Je comprends tout!” (Ronald 1922: 104).
As regards the repertoire chosen, Poveda (2009) asserts that Segovia
recorded Joaquín Turina’s Fandanguillo (Op. 36) and Tárrega’s famous
tremolo study, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, two pieces that were also
among the frst he recorded in 1927 for his new contract with HMV.2
While the Tárrega piece was already a longstanding feature of Sego-
via’s repertoire the Fandanguillo was a very recently composed work
(dedicated to Segovia) which began to appear in his concert programs
from 1924 onwards (Poveda 2009).3 There is already a sense therefore
of the dualism between established and the new repertoire that was to
characterize Segovia’s later recording choices from the HMV period
onwards. As pressings have yet come to light to confrming the nature
of these early recording sessions, one can only speculate on what they
would have revealed about Segovia the performing artist at this time.

SEGOVIA AT HMV: REPERTOIRE AND RECORDING

STRATEGY
The earliest extant recordings of Segovia are those he made for the
Gramophone Company’s His Master’s Voice (HMV) label on 2 May
1927. Segovia’s gravitation towards HMV was almost certainly due to
40 The Recording Model Established

the persuasive powers of Fred Gaisberg (1873–1951), the label’s prin-

cipal Artists and Repertoire agent, who had spent decades developing
the label’s classical catalogue. This had been achieved largely as a result
of Gaisberg’s skills in coaxing many of the greatest artists of the late
nineteenth century to record their repertoire, including Enrico Caruso,
Adelina Patti and Nellie Melba. By the time of Segovia’s recording
sessions the HMV label possessed a reputation for high-quality clas-
sical music recording and was recognized for its commitment to the
promotion of “serious” music4 above popular idioms. Segovia would
no doubt have been attracted by the Gramophone Company’s size and
global reach, which offered the potential for international distribution.
In particular its Anglo-American partnership with Victor was pivotal in
establishing Segovia in the minds of a global listening audience during
the 1920s and 1930s. Regarding HMV’s motivations, Segovia’s grow-
ing international reputation, particularly following his Paris debut in
1924, and his enthusiastically received concert appearances in London
from December 1926, are likely to have aroused the label’s interest in
recording him. Moreover Murray (2013) has highlighted that there was
already a well-established appreciation on the part of the English pub-
lic for Spanish plucked string music as a result of the earlier visits of
guitarists such as Ángel Barrios, Miguel Llobet and Emilio Pujol to
London after the First World War. This fact, coupled with Segovia’s
live concerts, would have provided a strong “proof of concept” for the
marketability of solo classical guitar music in the British marketplace.
Segovia’s frst sessions for HMV yielded cuts of two Bach
transcriptions – the Gavotte en Rondeau from BWV 1006 and Courante
from BWV 1009 – together with an abridged5 version of Fernando Sor’s
Variations on a Theme by Mozart Op. 9, a recital showpiece played here
at almost superhuman speed, probably in order to ft the music onto a
single 78 rpm side.6 Segovia’s decision to opt for Bach transcriptions
as the main focus of his frst issued recordings (and also for his third
recording session in May 1928) is signifcant. Bach was already part
of Segovia’s (and other guitarists’) repertoire by this point and had
been known to him since around 1909 in the occasional arrangements
of the Spanish school (Segovia 1976). As is well documented, two of
the main exponents of the Tárrega tradition – Pujol and Llobet – had
frequently included works by Bach in their recital programs. Segovia’s
gravitation towards Bach was also infuenced by trends in scholarly
research that contributed to the composer’s revival, such as the Neue
Bach Gesellschaft (published in 1900), and Hans Dagobert Bruger’s
1921 edition of Bach’s lute works arranged for guitar. Wade (1985)
has asserted that it was the latter volume in particular that infuenced
Segovia’s own transcriptions of Bach after 1928. Finally there was the
prevailing infuence of neoclassicism in contemporary compositional
circles spearheaded by Stravinsky and other composers on the Paris
scene, which can also be seen to be refected in the musical styles of the
contemporary composers Segovia was drawn to, especially Ponce and
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and later Villa-Lobos. From the perspective of
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 41

the record label itself, HMV’s openness to Segovia recording Bach is

likely to have been informed more generally by the prevailing fashion
for performing and recording Bach’s music that had emerged in the
context of the early music revival, as pioneered, for example, in the
harpsichord recordings of Wanda Landowksa. The HMV label was as-
sociated with many important Bach recordings during 1930s, including
those of Albert Schweitzer and Pablo Casals. Compared to the general
focus of classical guitar recording at this time, Segovia’s emphasis on
Bach constitutes a notable departure from the Spanish repertoire con-
text to a more “cerebral” Northern European perspective. This lent a
certain gravitas to his campaign to establish the guitar as a vehicle for
the performance of sophisticated music, and, as discussed later in this
chapter, it was Segovia’s Bach discs that became a particular site of
debate and discussion for reviewers of his recordings.
A further recording session on 20 May 1927 adopted a contrast-
ing perspective, moving the focus to Segovia’s growing repertoire of
contemporary pieces – specifcally works by two living Spanish com-
posers, Federico Moreno Torroba (1891–1982) and Joaquín Turina
(1882–1949). The session also yielded one of Segovia’s most widely
recognized recordings – Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra – which
had great signifcance for the post-war generation of classical guitarists
that emerged in the 1950s. Torroba was one of the frst non-guitarist
composers to write for Segovia, beginning with his Danza in 1920, and
dedicated many works to him thereafter. As Clark and Krause (2013)
have explained, he represented a vital link to traditional Spanish mu-
sical forms, and, importantly relative to Segovia’s conservative musical
tastes, eschewed the avant-garde. For his HMV session Segovia chose to
record the frst movement (Allegretto) of Torroba’s popular Sonatina in
A (composed in 1923), in a typical instance of excerpting from a larger
work to suit the 78 rpm format. Turina’s Fandanguillo was another rel-
atively recent addition to Segovia’s repertoire. This piece possesses a
marked famenco character, couched in a formal musical structure (or
as Rey de la Torre later observed, “a famenco piece with a college edu-
cation” (1958)),7 which would have made the folkloristic element more
palatable to Segovia. The Turina and Torroba pieces refect the Span-
ish contemporary nationalist perspective of the Segovian guitar reper-
toire which was to become a persistent theme in his recorded programs
alongside other musical preoccupations. Torroba’s music in particular
was regularly featured in Segovia’s recordings thereafter through to his
fnal recital LP for American Decca, Castles of Spain (1970).
On 15 May 1928 Segovia once again returned to London to record fve
pieces in a single marathon session. The repertoire selection comprised
three further arrangements of Bach – the Prelude in C minor BWV 999
(transposed to D minor), the Allemande from Lute Suite No. 1 in E
minor BWV 1996 and the Fugue in G minor BWV 1001 (transposed
to A minor) – and also included two further recently composed pieces
by Torroba – the Fandanguillo from the Suite Castellana (1926) and a
Preludio (1928). The Bach Prelude, Allemande and the Fugue were all
42 The Recording Model Established

released together on a single disc (D.1536), an early example of an all-

Bach focused issue of a classical guitar recording. These arrangements,
which precede (and hence gave advance advertisement of) the later pub-
lished editions of the music in score, illustrate Segovia’s particular ap-
proach to arranging Bach’s music for the guitar, provoking much debate
regarding his attitude towards the music’s integrity. Kozinn, for example,
found Segovia’s recording of the Fugue in G minor to be inauthentic
because he begins “cutting and patching immediately after the subject is
stated, and hardly sticks to the text for more than three lines at a time”
(1980b: 57). Garno (Wade and Garno 1997a) has suggested that Segovia
was probably infuenced by an earlier Tárrega arrangement of the piece
in which certain alterations are made (additional bass and harmony notes
for example) to enable the piece to work more effectively on the guitar.
In his extensive commentary on Segovia’s approach to the transcription,
arrangement and performance of early music (which makes reference to
his recordings), Garno has also drawn attention to Segovia’s freedom
in incorporating guitaristic features that are not necessarily congruent
with the conventions of the music he is performing. However, he is gen-
erally approving of Segovia’s approach, arguing for its expediency in the
service of generating a useable guitar repertoire, “his goal was not give
an academically perfect reproduction of the original but to emphasize
elements that he felt would communicate to his audiences on the mod-
ern classical guitar” (1997a: 217) In essence a balance is struck between
faithfulness to original texts and adaptation to suit Segovia’s approach
to using the instrument’s dynamic and coloristic resources effectively.
The various recordings made by Segovia during the 1927 and 1928
sessions were gradually issued over a 5-year period up to 1932 on
HMV’s double-sided budget “black” label series and designated either
letter “D” or “E”, the former referring to the 12-inch disc, the latter re-
ferring to the 10-inch. Black label recordings were initially aimed at the
“domestic” marketplace (i.e. made to be sold in the country of origin
by musicians of non-international status), but gradually came to en-
compass many internationally prestigious artists who were important
in consolidating the Gramophone Company’s reputation during the
1930s. Semeonoff (in Smith 1969), for example, points out that while
many of the most eminent instrumentalists of the era were appearing
on HMV’s mid-price “plum” label, the black label also featured art-
ists of “all round distinction” including the pianists Arthur de Greef,
Frederic Lamond and Benno Moisevich, as well as Segovia. One ex-
ception here is Segovia’s recording of the Ponce Sonata No.3/Postlude
which was issued as AB.656. Interestingly the latter code is not part of
the British HMV catalogue, rather it refers to equivalent black label
(“etiqueta negra”) discs produced by the Compañía del Gramófono,
the Spanish branch of the Gramophone Company based in Barcelona.
These discs also used the HMV Nipper logo, with its text here trans-
lated as “La Voz de Su Amo”. The 1932 Catálogo General De Discos
lists AB.656 along with Segovia’s other releases at this time but the
record does not appear to have been available outside Spain. With the
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 43

discontinuation of the black label series in 1931, Segovia’s recordings

were from 1932 onwards issued on HMV’s more glamorous “red” label
series (designated by letters “DA” for 10 inch or “DB” for 12 inch).8
Between 1930 and 1939 Segovia steadily increased his recorded out-
put for HMV, encompassing a greater range of the repertoire that he
had been performing in his concerts. These sessions produced more
recordings of Bach (an arrangement of the Prelude from the 1st Cello
Suite) and Tárrega (the well-known “Alard” Study in A), transcriptions
of music by Spanish composers such as Malats (Serenata Española),
Granados and Albéniz, and another Torroba work, his Nocturno. Of
particular signifcance during this period are the frst recordings of
guitar music by Manuel M. Ponce (1882–1948), whom Segovia had
met on a visit to Mexico City in 1923. Ponce was among the foremost
Mexican composers of concert music at this time and recognized as
a key fgure in the revival of Mexican folk music tradition. He had
also achieved global fame in the “popular” music arena with his piece,
Estrellita, which was widely recorded outside Mexico. Ponce’s musical
style was indebted to nineteenth-century Romantic music, character-
ized by a strong melodic sense and a rich harmonic language founded
in tonality. Later he absorbed French Impressionism (he had lived for
a period in Paris) which produced a more adventurous harmonic ap-
proach, and also Neoclassicism.9 These facets appealed to Segovia who
was looking for guitar music of a cosmopolitan character that adopted
a contemporary perspective without being entirely divorced from the
nineteenth-century traditions that had shaped his own musical tastes.
Ponce quickly formed a close association with Segovia and became cen-
tral to the latter’s campaign for new guitar music during the 1920s and
1930s.10 Here Segovia was more than simply a performer of Ponce’s
work, however – he was also actively involved as a collaborator on the
music, making signifcant alterations to Ponce’s draft manuscripts to
enable the music to sit effectively on the guitar. There is a parallel here
with the Paraguayan guitarist Barrios (discussed in Chapter 4) in that
Segovia’s recordings of Ponce in a number of cases constituted the
primary sources of his works until their eventual publication in sheet
music form. Ultimately this necessitated the production of an urtext
edition (Alcázar 2000) to enable scholars to make clear the distinctions
between Segovia’s own editions and the original manuscripts.11
By 1930 Segovia was in a position to record a number of Ponce’s ma-
jor guitar works, including the four movement Suite “in A major”,12 a
selection from the Variations on “Folia de España” and Fugue (1929),13
the frst two movements of Sonata III (1927) and a Postlude. These par-
ticular recording sessions (October 6th and 7th) are referred to in Sego-
via’s correspondence with Ponce in a letter dated 25 September 1930:

I am going to London before the end of the month to record

12 works on 6 records. I am going to propose The Folias on one
complete record, that is, on both sides. I am also going to record,
if you have no objections to it, the preludio arabe – I qualify it with
44 The Recording Model Established

this designation now, so you will know which one it is, that is the
one you wrote for the Folias – followed by the canción that you in-
troduced into the Sonata III, as andante. Besides the fact that this
is very beautiful, and that I am happy to play it, I am also doing it
with the desire that you get a few francs for the royalties.
(Alcázar 1989: 88)

As well as illustrating his close involvement with Ponce in the creation

and promotion of the latter’s guitar music, Segovia’s comments also
convey his ambition to explore the potential of the recorded medium
for the presentation of more substantial repertoire. Compared to the
self-contained pieces he had recorded in 1927–28, the Sonata and “Fo-
lia de España” variations, although abridged, were sophisticated and
demanding guitar works whose extended nature required that more
than one side of a disc be devoted to them. The aforementioned Post-
lude, which was intended by the composer as the Preludio to the “Folia
de España” variations (see Alcázar 2000), was recorded by Segovia here
to pad out one side of the disc containing Sonata III: “I played it for
His Master’s Voice, after the Canción – Andante of Sonata III so that
together they would fll a side of the record in which there is also the
Allegro of the same Sonata” (Alcázar 1989: 131). The Suite in A major
(1929), although by Ponce, was attributed on the record label to the
Baroque lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687–1750). It is a purposeful
neoclassical pastiche intended as a hoax in the manner of violinist Fritz
Kreisler, which continued to be attributed to Weiss in Segovia’s later
re-recordings of select movements from the Suite for American Decca
in 1952 (DL 9633) and 1954 (DL 9734),14 where it was accompanied by
bogus program notes. Segovia’s recording of the Bach Prelude from the
frst Cello Suite is also an arrangement by Ponce, and is notable for its
distinctive bass line suggestive of harmonies not indicated in the orig-
inal score. In this sense the piece can be regarded as a partial re-com-
position in a neoclassical vein. As Duarte has commented, “Beautiful
it may be, but Bach it was not” (1998: 43). Segovia made two further
recordings of Ponce for HMV in 1935 – a Mazurka and “Petite” Valse
– both self-contained pieces of a more lightweight character, excerpted
from the Cuatro Piezas (1932–33), which Segovia regarded as “encore”
material (Duarte 1998).
Another new addition to Segovia’s growing stable of contemporary
composers at this time was Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968),
an Italian (non-guitarist) composer who wrote numerous works for
the instrument over the course of his career, many of which were dedi-
cated to Segovia.15 Castelnuovo-Tedesco frst became acquainted with
Segovia in Venice in 1932 leading him to write his frst piece for gui-
tar, the Variazioni attraverso i secoli in that same year (Poveda 2009).
This prompted Segovia to instigate the composition of a new piece,
suggesting that the Italian composer Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) be
used by Castelnuovo-Tedesco as a musical reference point due to his
close association with the guitar. This result was the Sonata “Omaggio
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 45

a Boccherini” Op. 77 (1934), whose dramatic fourth movement, Vivo e

energico, Segovia recorded for HMV in 1936. The Sonata is essentially
a neoclassical work, emulating eighteenth-century style in a modern
but accessible harmonic guise that once again cohered with the Sego-
vian musical aesthetic. As with Ponce, Segovia was closely involved
with the work’s development and had already trialed it in his concert
performances prior to the HMV sessions (Gilardino 2007).16 As the
78 rpm format once again precluded the possibility of committing the
full work to disc (the movement was paired with Mendelssohn’s Can-
zonetta on DB.3243), the Sonata was not recorded by Segovia in its
entirety until 1957 (for the Golden Jubilee album).
Segovia’s final sessions for HMV (on 17 January 1939) included
further recordings of Baroque era material, this time of French gui-
tarist Robert de Visée (1650–1732), which highlight his continuing in-
terest in augmenting the repertoire through the adaptation of earlier
music. Three of the pieces are drawn from de Visée’s Suite in D mi-
nor, which had been featured in Segovia’s guitar recitals since 1924,
and are likely to have been influenced by Emilio Pujol (see Wade and
Garno 1997a), who was undertaking pioneering research into ear-
lier plucked string music at this time. It later emerged that the fourth
piece – the Gigue – was in fact derived from Suite No. 2 for harpsi-
chord by Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667). This ambiguity con-
cerning the authorship of the piece was perpetuated in Segovia’s later
re-recordings for American Decca on DU-710 (recorded 1944), where
it is again attributed to de Visée and for his 1961 Maestro album (DL
710039), on which it is entitled “Giga Melancolia” and attributed
to “Anon”. It is not clear whether Segovia’s understanding of the
work’s authorship was informed by the editions he was working from
or whether he purposefully co-opted the piece in order to fill out the
existing de Visée suite.17 However, like the Ponce Suite in A, it is an-
other illustration of the means by which Segovia’s recordings could
construct a particular notion of the repertoire in the absence of more
accurate information.
The remaining 1939 recordings were devoted to transcriptions of
piano works by nineteenth-century Spanish composers Isaac Albéniz
(Granada and Sevilla) and Enrique Granados (Danzas Españolas
No’s 5 and 10), pieces which formed the bedrock of the Spanish clas-
sical guitar repertoire. Segovia’s arrangements of Albéniz, Granados
and also the Malats (recorded 1930) can be regarded as evolutions of
the editions created by Tárrega and Llobet. The Malats Serenata Es-
pañola, for example, is essentially a restoration of Tárrega’s version to
a closer affiliation with the original piano score (see Wade and Garno
1997a: 187–198). Granados’ Spanish Dances No. 5 and No. 10 are der-
ivations of the Llobet versions which Segovia initially learned from
him by ear. Albéniz’s Granada and Sevilla were two of the three pieces
(the other is Asturias) that Segovia played that were included in the
composer’s Suite Española Op. 47 and probably derive from Tárrega’s
arrangements. Garno (Wade and Garno 1997b) asserts that Segovia’s
46 The Recording Model Established

editions of this music, supported by his recorded interpretations, are,

in terms of their faithfulness to style and idiom, his most successful.
Observing Segovia’s recording strategy between 1927 and 1939
it can be concluded that he was keen to develop a recording profle
which showcased a number of facets of the guitar repertoire as it was
being evolved in the context of his recitals. Thus he made a point of
recording the works he had derived from transcriptions – specifcally
works by Bach and the relatively recent Romantic Spanish piano liter-
ature. These functioned as demonstrations of the guitar’s capacity to
both convincingly render sophisticated music by canonic composers
and demonstrate virtuosity comparable to players of other established
instruments. Through his recordings he also began to forge an asso-
ciation with music by contemporary composers by means of which
he could re-make the guitar’s identity afresh relative to earlier tradi-
tions. Taken as a whole, Segovia’s early recordings constitute a tem-
plate for the twentieth-century guitar repertoire that has continued to
remain core to it despite the many accretions and modifcations that
have taken place since. As Duarte (1980) remarked in his liner notes to
the EMI re-issue of the complete HMV recordings on vinyl, “in these
bands we are re-hearing the birth of the classic guitar as we know it”.18

THE RECEPTION OF SEGOVIA’S HMV RECORDINGS

Having considered the trajectory of Segovia’s early recording career
and his strategy as regards repertoire choice, this part of the chapter
surveys themes in the critical reception of Segovia’s HMV recordings,
as refected in the UK publication Gramophone and contemporary US
periodicals such as Disques19 and the Phonograph Monthly Review.
The Gramophone took an active interest in Segovia’s recordings from
his frst released disc in 1927. Indeed the magazine was already report-
ing on Segovia’s presence in England as a concert artist a few months
prior to his frst HMV sessions, frst mentioning him in passing in Feb-
ruary 1927. Here he is described, alongside the Russian harpist Maria
Korchinska, as having made an “impression of wondering delight”
on an audience at a performance at London’s Aeolian Hall, following
which the writer asks prophetically (in reference to both harp and gui-
tar), “Can these things be recorded adequately?” (1927b: 384). Segovia
is mentioned again in March 1927 (Anon 1927a: 430), this time in-
cluded in a list of performers “not yet known to the gramophone pub-
lic”. Hence the publication was already speculating on the possibility
of Segovia’s making recordings and primed, from the perspective of
knowing him as a concertizing performer, for his arrival on disc.
The critical literature concerning Segovia’s recordings during this pe-
riod is of particular value because it closely documents the attitudes and
thought processes of reviewers in debating the legitimacy of the guitar
a vehicle for the performance of concert music. One common subject
of discussion was Segovia’s transcriptions of earlier music by canonic
composers. Segovia’s performances of Bach provoked much comment
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 47

in this regard and in some cases elicited disapproval. The Gramophone’s

review (P.L. 1927: 102) of Segovia’s frst issued recording HMV D.1255
(pairing Bach’s Gavotte en Rondeau with Sor’s Variations on a Theme
of Mozart), for example, expressed reservations regarding the authen-
ticity of his Bach, fnding the Sor variations to be more appropriate
to the instrument. It is not clear whether the reviewer here disagreed
with Segovia’s interpretation or simply did not think the guitar an ele-
vated enough instrument for the performance of music by this particu-
lar composer. These concerns regarding Bach, and serious music more
generally on the guitar, are also reiterated in Compton MacKenzie’s
review in his September Gramophone editorial in the same year:

This is marvellous playing, but whether such virtuosity will carry

the guitar from the position it now occupies as an instrument to
something higher I doubt. I cannot imagine that it can possibly
be played better than Andrés Segovia plays it; but I don’t think I
want Bach on the guitar. I should prefer that a master performer
of this kind should give us serenades of a perfection we never hear,
something simple, sensuous, and passionate.
(MacKenzie 1927: 135)

MacKenzie’s expression “serenades of perfection” here suggests the com-

mon perception of the guitar as an instrument best suited to popular or
light music contexts. Such criticism was typical at this time yet did not dis-
suade Segovia from pursuing his interest in recording Bach, which he did
again for HMV in 1928 and 1935. His determination to legitimize Bach
on the instrument can be seen to have reached its ultimate expression in
the premier performance of his transcription of the Chaconne in Paris
on 4 June 1935. His later recording of this work for the Musicraft label in
1947 also constituted a landmark in the classical guitar’s recorded profle.
By contrast, American reviewers of Segovia’s Bach recordings, per-
haps because they retained some distance from European attitudes,
were more favorable. In reference to the Bach Prelude, Allemande and
Fugue (Victor release, V-7176), for example, the critic (Phonograph
Monthly Review) commented,

I presume the arrangements are his own. They are ingenious, but
the skill with which they have been contrived is nothing compared
to that with which they are played. The fugue is an astonishing
performance, with every voice unmistakably independent and
individual.
(1930b: 207)

In reference to the same disc the Los Angeles Times (Morse Jones 1930:
38) wrote:

What a consummate artist Andrés Segovia must be to make the

greatness of Bach speak through the limited medium of a guitar
48 The Recording Model Established

and by his own innate artistry preserve its aliveness even in a pho-
nograph record. The effect is much like that of a fne harpsichord-
ist with the most refned and sensitive shading.

The Gramophone appears to have been more approving of Segovia’s

transcriptions of nineteenth-century composers, as indicated in the
following comments by W.R.A. on Segovia’s recording of the Men-
delssohn Canzonetta (a piece originally written for string quartet):

Its staccato and plucked effects make it good meat for the guitar.
The two sustained parts in the middle section must just be sug-
gested, of course, not held as in the original. Apart from a moment
or two of rubato that I do not care for, and one needless, slight
alteration of the text, near the end, the movement makes an admi-
rable medium for the player’s skill, particularly in the presentation
of full-sounding parts. In that respect it is a frst-rate study of what
the guitar can do.
(W.R.A. 1941: 222)

Reviewers also debated upon the effcacy of the original music written
for the instrument by Segovia’s contemporary composer colleagues.
Here the response on both sides of the Atlantic was often ambivalent.
In regard to Ponce (DA.1552, Mazurka/Petite Valse), for example, the
Gramophone’s attitude was that the music was of less signifcance than
Segovia’s prowess as a performer:

A critic recently remarked of Kreisler that he could play Three

Blind Mice and convince his audience that it was a masterpiece.
This I take to be a compliment, and I would like to borrow it and
convey it to Segovia, who makes these two trivial pieces by Ponce
sound both interesting and charming.
(D.W. 1938: 436)

Likewise an earlier Disques review (August 1932) of a four-sided release

of Ponce’s more substantial “Folia de España” variations (V-DB1567
and V-DB1568) comments that “the main feature here is Segovia’s per-
formance and the good recording; the music is of secondary interest”
(Anon 1932: 271). The music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, while
still subject to accusations of being “salon music”, receives slightly
more favorable treatment in a 1941 Gramophone review of DB.3243
(the Vivo e energico from the Sonata “Omaggio a Boccherini”):

I suppose this may be one of the pieces that Segovia’s contem-

poraries have written specially for him. The kind of tribute one
delights to observe, for it seems likely that this clever artist, like
other pioneers, may suffer from a shortage of frst-class music
written for his instrument. This piece is a gay bit of salon mu-
sic, with some toccata-like elements, and good butter-spreading of
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 49

melody-and-accompaniment. Its idiom is not “modern,” and it is

easy to listen to in every way.
(W.R.A. 1941: 222)

Turina’s Fandanguillo (the American issue on Victor V-6767) also met

with the approval of the Phonograph Monthly Review (April 1928):

the Fandanguillo is of larger artistic signifcance: a strange and

arresting composition, Spanish to the core. Turina is a composer
who has been unaccountably neglected in this country; this little
piece gives testimony to the claim of those who rank with, or even
above De Falla.
(Anon 1928: 272)

What the critical literature on the whole reveals at this time is a gradual
awakening of commentators to an idea of the guitar as an instrument
upon which music of considerable sophistication could be performed.
This is often characterized by an attitude of surprise and delight that
well-known music written for other instruments should work so effec-
tively on the guitar. In regard to the contemporary composers’ works
that Segovia was beginning to promote in his recordings, these were
not necessarily recognized by reviewers as musical “canon” and the
relatively conservative nature of the musical languages of Torroba,
Ponce and Castelnuovo-Tedesco no doubt contradicted expectations in
some quarters of what constituted worthwhile “modern” music. One
can also imagine that the relative slightness of the music recorded –
often short pieces utilizing simple compositional forms – was being
unfavorably compared to the large-scale classical music compositions
associated with the repertoire of other solo instruments such as the
piano. The critics’ ambivalence towards Segovia’s chosen composers,
whom he promoted throughout his recording career, persisted well into
the 1960s until they fnally became accepted as repertoire exclusive to
Segovia himself. Indeed this was the crux of challenge to the guitarists
that followed Segovia: as this music and its attendant stylistic attri-
butes became entrenched as the classical guitar repertoire, recordings
of successive generations, particularly from the 1960s onwards, came
to constitute a key site of debate concerning the continued legitimacy
of the Segovian musical perspective.

THE SOUND OF SEGOVIA’S HMV RECORDINGS: EARLY

CLASSICAL GUITAR RECORDING AESTHETICS
Segovia’s early recordings for HMV can be seen to mark the inception
of classical guitar recording aesthetics, that is to say, the principles that
underpin the notion of what the ideal classical guitar recording ought
to sound like. Implied here is a discussion of the context of the record-
ing, including the nature of the environment in which the recording
is made and the role played by the available technology in mediating
50 The Recording Model Established

the sound. Also relevant are the personnel involved in the recording
process – essentially the producer and engineering team – who deter-
mine both the music that is recorded and the manner in which the
performance is captured. Finally there are the particular attributes
brought to the recorded sound by the artist. In the case of Segovia’s
early recordings this refers to three things – the character of the instru-
ment and its associated materials (such as the wood and the strings),
the quality of the sound produced using it (Segovia’s tone), and more
broadly his style of performing.
Compared to his later period at American Decca there are few
accounts of the circumstances of Segovia’s early HMV recordings.
However, data provided with more recent CD editions of the re-mas-
tered 78 rpm recordings indicate that the production was undertaken
by Fred Gaisberg in collaboration with David Bicknell (1906–1988).
Bicknell, later an important classical music producer in his own
right, was working during this period as an assistant to Gaisberg,
whose acoustic recording skills had effectively been obsolesced by
the development of electrical recording. While Gaisberg is likely to
have deferred to Bicknell (and on later sessions, balance engineer
Edward “Chick” Fowler) regarding the technical process of making
the recordings, he would certainly have been involved in negotiations
with Segovia over the musical content and the general coaching of
the process. In his memoirs Gaisberg has left a brief description of
a session with Segovia at Abbey Road (probably the 1939 recordings
given the reference to “music of Spain”), which suggests that the
recording process, at least from the engineering perspective, was a
straightforward one.

Recording the guitarist Andrés Segovia is really a holiday. He

brings his own instrument and we need only provide a chair in
front of the microphone. It all looks very simple. But we and the
recorders are fascinated by these magic fngers delicately playing
the music of Spain, and our minds picture the sufferings of that
unhappy land.
(Gaisberg 1942: 212)

Gaisberg’s assessment of the ease of the recording process should be

understood in relation to the kinds of problems he and Bicknell would
have had to grapple with when recording larger groups of musicians.
While questions concerning relative balance between instruments ob-
viously did not enter into the situation when recording a solo instru-
ment, there was still the problem of capturing the essence of Segovia’s
sound while ensuring that the technology did not intrude and prevent
him from delivering an effective performance. A key diffculty related
to the fact that Segovia was cutting directly to disc at this time, which
meant that he had no choice but to play his pieces in single continu-
ous takes. To render a fawless take required considerable concentra-
tion and an ability to give a musical performance under pressure. In a
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 51

1978 interview for Guitar magazine Segovia gave a vivid account of the
HMV recording process in the late 1920s:

I did records for HMV and it was terrible because you did it straight
on wax and every time you made a mistake you had to go back to
the beginning and do it again. It was very tiring. I remember once
when I was recording a fugue20 by Bach and I was desperate I said
that I couldn’t record any more that day. “Don’t worry” they said,
“last night Rachmaninov was here doing a work by Debussy and
he was in despair because he couldn’t get through it”. You see, the
inhibition one experiences when one is doing the very best – and
for posterity as in a recording – is always very diffcult to over-
come. Everything is very tense.
(Clinton 1978a: 28)

In spite of these pressures Segovia’s HMV recordings exude great

confdence and, remarkably, contain very few errors. As guitarist-
producer John Taylor has commented: “That Segovia managed to
make so many recordings full of character and vitality under these
potentially inhibiting conditions speaks volumes for the sheer force
of his personality, as well as the thoroughness of preparation he must
have put in” (Cooper 2002: 113). Certainly Segovia was unusual in his
capacity to render clean and accurate takes under pressure, compared
with contemporaries who were making recordings around the same
period. Daniel Fortea’s discs for Regal, for example, convey less secu-
rity in this regard, with detectable fuffed notes and glossed-over runs
and even occasions when Fortea comes to a brief momentary halt, per-
haps because of a memory lapse. However, it appears that such issues
were not considered to be so problematic that a re-take was required.21
As discussed in Chapter 2, in the early days of recording before the
advent of the microphone, the limited sensitivity of acoustic equip-
ment meant there were few options for shaping the sonic character
of a recording. The principal aim was to capture a performance in
reasonable defnition and questions concerning, for example, the uti-
lization of a particular location’s acoustic properties in the shaping of
the recorded sound were secondary to the logistical problems of the
recording set-up. Also, as recordings tended to be made in either a
specifed recording studio or a designated “mobile” recording venue,
any needs a musician might have had for a particular acoustically
ideal performance situation were constrained by circumstances. For-
tunately Segovia had two advantages when he frst began recording
for HMV in the late 1920s. The frst was that his recordings were made
using electrical recording process and he thereby beneftted from mi-
crophone technology that was much more sensitive both to the gui-
tar’s nuances and the surrounding acoustic. Secondly he was able to
record in environments that were designed with musical acoustics in
mind. His earliest HMV recordings (the ones made between 1927 and
1930) took place in the Small Queen’s Hall in London, which was the
52 The Recording Model Established

label’s principal recording venue prior to its re-location to Abbey Road

Studios in 1931.22 This was a purpose-built recital room perched atop
the larger Queen’s Hall in Langham Place (sadly destroyed during a
bombing raid in 1941), whose layout and acoustic qualities are likely
to have suited Segovia’s disposition as a concertizing performer. His
later recordings for HMV (made between 1935 and 1939) were made
at Abbey Road Studios, a dedicated recording environment that had
been acoustically confgured for recording.
As multi-channel recording was not possible at this time, the notion
of exploring by technological means a range of acoustic perspectives
had yet to suggest itself as an artistic pursuit. Nonetheless, in listening
to the HMV recordings it is possible to detect subtle differences that
imply an evolving perspective on what the ideal set-up for recording
the classical guitar might be. The acoustic of the Small Queen’s Hall,
for example, is apparent as ambience in the recordings of the late 1920s
and there are noticeable variations in the guitar’s presence in relation
to the microphone. This can be clearly heard when comparing the 1927
recording of the Bach Gavotte en Rondeau (D.1255) with the 1929 re-
cording of the Courante from the Cello Suite in C major (E.475). Like-
wise the particular acoustic qualities of the studio used at Abbey Road
are discernible in the mid-1930s discs, and again there are variations in
recording perspective. Taken as a whole the HMV recordings exhibit a
sound quality which can be regarded as a unique product of the tech-
nology employed, the acoustic characteristics of the concert hall and
studio environments (in so far as they could be effectively captured),
and Segovia’s highly individual method of tone production. There is
no doubt that this was a key element of their appeal to the post-war
generation of guitarists who came to Segovia via his recordings. Julian
Bream, for example, whose initiation into the classical guitar occurred
through Segovia’s 1927 HMV (D.1305) disc of Tárrega’s Recuerdos de
la Alhambra (made in the Small Queen’s Hall), comments:

It’s very diffcult to describe the magic of that record because it

was on an old twelve inch 78 record. And it was a combination of
this old recording and the old ribbon microphones that they would
have used in those days that created a sound that was so mellifu-
ous. It was just magic. And still, I can hear that recording, but it’s
the sound that is the magic. The piece is very beautiful too, but it’s
the sound … that grabbed me and I never looked back, from hear-
ing that recording, to the present day.
(Balmer 2003)

A survey of the critical literature of Segovia’s HMV period indicates

that his discs possessed characteristics, both sonically and musically,
that had not been experienced in recorded guitar music prior to this
point. An interest in the sound of Segovia’s recordings is apparent
from the Gramophone’s frst review (Bach/Sor on HMV D.1255) in Au-
gust 1927 (P.L.: 102), in which the critic, after noting Segovia’s “truly
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 53

astonishing playing” comments that the guitar “appears to record ex-

cellently”. The magazine’s next review (May 1928), of Segovia’s iconic
recording of Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra backed by Turina’s
Fandanguillo (D. 1305), contained some particularly interesting obser-
vations regarding the listening experience:

This seems to me to be the most perfect recording of any instru-

ment I have ever heard. It feels like sitting next to the artist and,
encouraged by the perfect impression on my ears, I visualised the
performance more clearly than I ever have done before. Segovia
is an uncanny player. His rhythm and, above all, variety of tone
colour is as unusual as his musicianship is excellent.
(C.J. 1928: 500)

Such comments highlight the “realism” rhetoric that surrounded the

discussion of recordings during this period, the reviewer appearing
genuinely amazed at how faithfully the guitar sound has been repro-
duced. This position is also echoed in a Disques review (March 1930)
of Segovia’s disc of the Bach Prelude, Allemande and Fugue (V-7176),
where the critic goes so far as to state that “his instrument reproduces
with such fdelity to its natural character that one can scarcely term
the appellation a reproduction” (Anon 1930a: 30). A reviewer of the
same disc in the Phonograph Monthly Review (March 1930) likewise
remarked that, “As in Segovia’s previous disks the recording is irre-
proachable, a perfectly transparent and undistorted refraction of the
master guitarist’s uncanny art” (Anon 1930b: 207). Reviews also sug-
gest that microphone technology was fnally making it possible for the
appreciation of the nuances of Segovia’s unique sound. Regarding
Segovia’s E.475 (Bach, Courante/Torroba, Sonatina in A) disc, for ex-
ample, a Gramophone critic (August 1929) observed that “the player’s
varieties of tone are especially to be admired” (K.K. 1929: 117) while
a critic writing in Disques (December 1930) commented of Torroba’s
Fandanguillo and Preludio (V-1487) that:

The recording succeeds in bringing out his graceful and poetic in-
terpretations clearly and without distortion, and the tone of his
instrument is reproduced impeccably.
(Anon 1930c: 433)

However, not all those who heard Segovia’s recordings were convinced
of their capacity to render his sound authentically. The guitarist and
scholar Domingo Prat, for example, writing in his Diccionario de Gui-
tarristas (1934, trans. Clinton 1978) commented that:

The discs made by Segovia, though possessing a high value, are

distortions of a natural and positive beauty that always escapes
the recording. In sound there are subtleties that are impossi-
ble to entrap in disc, as colours in a photograph. They are only
54 The Recording Model Established

approximate copies, establishing a plane of nearness that brings

out the bad and spoils the good. Just as the whole beauty of an
attractive woman cannot in the last analysis be condensed into a
photograph, so the art of Segovia has subtleties that do not appear
in any of his records.
(Clinton 1978a: 11)23

Prat’s comments refect an ongoing skepticism in regard to the capac-

ity of the recorded medium to portray the nuances of musical perfor-
mance accurately and indeed Segovia himself concurred with Prat’s
position well into the era of high fdelity (see Chapter 5).
Another key factor in determining the unique character of Sego-
via’s early recorded sound was the guitar he had acquired at the be-
ginning of his concert career. For the majority of the HMV sessions
(that is, those that took place between 1927 and 1936), Segovia used
an instrument built by Santos Hernández in the workshop of Manuel
Ramírez in Madrid in 1912 (see Romanillos 1997; Rodriguez 2009).24
Segovia had originally acquired the instrument for an upcoming re-
cital in the Assembly Hall of the Madrid Ateneo, an important early
career concert for which he required a guitar with the power and
projection that would enable him to be heard clearly throughout the
venue. Segovia’s autobiography contains a famous anecdote in which
Ramírez, having heard Segovia play the guitar in his workshop, of-
fered it to him for free, saying “make it fourish in your hands […]
pay me back with something other than money” (Segovia 1976: 52).
The importance of this guitar to the progression of Segovia’s concert
career thereafter is summed up in the words of guitar maker Manuel
Rodríguez, who states that it “gave Segovia access to the most presti-
gious auditoriums around the world and earned him the applause of
all audiences” (2009: 33).
The particular importance of the Ramírez guitar relates to its having
inherited the modern design concepts pioneered by Spanish luthier An-
tonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892) in the 1860s. The principal Torres
innovation was the system of fanned struts (as opposed to the older
lateral strutting associated with eighteenth century guitars) which en-
abled a more effective distribution of sound vibrations from the guitar
bridge and also reinforced the guitar’s top, which was commonly made
of spruce.25 This resulted in a dramatic improvement in the guitar’s ca-
pacity for volume and projection as well its potential for tonal nuance.
While Segovia had not originally envisaged the instrument’s use in a
recording situation, there is no doubt that its tone and responsiveness
were crucial to the portrayal of his musical personality in recorded form.
A characteristic of the Ramírez guitar that is particularly well repre-
sented in the HMV recordings is the bass, which possesses a powerful
resonant tone. This can heard to good effect, for example, in Segovia’s
1932 recording of the Bach Prelude in C minor (D. 1536). The guitar’s
capacity to represent inner voices with great clarity is also evident in the
recordings of contrapuntal works such as the Bach Fugue BWV1001
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 55

and the Allemande from Lute Suite BWV 996 (also issued on D. 1536).
As Segovia’s recorded presence became widely disseminated during the
1920s and 1930s, the Ramírez guitar became, as Urlik (1997: 26) sug-
gests, “the world’s most heard classical guitar and the accepted popular
norm for the classical guitar sound”.26 In 1937 Segovia switched to a
new instrument built for him by the German maker Hermann Hauser
I, although modeled on the Ramírez, which he used in the fnal 1939
HMV sessions and thereafter in his recordings until the early 1960s.
Another key element of the Segovia sound on the HMV recordings
was the guitar string material. In contrast to his contemporaries in
Latin America, such as Barrios and Canhoto, who were using metal
strings, at this time Segovia was using a combination of gut treble and
metal-wound silk bass strings on his guitars.27 As gut strings were light
they were able to produce a brilliant and penetrative tone on attack
although their poor elasticity caused their brightness to decay more
quickly than metal strings.28 Julian Bream has commented that Segov-
ia’s sound “was at its most beautiful in the gut string era judging from
the old records” (Clinton 1978: 51). The nature of gut material did how-
ever present various practical problems, as illustrated by Segovia’s com-
ments in 1978 on the German Pisastro strings he had used in the 1940s:

When a concert hall was very warm, very cold, or very damp, they
were terrible. I had to carry a pair of scissors to cut the little wisps
that would splinter from the strings, and eventually the strings
would just crack. Also, it was diffcult to tune them correctly. The
intonation was false at the octave.
(Kozinn 1978a: 26)29

Interestingly, the HMV recordings themselves give no indication of

these problems – the intonation appears true and stable and the strings
themselves exhibit good tone and responsiveness. Of course it is en-
tirely possible that there were re-takes during these sessions to deal
with the kinds of issues that Segovia is describing above.
A fnal important ingredient of the Segovia sound was the guitarist’s
unique technique of tone production. Duarte (1983a: 77) observes:
“Segovia is one of those performers who has always been immediately
recognizable by the quality of his sound, which is superb and, more to
the point, intensely personal”. Over the decades Segovia’s tone has been
discussed extensively in the literature (Meadmore 1928; Sisley 1936;
Duarte 1983a, 1998; Duncan, 1977; Wade and Garno 1997a, 1997b;
Poveda 2009); an activity that has of course largely been made possible
by the availability of Segovia’s recordings. As early as 1928, for ex-
ample, a “Gramophone Personalities” feature in Gramophone praised
Segovia’s command of guitar timbre and the potential for tonal variety
in guitar playing that it revealed (here in comparison to the banjo):

To most people the guitar is but a glorifed banjo, with a monoto-

nous, if jolly, twang. To hear Segovia is to be at once disillusioned.
56 The Recording Model Established

No effect seems impossible to him, and all shades of tone colour

are at his command. At one time it is the sharp, staccato tones of
the clavecin that one hears, at another the quality of the harp in-
trudes; he is even able to suggest the modern pianoforte.
(Meadmore 1928: 337)

Relative to the discussion of pianists’ attitudes to recording in Chapter 2,

there is a certain irony here in Meadmore’s suggestion that Segovia’s gui-
tar is able to successfully emulate the sound of the piano! However, this
capacity to suggest many different timbres on the guitar, in the man-
ner of the oft-cited “orchestra in miniature” simile of Dionisio Aguado,
was unique to Segovia, and led to much speculation as to the method
by which it was achieved. Commentators (Duarte 1983a, 1998; Duncan
1977) have over the years typically drawn attention to the unique com-
bination of fesh and fngernail that Segovia employed in playing, the
varied angles of attack across and along the strings, as well as his tasteful
use of vibrato. The use of a technique involving the fngernails was of
particular signifcance for the expansion of guitar timbre in the 1920s this
time and superseded the more limited fesh-only position propagated by
the earlier Tárrega school. A sense of how radical a departure this was
from Spanish school orthodoxy can be gleaned from the remarks of an
un-named critic of Segovia’s debut concert at the Ateneo in 1912:

At frst glance one can see that the position of his hands is very
careless; if he does achieve speed and clarity in diffcult passages
it is due to a sort of fallible intuition, not because he applies the
proper rules. Worst of all, dear Father: he plucks the strings with
his fngernails!
(Segovia 1976: 72)

With the international presence engendered by Segovia’s concertizing

and recording, the fesh-nail position quickly became the standard for
right hand tone production in Europe and North America in the post
war period. This was in spite of the ongoing advocacy for the use of the
fesh-only approach on the part of the surviving disciples of Tárrega, as
outlined most vociferously in the arguments of Emilio Pujol in his essay
The Dilemma of Timbre on the Guitar (published in 1960). While some
Spanish guitarists’ recordings in second half of the twentieth century,
particularly those of Renata Tarragó (1927–2005) and Manuel Cubedo
(1937–2011), were notable for their persistence in the use of the fesh-only
technique, these were not suffcient to encourage a revival of the debate.

THE HMV RECORDINGS AND LATER CRITICAL

PERSPECTIVES ON SEGOVIA’S PERFORMANCE STYLE
The 1970s and 1980s saw a period of re-evaluation of Segovia’s achieve-
ments by his younger contemporaries, in which context his HMV record-
ings (remastered and re-issued by EMI in 1980) once again became the
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 57

focus of critical attention. One area of debate arising from the study of
these discs concerned Segovia’s idiosyncratic approach to classical gui-
tar performance, and in particular, its adherence to a nineteenth-century
“Romantic” tradition of interpretation. In the context of a discussion of
the tendency of performers in the 1970s to imitate what he called Segov-
ia’s “wrong style”, the guitarist Gilbert Biberian remarked:

It can be seen that what he does is perfectly in keeping with the

music. And what is more, perfectly in keeping with the nature of
the instrument that he played – which was with gut strings – and
you can see that his style is very much in keeping with 19th century
tradition – in fact a very good example of it.
(Clinton 1978: 40)

Reviewing the reissued 78 rpm recordings in 1980, Kozinn summa-

rized the essential attributes of Segovia’s “Romantic” style as follows:

a generous use of glissandos; the old-fashioned rubato accom-

plished by rushing through a scale passage and then compensating
by holding the concluding chord just a touch longer than the no-
tation indicates; a penchant for broken chords; and the occasional
combination of all these elements to build a remarkable false cli-
max in the middle of a work.
(1980b: 57)30

As Robert Philip has illustrated in his book, Early Recordings and

Musical Style (1992), the characteristics of Segovia’s style are in ac-
cordance with general practice in early twentieth-century musical re-
cordings. On rhythmic practice, for example, Philip observes:

Rhythmic habits have changed very greatly over the twentieth century.
To a late twentieth-century listener, recordings from the early part of
the century at frst sound rhythmically strange in a number of ways.
They seem hasty, slapdash and uncontrolled, in a manner which now
sounds incompetent. But this impression is to do with style as well as
competence. The impression of haste is caused partly by fast tempos,
partly by a tendency to underemphasise rhythmic detail compared
with modern performance. A slapdash impression is given by a more
casual approach to note lengths and a more relaxed relationship be-
tween a melody and its accompaniment. Lack of control is suggested
by fexibility of tempo, particularly a tendency to hurry in loud or
energetic passages. All of these habits are generally avoided in mod-
ern performance, and rhythmic competence is now measured by the
extent to which they have been successfully controlled.
(Philip 1992: 6)

For some commentators, such as the composer Reginald Smith

Brindle, Segovia’s “erratic and highly capricious” quirks of style were,
58 The Recording Model Established

“distinctly against musical tradition, and with other instruments would

be regarded as blatantly erroneous” (Smith Brindle 1982: 8).31 Smith
Brindle dubbed this “The Segovia Problem”, suggesting that as a re-
sult of the strength and infuence of Segovia’s personality the various
“eccentricities” he had observed in Segovia’s performances had been
taken up by his admirers, becoming “almost standard guitar practice”
(1982: 8). Undoubtedly the infuence of Segovia’s playing style was
facilitated by the omnipresence of his recordings, which since the be-
ginnings of their global proliferation during the 1930s, had functioned
as emissaries of a particular approach to classical guitar performance.
Indeed, until the late 1950s there was so little competition from other
classical guitar recordings that the ubiquity of Segovia’s discs enabled
them for a considerable period to constitute the most widely absorbed
model of classical guitar performance style per se.
Segovia’s performances of earlier music, such as that of the Ba-
roque, came in for particular criticism. Kozinn, for example, in refer-
ence to Segovia’s interpretation of Robert de Visée on HMV DA.1677,
asserted that his way of playing this music constituted a “lexicon of
stylistic error and textual infdelity”:

with dramatically rolled chords, a quick vibrato, slurred phrases –

and worse, two full quarter notes to begin each section of the Bour-
rée, rather than the eighth notes the style demands. No guitarist
would dare impose such affectations on this music today.
(1980b: 57)

Kozinn was of the view that Segovia’s style was most ideally suited to
the nineteenth-century Spanish works in his repertoire, a view con-
curred with by many guitarists, including Julian Bream:

In a sense one would have to admit that his phrasing in Bach and
his use of vibrato and glissandi are rather eccentric, to say the least,
and one could never quite understand the musical point he was
trying to make. Perhaps that’s the real nub of the criticism. One felt
that he would hang on to a note or do a glissando for effect, which
may be ravishing in a world of Tárrega but it often interfered with
the classical outlines and symmetry of the 19th century masters.
(Clinton 1978: 51)

Segovia’s approach to interpreting earlier music in this manner, how-

ever, persisted throughout his recording career, and indeed became
more pronounced as fashions changed. Garno (Wade and Garno
1997a) has drawn attention to Segovia’s characteristic employment
of vibrato and “free rubato” in his 1950s recordings of vihuela music
of Luys de Narváez, and the same tendencies can also be detected in
the recordings made in the 1960s and 1970s of Bach and other pe-
riod composers such as Dowland, Handel and Purcell. At the same
time, however, critics also recognized that while Segovia’s style could
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 59

be regarded as the remnant of an archaic style of playing, it was also

integral to his musical personality. Duncan (1977), whose analysis of
Segovia’s playing was based on a close listening to particular record-
ings,32 saw Segovia’s style (in terms of both his sound and rhythmic
approach) as “the product of a coherent technique”. He remarks upon
Segovia’s “very fexible concept of pulse” which he suggests “more
than other single factor accounts for the sheer vitality of his sound”
and his “daring rhythmic distortions which ‘work’ because he makes
them work, although in another player might not sound appropriate”
(1977: 28). Alice Artzt (Clinton 1978a) saw Segovia’s performing style
as a hallmark of “his terrifc integrity of interpretation”:

Some people complain about Segovia: he’s old fashioned; he does

everything wrong; he doesn’t play Baroque music the way it ought
to be played. What they may not give him credit for is his terrifc
integrity of interpretation. That everything he does has a very
solid beginning and end. You listen to a Segovia piece that isn’t
published now – say a piece by Ponce [again the latter’s Suite in A
major is implied here] – and try to write it down. People get out a
pencil and paper and they try to write down what the piece is and
they end up with measures of seven eighth notes, the next measure
with ten sixteenth notes, and the next with three quarter notes …
if you’re not sitting there beating your way through the piece, try-
ing to fgure out where the beats are, you don’t notice a problem
but you do notice the piece begins, the phrase starts going, it goes
inevitably to where it ends up and you have a very integrated thing
that as a whole scans perfectly.
(Clinton 1978a: 46)

Commentators also came to the defense of Segovia’s performances of

earlier music, arguing for both its historical correctness and its musi-
cal value. Writing in 1983, Eliot Fisk, an outspoken Segovia adher-
ent, remarked that “I have always found his masculine, serious Bach
thoroughly convincing. I would go so far as to say that Segovia’s sense
of this music is consonant with modern scholarship”, suggesting that
“Segovia’s overall emotionalism is very much in line with what we
know of the Baroque aesthetic with its emphasis on the expression of
the affetti” (1983: 9). Israel Horowitz (Segovia’s producer at American
Decca from 1956 to the mid 1970s), while acknowledging the authority
of scholarly perspectives, approved Segovia’s Bach on the grounds of
his ability to communicate the music:

The degree to which he communicates is – even at worst – is much

superior to that of most other artists, even those who observe all
the niceties of Baroque ornamentation. It’s like Pablo Casals on
the cello: It’s a very personal statement. And who is to say? The
musicologists keep changing their minds. Certainly, Segovia’s in-
terpretations are not what is generally considered the “correct” way
60 The Recording Model Established

to play Bach. But I wouldn’t challenge him; I like Segovia’s Bach.

It’s refreshing. It communicates – and that’s what’s important.
(Kozinn 1978b: 60)

Finally, Duarte, in an involved discussion of Segovia’s position relative

to the emergence of historically aware performance practice, suggested
that ultimately Segovia’s stylistic approach to playing early music
needed to be appreciated in terms of the guitarist’s “conviction”:

Segovia’s way of playing pre-classical musics now sounds quaint

to us … but it would be misguided to and arrogant to dismiss it
as idiosyncratic nonsense; he burned with love and respect for this
music and played it with total conviction – as well as his state of
informativeness allowed. His recording of the Chaconne of Bach
remains a thing of majesty, even though there are others that dis-
play greater stylistic fdelity.
(1998: 45)

As will be seen in later chapters, Segovia’s interpretative approach,

particularly where his rhythmic fexibility is concerned, is a recurring
theme in the criticism of his (and his imitators’) recordings. Ultimately,
for subsequent generations of performers, it came to represent a Sego-
vian paradigm, which, like the latter’s repertoire concept, needed to be
overturned in order to expand the classical guitar’s musical scope.

NOTES
1. Segovia undertook a number of concerts for a women’s organization called
the Pro Arte Musical Society. See http://www.ipscuba.net/english-version/
spaces/padura-en/pro-arte-musical-on-its-95th-anniversary/
2. Poveda also notes that the guitar used to perform the music was the fa-
mous 1912 Ramírez.
3. This contradicts Wade’s suggestion that the piece was completed in June
1925. It is possible that Segovia was trialling a work in progress in 1923.
4. This is in comparison to other major labels such as Columbia in the US.
See Gelatt (1977: 105–122) for discussion of the Gramophone Company’s
rise to prominence.
5. The introduction to the piece is omitted.
6. It is also possible, as Duarte (1998) has noted, that issues with the record-
ing equipment may have rendered this piece faster than it was actually
played.
7. Rey de la Torre’s remark is quoted on the sleeve of his 1958 album, Virtu-
oso Guitar.
8. For further discussion of the HMV labels, see Martland (2013).
9. For further discussion of Ponce’s musical style see Slonimsky (1945), Ste-
venson (1952); Béhague (1979), and specifcally in reference to the guitar,
Otero (1983), Nystel (1985).
10. The association of Segovia and Ponce (between 1923–1948) is compre-
hensively documented in Alcázar (1989).
Segovia at HMV (1923–1939) 61

11. See Duarte (1998), Alcázar (1989, 2000) for discussion of Segovia’s col-
laborative relationship with Ponce.
12. This is a misnomer on the disc label given that the suite is in A minor!
13. Released under the French title, Folies d’Espagne. Ten variations are in-
cluded (of the original twenty) together with the fnal fugue. It is worth
noting that the version of the theme recorded is not Ponce’s and was pre-
sumably harmonized (in a somewhat rudimentary manner) by Segovia.
See Alcázar (2000), pp. 194–199.
14. For further discussion of the Weiss/Ponce hoax see Duarte (1970b, 1998).
Segovia also recorded genuine works by Weiss during the course of his
career.
15. For an overview of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s career and discussion of his
guitar music see Purcell (1972), Otero (1999).
16. Premiered in Paris in June 1935.
17. Segovia recorded the correct full version of the de Visée suite in 1952
(DL 9638).
18. The word “bands” here refers to the individual tracks on the LP.
19. Disques was a short-lived periodical (published in Philadelphia by the H.
Royer Smith Company from March 1930 to June 1932) which focused on
classical music and recordings.
20. Segovia only recorded one Bach fugue for HMV (D.1536), his arrange-
ment of the Fugue in G minor for solo violin, which took place on 15 May
1928.
21. It should also be noted that Fortea was in his ffties at the time of these
recordings and may therefore have been past his peak.
22. See Southall, Vince and Rouse (2002).
23. The original passage is found in Prat (1934: 291).
24. Segovia confrms the use of this guitar on the HMV sessions in Clinton
(1978a: 21).
25. The guitar is currently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York. For further description of the instrument see,
26. Urlik’s comments were made in the context of a discussion of a similar
Ramírez instrument built in 1912.
27. The shift to nylon strings did not occur until around 1947. For further
discussion, see Segovia (1955).
28. For further discussion of the qualities of gut vs metal strings see Helm-
holtz (1954: 80).
29. Similar observations are made by Segovia in Clinton (1978a: 21).
30. Interestingly Kozinn suggests that Llobet played in “a style even more
wildly Romantic than Segovia’s” (Kozinn 1980b: 57).
31. Smith Brindle was refecting on his attempts in the 1940s to transcribe
from the HMV recordings the Allemande and Sarabande of the Ponce
Suite in A.
32. Bach’s Sarabande in B minor (recorded on Segovia on Stage, DL 710140)
is the subject of Duncan’s analysis. Duncan advocates the study of
Segovia’s style “contained in the legacy of his recorded repertoire”.
4
The Classical Guitar in the
Early Period of Recording
Latin America

INTRODUCTION
The centrality of the guitar to Latin American musical culture has
long been recognized by historians of music of the continent (see for
example, Slonimsky 1945; Chase 1962; Béhague 1979). As has been
well documented, the guitar’s presence in Latin America dates from the
early period of colonization by the Spanish in the early 1500s, its ap-
pearance corresponding with the route of the Spanish conquest (Pin-
nell 1993), from the Caribbean Islands (including Cuba, Hispaniola
and Puerto Rico), to Mexico and fnally South America. Initially the
guitar served to sustain cultural connections with Spain, and, indeed
for a period its development in Latin America closely mirrored the
instrument’s evolution in its home country. For example, during the
1500s Spanish guitars took the form of the vihuela and the guitarra
before being superseded in the early 1600s by the guitarra española, the
fve-course Baroque guitar (Pinnell 1993). At the same time, alongside
its European form the guitar also became adapted and transformed
within the context of music-making amongst the existing indigenous
populations. This resulted, as Latin American guitar historian Peter
Sensier (1975) observed, in the numerous different types of guitar
found in various parts of Latin America such as the Mexican vihuelita,
jarana jarocha (both fve course guitars) and requinto; the Columbian
tiple; the Venezuelan cuatro; the charango of the Altiplano area and the
Argentinian guitarron. These examples refer to “popular”, rather than
“classical” performance contexts primarily, which have also had a last-
ing infuence on the Latin American conception of the guitar. The leg-
acy of this dualism remains apparent in the work of twentieth-century
Latin American guitarists, who have not advocated such boundaries
within their own styles, and whose repertoire therefore commonly in-
cludes both classical and popular music forms.
Despite the centrality of the guitar to Latin American guitar culture,
what has tended to be favored in musicological studies is a Euro-centric
position on the instrument’s history, which foregrounds the Spanish/
Segovian concept (see, for example, Bellow 1970; Turnbull 1974; Wade

62
Early Recording: Latin America 63

1980). This according to Sensier has constituted a signifcant “gap in

the story of the guitar”:

No one from Pujol in the historical section of his monumental

“Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra” to Harvey Turnbull in his ex-
cellent “The Guitar from the Renaissance to the Present Day”,
seems to have realized that the guitar is not just a European in-
strument. From the early 16th century, from that day in 1519 when
Cortes and his followers set foot on Mexican soil, the scene was
set for the guitar to become the instrument of a whole continent
stretching from Mexico in North America to Tierra del Fuego in
the far south of Argentina.
(Sensier 1975: 16)

The purpose of this and later chapters (6, 7 and 11) is to provide a
“corrective” to this imbalance through a consideration of Latin Amer-
ican perspectives on the classical guitar that can be discerned within
the substantial body of recordings made within the continent from the
early twentieth century to the 1970s. In the current chapter the origins
of this activity in Cuba, Mexico, Argentina/Uruguay (constituting
the Rio de la Plata territory) and Brazil are considered, all territories
whose guitar cultures subsequently informed the development of the
classical guitar in a wider global context.

EDISON, VICTOR AND THE CLASSICAL GUITAR IN

CUBA AND MEXICO
In Latin America the earliest guitar recordings that can be recognized
as soloistic in nature were undertaken by Edison and Victor in Cuba
and Mexico. These occurred in the context of the global expansion of
the American recording industry in the early twentieth century, and
at a time of signifcant American infuence in these territories. One
of the earliest preserved of these recordings features a Cuban guitar-
ist named Sebastián Hidalgo, and was made by the Edison company
in Havana in late 1905/early 1906.1 An article in Edison Phonograph
Monthly of April 1906 gives some information regarding the circum-
stances, referring to a “temporary Edison laboratory” (i.e. recording
studio) overseen by Rafael Cubanas, which opened in the center of
Havana at 146 Industria. The laboratory’s installation “was brought
about by the demand for typical Cuban music and songs of this repub-
lic” (1906: 10) and regarding the sourcing of musicians for the record-
ing the writer comments that,

After visiting all the places of amusement and hearing the vocal
and instrumental artists, selections were made from the best to
typify them Phonographically. Contracts were made with bands,
orchestras, instrumental quartettes, trios, duettists and soloists.
64 The Recording Model Established

The schedule of recording engagements was made up and the work

of taking the Records started. About 300 selections were secured,
among these being the Banda Municipal de la Habana, under the
direction of the well known band master, Sr. G. M. Tomas, the
Banda de Artilleria, the orchestras of Pablo Valenzuela and En-
rique Pena, sextette of Antonio Torroella, the Ramos instrumental
trio, and vocal solos, duets, trios and quartettes by the best theat-
rical talent in Havana and the rest of the island. A large number
of selections of typical Cuban country songs, “Puntos Guarjiros”,
were made, as well as a number of typical Spanish songs which are
popular in Cuba. All of these Records will be shipped to the Edi-
son laboratory, where the permanent master Records will be made.

Very little is known about Hidalgo himself although he was obviously

of some signifcance on the local Havana scene to have been approached
by the Edison company. Hidalgo’s session yielded two cylinders (cata-
logue entry numbers 18941 and 19062) which were advertised as “So-
los de Guitarra” in the July 1907 edition of the Edison Phonograph
Monthly, in a list of over 200 Cuban records made by Edison for its
Foreign Record Catalogue to be marketed in the United States. Cyl-
inder 18941 contains a recording of an arrangement, perhaps by the
guitarist himself, of the Miserere from Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore, the
other a piece entitled “Selva Negra”, a lightweight polka composed by
a certain J. Castro. Relative to the classical guitar culture of Cuba at
this time, Hidalgo’s recording pre-dates the infuence of the Spanish/
Tárrega school, which did not become established in Cuba until the
1910s via Pascual Roch (Molina 1988b). However, the nature of the
repertoire suggests the infuence of these traditions given that Verdi’s
Miserere was a popular choice of solo guitar arrangement for classical
guitarists and may have been infuenced by a similar version made by
Spanish guitarist Julián Arcas.2 Verdi’s operas had also been highly
popular in Havana during the nineteenth century when the infuence
of European musical culture was at a peak (Carpentier 2001), making
this piece a natural choice for a commercially oriented recording. The
accompanying polka, like the vals, was a popular European musical
import and therefore also a likely choice for a recording refecting the
musical interests of consumers at this time.
Hidalgo’s cylinders, which have in recent years been made available
in digitized form by Belfer Cylinders Digital Connection at Syracuse
University, constitute a valuable sonic document of acoustically re-
corded solo guitar music.3 In particular they highlight the aforemen-
tioned problems of recording music of a more dynamically changeable
nature and in which a certain interpretative nuance is required. For
example, Hidalgo’s performance of the Verdi arrangement has an
exaggerated quality with little subtlety in dynamic range, which was
clearly a necessity in this instance to sustain the sound at an accept-
able level for the recording horn. The polka, with its more rhythmi-
cally persistent character, comes across the most effectively in these
Early Recording: Latin America 65

circumstances. Hidalgo’s performances on the whole are somewhat

un-refned and lack fuency, perhaps indicating an informal “home
made”, as opposed to a trained, guitar technique.
Around the same time as the Cuban sessions the Edison company
was also undertaking recordings in Mexico to fulfl a similar objec-
tive of supplying a demand for indigenous music in the United States.
These were handled by the Mexican branch of the National Phono-
graph Company based in Mexico City, again overseen by Rafael Cu-
banas, and included a considerable amount of music featuring the
guitar in accompaniment to song and in ensemble. Of particular inter-
est here are the solo guitar recordings of a high-profle local guitarist
from Veracruz, Octaviano Yáñez (c.1865–c.1927), made between 1907
and 1909, which are referred to in the Edison Phonograph Monthly for
August 1909:

Sr. Octaviano Yáñez bears the distinction of being the acknowl-

edged champion guitarist of Mexico, and it is doubtful if his equal
can be found in the entire world. We have secured a number of
delightful selections, both two and four minute, by this artist.
(1909: 8)

These recordings were made in Mexico City and engineered by George

J. Werner and Fred Burt of New York,4 the same team that had
worked on the Cuban sessions with Hidalgo. Yáñez also made further
recordings for Edison between 1913 and 1920, which were released on
the company’s Blue Amberol series of cylinders. During the period
of his frst Edison sessions, Yáñez also recorded for the Victor com-
pany, which had begun to engage in overseas recording from around
1907, with its pioneering team of Harry and Raymond Sooy.5 Notable
among these is a one-sided Victor Grand Prize (Victor 5662) 78 rpm
disc entitled “Mexican Dance (Habaneras)”, recorded in 1908. Tim
Gracyk, one of this frst scholars to draw attention to Yáñez’s record-
ings, offers the following observations on this record with particular
reference to the guitar employed and the guitarist’s performance style:

Yañes [sic] plays an instrument with at least seven strings. From low
to high note, it is tuned B E A D G B E. Yañes keeps returning to
a thunderous, unfretted low B note, while his low E notes are also
played on an open string. He may have used a 7-string instrument
of Mexican or Russian origin (the standard Russian-made import
guitar in those days was the 7-string), or a converted 11-string
guitar, many of which had been produced in Andalucia since the
1890s. The bright tone suggests he is playing with his nails very
close to the bridge.
(Gracyk 1994: 10)

The leading Yáñez scholar, Randall Kohl (2011), corroborates Gracyk’s

observations on the type of guitar being played, namely that it is an
66 The Recording Model Established

11-string Mexican guitarra septima comprising four double (bass) and

three single (treble) courses. This is not therefore the typical six-string
model that became defnitively associated with the classical guitar in the
nineteenth century. Yáñez’s musical outlook, on the other hand, can be
more frmly connected to the Spanish/European concept of the clas-
sical guitar which had been present in Mexico in various incarnations
since the early period of colonization.6 In particular Yáñez’s affnity
with European guitar traditions can be seen in his focus on performing
transcriptions of piano music of the Romantic era and light classical
pieces by contemporary Mexican and European composers of his time
(Kohl 2011). His recordings naturally provide a representative snapshot
of this repertoire. Edison cylinder 20065 (1907), for example, contains
La Perjura, Danza, an arrangement of a canción mexicana by Mexican
composer Miguel Lerdo de Tejada (1869–1941), a song comparable in
popularity to Ponce’s later hit, Estrellita (Koegel 2002). Other examples
are Yáñez’s arrangements of light music in the popular waltz form by
European composers – Cuando el amor muere (Edison cylinder 20180)
by Octave Crémieux (1872–1949) and Dolores (Edison cylinder 22107)
by Emil Waldteufel (1837–1915). Yáñez also composed a small amount
of original music and this too is featured in his recordings. In addition
to the aforementioned Victor disc, Mexican Dance (Habaneras), Edison
cylinder 20102 contains Anita, a piece composed in the Mazurka form
favored by Tárrega, and Edison cylinder 22074 features Anna Gavota.
Yáñez’s own music evidently enjoyed some standing as guitar repertoire
at this time, at least in the Mexican context, as indicated by the later
recordings made of his pieces by his younger contemporary, Franciso
Salinas in 1926. Yáñez’s recordings on the whole provide a valuable
document of the Mexican concept of the classical guitar prior to its
transformation through the infuence of Guillermo Gómez and the later
collaboration of Segovia and Manuel Ponce.

MEXICAN AND CUBAN GUITARISTS RECORDING IN THE

LATE 1920S AND EARLY 1930S
During the 1920s North American labels continued to show an interest
in the Mexican music marketplace, giving rise to further opportunities
for Mexican guitarists to record. Chief among these was Columbia
which recorded the two major fgures of this period – Guillermo Gómez
(1880–1953) and his pupil, Francisco Salinas (b. 1892) – in New York
in 1928 and 1926, respectively. Gómez was a Spanish emigre who was
pivotal in disseminating Tárrega’s ideas in Mexico in the early 1900s
(Appleby 1948; Bone 1972), and hence can be regarded as a founder of
the modern Mexican classical guitar school. Like Yáñez, Gómez’s re-
cordings focus on his own original music for the instrument and show-
case his skills as an arranger of popular melodies and classical music.
His own pieces often refect the infuence of Spanish folk music (for
example, in the famenco leanings of his four-part Suite Andaluza),
while his arrangements of Granados’ piano music (La Huerfana and a
Early Recording: Latin America 67

unique version of Danza Española No. 5 on Columbia 3168-X), and

recording of Torroba’s Fandanguillo (from Suite Castellana) indicate
an affliation with the Spanish classical guitar canon. While including
some Spanish material (Tárrega’s Adelita) Salinas’ Columbia record-
ings display more marked Mexican leanings, covering music by Yáñez
(the Habaneras and Anita), popular hits, such as Aurelio F. Galindo’s
vals, Súplica de Amor, and music by his teacher, Gómez (Tu Recuerdo
and Arpa de Oro). Salinas also made further recordings in mid 1929
and early 1931, this time for the Victor label in Mexico City. Here again
the music of Yáñez is emphasized (his Estudio de Concierto and Peten-
eras, for example), but Salinas also acknowledges the Spanish school
in recordings of four major works by Tárrega (Capricho Arabe, the
Mazurka entitled Marieta, El Carnaval de Venecia and Danza Mora).
One of Salinas’ own pieces, a tango called Díme que sí, appears both
on the Columbia (2633-X) and Victor (46469-B) labels. We have use-
ful information regarding the reception of Salinas’ Columbia record-
ings at this time, which were discussed in Geoff Sisley’s “A Gallery of
Guitarists” column in BMG (September and October 1937).7 Salinas’
“fngerstyle” guitar techniques and sound are a particular focus, with
Sisley remarking upon his use of octaves (in Maria Luisa), his vibrato
(in Tárrega’s Adelita), his “rapid and excellent runs” (in Yañez’s Haba-
neras) and his “outstanding” tone (in Galindo’s Súplica de Amor). He
is also impressed by the “duet effect” in Yañez’s Anita, indicating that
polyphonic guitar playing was a still a novelty to British audiences at
this time:

It is strange how a fnger played guitar can sound like a guitar duet
in some numbers, particularly those which have a theme with bass
note and chord accompaniment. This is the impression I received
when listening to Columbia No. 2569-X. The title is “Anita”, a
composition remarkably full in character and just the type of num-
ber one likes to hear played on the guitar, for it displays a com-
mand of light and shade, both as regards tone and volume, which
is a joy to which to listen.
(Sisley, 1937a: 293)

Unfortunately Sisley was misinformed regarding Salinas’ background

assuming him to be of Brazilian extraction, probably because the la-
bels of certain Salinas recordings (for example, Tu Recuerdo/Arpa do
Oro, 5306-B) bear the mark of the Columbia Brazil Phonograph Com-
pany Inc.
Returning briefy to the situation in Cuba, by the 1920s the princi-
ples of the Spanish/Tárrega school, which had been introduced around
1910 by Spanish emigre Pascual Roch (author of an early Tárrega-
inspired guitar method, the Nueva Escuela de Guitarra), were begin-
ning to propagate within the country (Molina 1988b). Prominent
Spanish guitarists had also begun to concertize in Cuba, beginning
with the debut recital of Segovia in 1923,8 helping to raise awareness
68 The Recording Model Established

of the European context of the classical guitar repertoire. Of the few

extant recordings made in Cuba during this period that refect these
developments, a single disc made by Ezequiel Cuevas (1889–1953) is
of interest. Cuevas, an emigre from the Canary Islands (Prat 1934;
Castro 2007), cut two sides in Havana for the American Brunswick
label in May 1928 (Br 40409) (Laird 2001; Orovio 2004), one of which
contains a rendition of Tárrega’s Capricho Arabe. This disc was re-
viewed favorably by Domingo Prat in his brief profle of Cuevas in his
Diccionario (1934: 100).

CLASSICAL GUITAR RECORDING IN THE RIO DE LA PLATA

AND THE LEGACY OF AGUSTÍN BARRIOS
Undoubtedly the most important site of classical guitar recording
activity in Latin America in the early twentieth century was the Rio
de la Plata, the geographical territory encompassing Argentina and
Uruguay linked by the “River of Silver”. As with Cuba and Mexico,
recording companies (including Odeon, Victor, Pathé, Atlanta and
Gath & Chaves) originating from outside Latin America quickly rec-
ognized the potential for marketing the musical culture of this area.
One particular motivation to travel to the Plata was the tango, a pop-
ular dance that had emerged in the late nineteenth century in Bue-
nos Aires and Montevideo and by the 1910s had caught on across
Europe (Gronow and Saunio 1998). During the frst decade of the
twentieth century record companies competed to capture the tango
marketplace in Argentina, a strategy which can be seen as comparable
to the activities of Spanish companies in relation to famenco music in
Spain in the late nineteenth century. Argentina also enjoyed a vibrant
guitar culture at this time with the instrument appearing in variety
of musical contexts, including the tango, where it typically served as
an accompaniment to the voice. While it is unlikely that solo guitar
music per se would have been an immediate concern of recordists in
visiting the Rio de la Plata, once established in the territory it would
have quickly become obvious to record label representatives that this
represented a rich vein of musical activity ripe for recording.
The classical guitar itself had become quite well established within
Argentinian culture by the early twentieth century, its development
having been informed by a number of infuences. Pinnell (1993) notes
that the frst classical guitar performances began to take place as
early as 1810–30 in the salons of Buenos Aires, initially as a result of
the activities of European emigrés, most notably the Italian guitar-
ist Esteban Massini (1778–1838). Following this the Spanish school
of Fernando Sor and Dionisio Aguado became prevalent and in the
mid nineteenth century there was a movement towards an Argentine
school of guitar composition. Guitarists such as Juan Alais (1844–
1914) were important in promoting a native tradition of solo guitar
composition that incorporated popular dances (Pinnell 1993), in effect
imbuing the repertoire with a polite “folkloristic” character. Around
Early Recording: Latin America 69

the time of the First World War, Spanish exponents of the Tárrega tra-
dition such as Emilio Pujol and Miguel Llobet (who both spent peri-
ods of time in Buenos Aires), began to make an impact upon the local
guitar scene with their concertizing and teaching. Also important in
the dissemination of the Tárrega school in Buenos Aires were Spanish
emigrés Domingo Prat, Hilarión Leloup and Josefina Robledo, who
became influential within Argentine, as well as Uruguayan guitar cir-
cles. Another significant figure, in nearby Paraguay, was Gustavo Sosa
Escalada (1877–1943), who is best known as the teacher of Agustín
Barrios Mangoré (more usually referred to as Barrios). Hence before
the appearance of Segovia in the Rio de la Plata in 1920, a rich tradi-
tion of guitar playing had evolved in the region, which reflected both
an indigenous perspective and an appreciation of the Spanish context.
As Huber notes, the strength of this tradition meant that it was only
“augmented” by Segovia when he arrived and his activity was there-
fore “hardly of missionary nature” (1994: 24).
Where solo guitar recording was concerned three companies were
of particular importance – the Victor Talking Machine Company
(based in North America), Odeon and Discos Atlanta (both of Eu-
ropean origin). The bulk of Victor’s solo guitar recording activity in
the Rio de la Plata during the acoustic period is reflected in the 18
recordings made for 78 rpm 10-inch disc by Julio J. Otermín. The
online Discography of American Historical Recordings9 gives the
recording dates for these discs as 1–2 February 1912 (therefore a
marathon recording session) and surmises that they were most likely
made in Buenos Aires. The little information we have available con-
cerning Otermín is in Domingo Prat’s Diccionario (1934: 231), in
which he is described as a teacher and composer for guitar based
in Montevideo who had also published pieces in sheet music form.
It is unsurprising therefore to find that the majority of Otermín’s
discs are recordings of his own compositions, many of which are of
interest for their utilization of dance forms popular in the Rio de
la Plata at this time including the tango, the vals, the habanera, the
gavota and the pericón. One particular disc (Victor 65866/65867) is
of interest for its partnering of two movements from Fernando Sor’s
“Segundo grand sonata” (that is, the famous Grand Sonata Op. 25).
Another work by Sor – a “Menuet en do mayor” – is also listed
on Victor 65868. These indicate Otermín’s affiliation with the early
nineteenth-century Spanish classical guitarists, as highlighted by
Emilio Pujol’s comment in a 1928 lecture – “Julio Otermín espoused
the old school of Aguado in Montevideo” (Escande 2012: 163) –
making his recordings particularly significant in their documenting
of the pre-Tárrega tradition of classical guitar performance in Latin
America. This combination of original compositions informed by
local dance styles and occasional works derived from the Spanish
classical guitar tradition is an accurate reflection of the melting pot
of musical influences that informed solo guitar playing in the Rio de
la Plata at this time.
70 The Recording Model Established

Victor made further classical guitar recordings in Buenos Aires

during the 1930s and 1940s, which now beneftted from the improved
audio quality brought by the microphone. The six sides cut by Maria
Luisa Anido (1907–1996) in late 1928 and late 1930 provide a valu-
able document of her sound and playing at a relatively early stage
in her career. Anido was Miguel Llobet’s most illustrious Argentin-
ian pupil and regarded as the foremost Argentinian exponent of the
Spanish/Tárrega school in the mid-twentieth century.10 Her repertoire
on the Victor discs11 indicates a nationalist orientation, as evident in
the inclusion of the popular Gato (Danza Argentina), by Argentine
guitarist-composer, Ulises Cassinelli (b. 1889).12 On the other hand
her indebtedness to Llobet and the Spanish school is refected in the
transcriptions of Albéniz (Cádiz), Granados (La Maja de Goya) and
Bach (the oft-performed Bourrée No. 1 from the third Cello Suite
and the Prelude from the fourth Cello Suite), all very likely derived
from Llobet and Tárrega versions. In September 1931 the Uruguayan
classical guitarist Julio Martinez Oyanguren (1901–1973), made his
frst recordings with Victor, which pre-date the launch of his career
in the United States in 1933–4. While acknowledging the Spanish in-
fuence, these again incline towards indigenous musical perspectives.
Victor 37072 contains Oyanguren’s arrangement of Un momento, a
popular vals by the pioneer Argentine guitarist-composer, Juan Alais,
while on the fip side is a Jota by Oyanguren himself. A second disc,
Victor 37085 couples Tárrega’s Capricho Arabe with El gato polkeado
by Argentinian tango guitarist-composer Pedro M. Quijano (1875–
c.1945).13 In the early 1940s Victor also recorded a number of discs
with Nelly Ezcaray (b. 1920) who, together with Lalyta Almiron, was
among the foremost female guitarists associated with the Rosario area
during this period. Ezcaray’s discs similarly balance Spanish school
repertoire – Tárrega, Torroba, Sor and Malats – with local music, the
latter including three pieces by Geronimo Bianqui Piñero (b. 1905) a
prominent amateur guitarist and composer active on the Buenos Ai-
res scene (Prat 1934).14
Victor is also notable for recording a signifcant number of
tango-guitarists in the 1920s, including several duos – Iriarte–Pesoa,
Spina–Baudino, Aguilar–Pages and Aguilar–Maciel. José María Agu-
ilar (1891–1951) appears to have been particularly active with the la-
bel, having been hired to make recordings as both accompanist and
soloist in the early 1920s. The Discography of American Historical
Recordings lists solo guitar recordings of tango compositions made
by Aguilar in 1922 (Ida y Vuelta and El Cencerro) as well as numer-
ous recordings made between 1923 and 1925 as either a duettist with
Enrique Maciel or an accompanist to singers such as Rosita Quiroga
and Rosa de Carril.15 Loriente (1998) asserts that Aguilar was also a
noted classical guitarist who was endorsed by Miguel Llobet, and that
he recorded at least one classical work for Victor (77100) in 1923, an
arrangement of music by Manuel de Falla entitled Trozos de los manu-
scritos, performed in duet with Enrique Maciel. Aguilar later became
Early Recording: Latin America 71

an accompanist to the most iconic tango singer of the period, Carlos

Gardel (1890–1935) and recorded with him on the Odeon label.
Discos Atlanta (also known as Casa Améndola y Cía) began opera-
tions in Buenos Aires in 1913, where it was well positioned to exploit the
rich musical culture of the city, and in particular the tango scene. The
company was established by Alfredo Améndola, an Italian emigre who
travelled to Germany in 1912 to obtain a disc cutting machine and a
license to market under the Discos Atlanta name. As was common with
European companies based in the Plata, Atlanta’s master recordings
were made in Buenos Aires or Montevideo and then shipped to Europe
(in this case Hamburg) for pressing and re-distribution locally (Stam-
pone 2010). Among the label’s earliest recordings artists were tango
groups, such as Rondalla Vázquez, Rondalla Atlanta, Quintetto Criollo
“Garrote” and tango guitarist-singers such as Ángel Greco (1893–1938)
and José Luis Betinoti (1878–1915). It also undertook the frst record-
ings of the Paraguayan guitarist Agustín Barrios Mangoré shortly after
his arrival in the Rio de la Plata (around 1913–14). This was the begin-
ning of a prolifc recording career for Barrios, comparable, in terms of
quantity of material released, to the output of Segovia for HMV be-
tween 1927 and 1939, which it almost entirely pre-dates. For this reason
Barrios provides the most signifcant counter-narrative to the recorded
identity of the classical guitar in the early twentieth century.
Barrios was by all accounts a thoroughly schooled musician who stud-
ied music theory and composition in depth and was taught guitar (by
Gustavo Sosa Escalada) in the tradition of the early nineteenth-century
maestros, Fernando Sor and Dionisio Aguado (Stover 1992). As his ca-
reer progressed he also became increasingly conscious of the more re-
cent innovations and repertoire of the Tárrega school, although he was
by no means a full convert to this outlook. He came into contact with
Segovia at the time of his visits to the Rio de la Plata area in 1921, by
which point the conficting perspectives of the two guitarists were much
in evidence. As Stover (1992) has shown, unlike Segovia, Barrios was not
attempting in a missionary-like fashion to construct a modern repertoire
and had little interest in courting composers to write music for him. In-
stead his recordings were primarily focused on promoting his own mu-
sic, which was couched in a Romantic idiom that appeared increasingly
anachronistic in relation to the fashionable cosmopolitan musical styles
that Segovia was interested in transposing to the guitar. Barrios’ compo-
sitions also advocated a distinctive Latin American perspective in their
drawing upon many indigenous musical styles and forms from across
the continent. Stover has asserted that, “He was not only the frst true
Pan-American concert artist of his era but he also must be recognized as
the pioneer of the classic guitar in Iberoamerica” (1992: 124).
Barrios’ Atlanta sessions (some of which were also released on a
partner label, Artigas) yielded a total of 17 numbered releases and
offer a unique snapshot of his standing repertoire during this pe-
riod. Unsurprisingly several of Barrios’ recordings refer to the tango
style, including his frst disc (Atlanta 65364/65367) which contains an
72 The Recording Model Established

arrangement of Sebastián de Yradier’s popular habanera, La Paloma,

partnered on the fip side with Barrios’ own Tango No. 2. Other no-
table tango infuenced compositions recorded by Barrios for Atlanta
are Bicho Feo (Atlanta 65392), Don Perez Freire (Atlanta 65366) and
La Bananita (Atlanta 65393). Stover (1992) has also drawn attention
to the “extended medley” form of a number of the recordings (for ex-
ample, Atlanta 65396 entitled Aires Criollos) which is likely to refect
the light repertoire Barrios was performing in cinemas and theatres at
this time to entertain the audience between acts. Stover also notes the
distinct absence of classical guitar material in his repertoire:

There are no classical works and no substantial works from the

concert guitar repertoire of that time (even though he could have
performed works of Sor and Aguado). This repertoire is decidedly
“South American popular” and illustrates the aversion Klinger
claims Barrios had to performing at this time the standard type
concert works and transcriptions.
(1992: 47)

It is the predominantly popular (or what Stover also terms “vulgar”)

character of Barrios’ recorded repertoire, coupled with the emphasis
on his own compositions, that places his recorded output in marked
contrast to the solo guitar repertoire position adopted by Segovia in
his HMV recordings.
Barrios’ later recording career is associated with the Odeon company,
a major player in the early Argentine recording industry during this
period, which developed a substantial catalogue of Barrios recordings
between 1921 and 1929. These were made in Argentina, where Odeon
had been active from around 1906, like its competitors, in a bid to cap-
ture the burgeoning market for recorded tango music (Cañardo 2009).
Odeon was originally formed in 1903 as a subsidiary of the International
Talking Machine Company owned by Frederick Marion Prescott (for-
merly of the International Zonophone Company). A Franco-German
company in origin (based in Berlin and funded by French capital), it
saw itself in direct competition with the Gramophone Company in the
UK and the Victor Talking Machine Company in the United States.16
In 1911 the International Talking Machine Company was acquired by
Carl Lindström Aktiengesellschaft which meant that the Odeon label
now became part of a major conglomerate of German labels (including
Parlophon and Beka) representing a signifcant competitive force in the
global music marketplace.17 Like its main competitors, Odeon’s main
priority was to acquire as many overseas markets as possible, a goal it
achieved with an approach that was unique relative to general industry
practice at the time. Paul Vernon (1997), an authority on the Odeon
label, summarizes its strategy as follows:

Instead of setting up an overseas branch, run by Odeon employees – a

practice that Gramco [the Gramophone Company] largely favoured
Early Recording: Latin America 73

at that time – it appointed local agents whose task it was to fnd and
negotiate terms with artists, arrange the recording programme and
then request an engineer’s visit to actually make the records. Once
this had been done, the engineer would ship the masters back to
Berlin for processing and manufacture. The fnished product would
then be “re-exported” to the agent ready to sell. By the 1920s both
Gramco and Columbia had copied this practice, but Odeon’s early
employment of the technique gave them an edge on competitors, be-
cause local agents were often better able to understand the real needs
of their own markets.

The resultant “insider” understanding of local music scenes was crucial

where Odeon’s penetration into the marketplace for localized forms of
guitar music was concerned. In the Rio de la Plata Odeon was success-
ful in cornering a large part of the tango market, securing recording
contracts with numerous tango-guitarists, who were recorded either as
accompaniment to singers, as soloists or in guitar duet. These included
José María Aguilar (with Carlos Gardel), Rafael Iriarte (1890–1961),
Rosendo Pesoa (1896–1951), Armando Pages and Mario Pardo (1887–
1986). Pardo (a Uruguayan guitarist) was a prolifc recording artist
for Odeon, occasionally venturing into classical guitar territory with
his solo recordings – Disco Nacional18 6603 (pre-1925), for example,
features a unique arrangement (when compared to the standardized
Tárrega-school versions) of Albéniz’s Granada. In a typical confation
of the popular with the highbrow in Rioplatense guitarists’ recordings at
this time the fip side of this disc features a tenor and guitar performance
of Lucerito, a composition by María Isolina Godard in the Argentinian
zamba style. The legacy of the Argentinian tango has continued to be
prevalent in repertoire of guitarists – including classical players – as
illustrated by the enduring popularity of the compositions of Astor Pi-
azzola in the recordings of players such as Abel Carlevaro, Baltazar
Benitez, Jorge Oraison, María Isabel Siewers and David Tanenbaum.
Where the classical guitar was concerned, in addition to its work with
Barrios, the Odeon company made recordings of Miguel Llobet with
Maria Luisa Anido in duet (c.1929) and Lalyta Almiron (1914–1997).
Almiron was a well-known fgure on the Argentinian scene during this
period and her few extant Odeon recordings (made around 1931) of
repertoire by Tárrega and Albéniz are indicative of the prevalence of
the Spanish school in Argentina. Anido, in an echo of the repertoire
focus of her Victor discs, also made solo recordings of Albéniz’s music
(Granada and Cádiz) for Odeon (disc 129.011) around 1930.
Barrios’ frst recording contract with Odeon was brokered by Max
Glücksmann (1875–1946), a key fgure in the company’s operations
in Argentina, who had worked initially as an agent for the label from
1907 and after 1914 before becoming involved with recording local
musicians (Vernon 1994). He engaged Barrios to record six single-sided
discs for Odeon in Buenos Aires in 1921, as documented in Barrios’
own correspondence sent from Buenos Aires on 15 October 1921:
74 The Recording Model Established

I came to this city 18 days ago, contracted by Max Glücksmann

to record gramophone records, having already recorded a series
of six discs corresponding to the present year, thus I must tell you
that I signed a contract with this frm, for which I am obligated
over the next fve years to record for them a minimum of 5 records
per year. The series that I recorded, which are in the category of
“select discs”, are one-sided of three minutes duration. The house
pays me 25 pesos for the immediate work of recording (per disc,
naturally) and 8 more for the stamping of each disc, 0.10 cents and
more as composer royalty if I record my own works.
(quoted in Stover 1992: 68)

While fve of these discs are still yet to be recovered, the documents
pertaining to the 1921 sessions indicate that the main focus was, as the
correspondence suggests, on Barrios’ own compositions, with the ex-
ception of Tarantella which was a re-working of a piece by the Brazil-
ian guitarist Levino Albano da Conceição. This was also case with the
1924 sessions which yielded four double sided discs, and Barrios’ fnal
recordings which took place in 1928–29, resulting in a further fourteen
double-sided discs. These pieces refect a diverse range of Latin Amer-
ican musical forms and genres, as apparent in their titles, which refer to
the milonga, tango and zamba (Argentina), choro and maxixe (Brazil)
and cueca (Bolivia, Chile and Peru), in effect constituting a distillation
of musical culture from across the Latin American continent. From
1924 Barrios’ recordings also begin to acknowledge the nineteenth
century Spanish perspective. These include discs of Tárrega’s Capricho
Arabe (which he recorded twice), Sor’s Minuet Op. 11 No. 6, and ar-
rangements of Beethoven’s Minuet in G major WoO 10, No. 2 (also
recorded twice) and Schumann’s well known Träumerei (from the pi-
ano work, Kinderszenen Op. 15). However, while the Spanish concept
of the classical guitar repertoire was certainly well assimilated by Bar-
rios and much in evidence in his live performances, especially from the
1920s onwards, it does not appear to have been central to his artistic
profle as manifested in his recordings. It is also interesting to note
that Barrios recorded only one piece by Bach (Odeon disc 2485) in his
1928–9 sessions – the Loure (or the Bourrée No. 1) from the Cello Suite
No. 3 in C, which may derive from the Tárrega transcription. Given
that Barrios played Bach frequently in concert (Stover 1992) from the
1920s and was strongly infuenced by him in his own pieces (for exam-
ple, La Catedral and Preludio Op. 5 No 1 in G minor), it is perhaps
surprising that he did not record more of Bach’s music as Segovia was
later to do at HMV. Taken in context, however, it can be seen that
such repertoire was a much less obvious “ft” with the musical ethos
of Barrios’ recordings and their purposes relative to the commercial
objectives of the marketplace he was servicing.
After his fnal recordings for Odeon, Barrios left the Rio de la Plata
area to travel and concertize in other parts of Latin America, including
Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela and El Salvador as well as Europe (in Spain
Early Recording: Latin America 75

and Germany), thereby disseminating his concept of the classical gui-

tar widely across the continent. His impact upon the guitar culture of
Latin America was felt particularly strongly in the Rio de la Plata, Brazil
and Venezuela, where his own music gradually began to enter the reper-
toire. He did not re-acquaint himself with recording industry after this
point, and it is not clear if further opportunities to record commercially
presented themselves (for example, he might feasibly have recorded in
Brazil if the opportunity had arisen). However, towards the end of his
life Barrios did undertake informal recordings in San Salvador in 1943
using a Crosley Home Recorder which had been loaned to him by a local
theatre owner. This device was most likely the Crosley 33BG,19 which
comprised a radio and phonograph combo, the latter being used both to
play back and record 78 discs. A recording could be made of either the
incoming radio signal or an audio source using an attached microphone.
According to Stover (1992: 171) the recordings that Barrios made using
the Crosley device (of two pieces, Diana Guaraní and Invocación a la
Luna) were sent to Washington DC to be broadcast for Pan-American
Union Day. The recording of Diana Guaraní, which is the only extant
version of Barrios playing the piece, is of particular interest for its pro-
grammatic references to Latin American history, for example in its evo-
cation of the bugle call of Paraguayan troops during the 1865–70 War of
the Triple Alliance. Barrios’ interest in making recordings with the Cros-
ley device – working in what today would be described as a home studio
set-up – marks him out as a particularly forward-thinking musician.
It is also important to point out that a signifcant proportion of Bar-
rios’ recordings – namely those made between 1913 and 1924 – were
undertaken using the acoustic process. Only on his fnal sessions for
the Odeon label in 1928–9 did Barrios begin to experience the possi-
bilities of electrical recording for the more realistic representation of
recorded guitar sound. Clearly Barrios’ willingness to record repeat-
edly and prolifcally over the course of his career using a number of
different technologies indicates that he did not regard recording as the
problematic process that has been implied in reference to artists such
as Segovia or Llobet. This may perhaps be refective of his tolerance
for performing in a spontaneous and ad hoc manner in many different
social contexts and environments – cities, villages and outdoor spaces
(including jungles) – in addition to the more conventional concert hall.
Like all musicians, however, he was impacted by the constraints of the
78 rpm disc, whose short recording times had consequences for the in-
tegrity of his longer compositions. Stover (2003, 2004) has suggested in
these circumstances Barrios was obliged to abridge his works through
the omission of repeats, or perform at higher speeds than might neces-
sarily have suited them in a live performance context.
Barrios’ recordings, like those of Segovia and Llobet, provide a
valuable sonic document of evolving classical guitar performance aes-
thetics during this period in the Latin American context. Regarding
Barrios’ manner of playing, this can be seen to share similar charac-
teristics to Segovia’s HMV discs in his “Romantic” expressivity and
76 The Recording Model Established

rhythmic freedom. Indeed on the whole Barrios’ performances of his

own music tend to exhibit more looseness and spontaneity than Sego-
via’s relatively controlled readings of third party texts. In general the
music he played was of a markedly different character to the Segov-
ian repertoire, infuenced in particular by the popular dance forms of
the era, which demanded a less reserved interpretative stance. One can
imagine that Barrios did not necessarily have in mind a passive con-
cert hall audience when undertaking his recordings, rather he imagined
himself to be creating an immediately consumable form of musical
entertainment for the average listener in the Rio de la Plata.
It is interesting to speculate on the instruments that Barrios may
have been using in his recordings and their consequences for the
sound. Scholars have established from photographs that Barrios used
a number of “high end” guitars during the course of his career, includ-
ing instruments made by luthiers of the Spanish school including José
Ramírez II (nephew of Manuel Ramírez who had supplied Segovia’s
frst concert guitar) as well as other makers working within this tradi-
tion such as Domingo Esteso and Francisco Simplicio (Stover 1992).
Barrios also possessed some instruments of Latin American origin, by
luthiers such as Rodolfo Camacho (Uruguay) and Romeo Di Giorgio
(Brazil). While we cannot know for certain which guitars were used
on which recordings, it is fair to surmise that the José Ramírez instru-
ment, which Barrios used to concertize until 1915, may have appeared
on the Atlanta sessions. Barrios also apparently acquired a second
Ramírez guitar which he played regularly in his concerts during the
1920s, making it reasonable to assume that this familiar and highly
prized instrument could have been employed on the 1924 and 1928–29
Odeon recording sessions.
Unlike Spanish classical guitarists, who typically used gut strings
on their guitars, it is well documented that Barrios used steel strings,
whose subtly different sound is at times clearly discernible (with close
listening) on his recordings.20 It should be noted that Barrios was
not unusual in his use of steel strings, which were widely adopted by
Latin American guitarists in the early twentieth century and were a
key distinguishing characteristic of the sound of their instruments.
However, as with the controversies concerning nail vs fngertips that
had informed Segovia’s early career, guitar string material also ap-
pears to have constituted a site of ideological debate within classical
guitar performance aesthetics. Stover has argued, for example, that
metal strings in some quarters connoted musical inferiority (he cites
derogatory comments made by Segovia in support of this assertion)
and this perception would have had consequences for Barrios’ capac-
ity to progress his career within “serious” musical circles. Jerome in
his useful study of Brazilian guitarist, Dilermando Reis (2005), offers
further elaboration:

Although the Spanish guitar tradition was one of gut strings, the
new world players divided into two groups. The wealthier, more
Early Recording: Latin America 77

cosmopolitan players, more or less closely linked to students of

Tárrega, played solely gut, and the more “popular” players pre-
ferred steel. It seems that quite a bit of the prejudice against
Agustín Barrios stemmed from his use of steel strings. It became a
question not just of esthetics but also of class—steel strings for the
“street,” gut for the concert hall.
(Jerome 2005: 21)

Such were the consequences of the increasing infuence of the Spanish

school of classical guitar performance in the Rio de la Plata for local
artists who wished to participate in the “classical” guitar scene.
A fnal consideration is that Barrios’ recordings, like Segovia’s discs
of Ponce, have in many cases functioned as the primary sources for the
editions of his works. Stover (2012) has stated that there are twenty
pieces by Barrios that only exist as recordings and whose performing
scores are therefore based upon transcriptions. However, even in the
cases where scores do exist the recording has been regarded as an ur-
text, and has often taken priority over the manuscript versions. Stover
explains the reasoning behind this:

Recordings refect usually the best version of a work due to the

fact that by the time Barrios recorded a piece he had rehearsed
considerably until he felt ready. Therefore, there would be a de-
lay from the time he created a work, perhaps putting it down in
manuscript form, to the time he recorded the work which could be
anywhere from a few months to several years. This allowed Barrios
to perform the work and refne his ideas.
(2004: 12)

In his foreword to Volume 1 of his frst published edition of Barrios’

works (a four-volume collection issued by Belwin Mills between 1976–
85), Stover acknowledges the use of Barrios’ recordings in preparing
the scores:

When applicable, the recorded version of a piece has been taken

as the preferred and fnal form, and many of the pieces are here
presented for the frst time in this corrected form corresponding to
exactly what Mangoré played on his records (Stover 1976: 2).

This emphasis on the recording as primary source has meant that the
transcription of Barrios’ music has since the 1970s been an ongoing
obsession of classical guitar scholars and performers, with each revis-
iting the audio texts to locate a more defnitive account of the work.
The various competing editions of Barrios’ music that have appeared
over the years, some of which are closely aligned with the recordings,
include Jesús Benites’ four-volume collection, A. Barrios Mangoré,
issued by Zen-On (1977–1982), Chris Dumigan’s The Recordings of
Agustín Barrios (1982–3), Robert Tucker’s The Agustín Barrios Legacy
78 The Recording Model Established

(Musical New Services 1983),21 Stover’s later revised two-volume set,

The Complete Works of Agustín Barrios Mangoré issued by Mel Bay in
2003, and more recently Chris Erwich’s two-volume edition, Agustín
Barrios Recordings (Les Productions d’Oz 2017).22
Regarding the wider awareness of Barrios’ recordings during his
lifetime, as these do not appear to have received wide international
distribution it is unsurprising that there is little evidence of their crit-
ical reception outside the Latin American orbit. Gramophone, for ex-
ample, makes no mention of Barrios’ recordings during the period of
his greatest fame in the 1920s and 1930s, and only begins to become
aware of him in the recorded programs of guitarists such as Laurindo
Almeida in the 1950s. Surprisingly even BMG, which had many Latin
American correspondents, appears to have been largely unaware of
the existence of Barrios until the early 1960s when he is profled in
the writings of the British Latin American guitar scholar Peter Sen-
sier (1962a, 1962b). Barrios’ recordings themselves passed into obscu-
rity, surviving in the collections of enthusiasts such as the Brazilian
guitarist-scholar Ronoel Simões, and his particular perspective on the
classical guitar repertoire remained largely absent from international
narrative of the twentieth-century recorded classical guitar until the
dramatic revival of his music in the 1970s.

THE ECLECTIC ROOTS OF SOLO GUITAR RECORDING

IN BRAZIL
The beginning of commercial recording in Brazil can be dated to
c.1901/02 with establishment of Casa Edison in Rio de Janeiro by
Frederico Figner (1866–1947). A Czech immigrant, Figner had ac-
quired his knowledge of recording in the United States at the National
Phonograph Company, before spending several years promoting the
Edison phonograph to Brazilian audiences in the 1890s. He opened a
record shop in Rio de Janeiro in 1901 and began to distribute his own
recordings in 1904 in association with German Zonophone, where like
other home-grown Latin American recording companies, he relied
upon German engineers (at Emile Berliner’s Hanover factory) for the
pressing of his discs. At around the same time, Figner also formed
an association with the Odeon label and by 1913, with Odeon’s assis-
tance, he had established a record production plant in Rio de Janeiro.
Odeon subsequently became the predominant name in the Brazilian
recording industry in the 1920s (Zan 2003; Livingston-Isenhour and
Garcia 2005). Like the Rio de la Plata, the musical culture of Brazil
in the early twentieth century was an eclectic melting pot of musical
traditions deriving from both European classical and popular music
and indigenous folk forms. Just as the tango had defned early record-
ing activity in the Rio de la Plata, Casa Edison’s attention was initially
focused on the popular Brazilian forms such as the modinha (a senti-
mental song infuenced by European opera) and the choro. The choro
was a type of “street” music, which frst developed in Rio de Janeiro
Early Recording: Latin America 79

in the 1870s, and was practiced by ensembles known as chorões, typ-

ically comprising fute, cavaquinho (a relation of the ukulele), trom-
bone, ophicleide and guitar (including a seven-string instrument). The
chorões initially played European-derived dance music and accompa-
nied modinhas, but by the early twentieth century their music had be-
come more closely integrated with indigenous Brazilian dance forms
such as the maxixe and the samba (Béhague 1979; Appleby 1983;
Livingston-Isenhour and Garcia 2005).
While the earliest solo guitar recordings made in the Rio de la Plata
often suggest quite frm links with the Spanish school of the classi-
cal guitar (such as those of Otermín, Oyanguren, Llobet, Barrios),
early recordings of guitar music in Brazil do not initially relate in an
obvious way to these traditions. The reasons for this are historical in
that initially the guitar was more commonly found employed in an
accompaniment role in the context of Brazilian popular music forms
such as the lundu and the modinha (Béhague 1979; Appleby 1983). It
was within the context of the choro that a more soloistic tradition of
guitar performance began to evolve. A key fgure here was João Per-
nambuco (João Teixeira Guimarães, 1883–1947) who was part of the
chorões scene and closely associated with many of the most infuential
Brazilian musicians of this era, including Donga, Catullo, Pixinguinha
and Villa Lobos. Pernambuco wrote a number of solo guitar works –
among the most well known of which are Sons de Carrilhões and
Interrogando – which are today part of the mainstream classical guitar
repertoire and have been widely recorded.23 By demonstrating the in-
strument’s potential for solo performance, Pernambuco contributed to
the elevation of the guitar to a higher cultural status, as explained by
Livingston-Isenhour and Garcia (2005):

One cannot fully appreciate Pernambuco’s contributions to the

guitar without understanding that until approximately the 1920s,
his instrument was the object of disdain among the elite. Although
cherished in popular culture, the elite saw the guitar as a despised
manifestation of low culture … Pernambuco’s teachings and solo
compositions were embraced by choro guitarists, and his legacy was
carried on by other musicians such as Paraguayan guitarist Agustín
Barrios and Brazilian guitarists Garôto and Dilermando Reis
(2005: 87)

Pernambuco made a series of recordings in the mid to late 1920s for

Odeon (issued in the 123.000 series), amounting to ten discs, on which
he is featured in duo with the choro guitarist Rogério Guimarães,
rather than as a soloist (Antunes 2002).
Another important guitarist of the popular tradition was Américo
Jacomino (1889–1928), known as “Canhoto” (meaning “left handed”).
Canhoto was a prolifc recording artist and radio broadcaster, who
played a key role in the development of the solo guitar recital in Brazil
in the 1910s and 1920s (Antunes 2002; Estephan 2018). He recorded
80 The Recording Model Established

many discs for Odeon, both as a soloist and with his band, the Grupo
do Canhoto, among the most well know of which is his valsa entitled
Abismo de Rosas (Odeon 122.933 c.1921–1926). This has since become
a standard in the repertoire of Brazilian guitarists of both popular
and classical persuasions. There are some notable similarities between
Canhoto and his Rioplatense contemporary Barrios that are worth
drawing attention to here. Like Barrios, Canhoto performed and re-
corded a repertoire of his own music that drew upon a variety of in-
fuences, both European and indigenous, including pieces in the style
of the samba, tango, polca, marcha, gavota and especially the valsa.
He also wrote programmatic pieces of a distinctly nationalistic charac-
ter, such as the Marcha Triunfal Brasileira (Odeon 122.932). The latter
includes a novel percussive effect to suggest the sound of a military
snare drum, timbral changes to imitate wind and brass instruments
and fanfare-like passages, in a manner reminiscent of Barrios’s Diana
Guaraní. Indeed Antunes (2002) points to likelihood of Canhoto hav-
ing absorbed these techniques directly from Barrios, or possibly other
visiting guitarists infuenced by the Tárrega school such as Josefna
Robledo. Canhoto was also an improvising musician who had a rep-
utation for evolving pieces on the spot while recording. The singer-
guitarist Olga Coelho (1909–2008), who made her frst records for the
Odeon label in the late 1920s, provides in an interesting account of a
studio session24 involving Canhoto during this period:

It was highly comic to watch the combination producer and sound

engineer in the studio when Canhoto was performing. This pro-
ducer was a high tempered and precise German, and I saw him
go from desperation, through admiration into amazement, in his
repeated experimental efforts in counting the minutes and seconds
of each song. Long-playing records did not exist in those days and
the disc had to run more or less exactly through three minutes.
Knowing the value and split-second timing in every fraction of an
inch of record, he insisted naturally on having introduction, song
and interludes last for the exact length of time. Canhoto imper-
turbably rehearsed hours with me, never repeating exactly what
had been played before!
(Coelho 1957: 17)

Partly for reasons of the above, but also because he eschewed using
musical notation, Canhoto’s recordings are, like Barrios’, also consid-
ered a primary source for the written forms of his compositions, which
exist today in multiple transcribed versions and arrangements and nu-
merous recorded interpretations by Brazilian guitarists, including Dil-
ermando Reis, Garôto, Raphael Rebello and Gilson Antunes.
Although operating within the popular sphere, guitarists such as Can-
hoto and Pernambuco were not completely unaware of developments
within the so-called “erudito” (erudite) context of classical guitar per-
formance. Orosco (2001) and Antunes (2002) have demonstrated that
Early Recording: Latin America 81

a European “classical” tradition of solo guitar performance had been

tentatively present in Brazil from at least the 1820s, and began to de-
velop into a more prevalent cultural form in the 1920s as an increasing
number of guitarists from outside the country began to infuence the
scene. For example, Barrios, who resided in the country from around
1916–1920 (Stover 1992) and gave important concerts in São Paulo in
1917 and 1929, provided a vital link between the popular scene and the
traditions of classical guitar performance that were emerging from Eu-
rope and the Rio de la Plata. The Spanish guitarist Josefna Robledo,
who also performed in São Paulo in 1917, was a key reference point
for the Tárrega school and its repertoire.25 This was later reinforced by
Regino Sainz de la Maza when he concertized in the country in 1929,
and brought with him an updated repertoire program which included
Turina’s Fandanguillo, Villa-Lobos’s Choros No. 1, and his own music
(Antunes 2002). As noted in Chapter 2, Sainz de la Maza also made
three recordings for the Odeon label while based in Brazil.
Among the indigenous Brazilian guitarists, the handful of solo gui-
tar recordings made by Levino Albano da Conceição (1883–1955),
and Benedito Chaves (b. 1905), can be linked with the Spanish classical
guitar school on disc at this time. Albano was taught by Joaquín dos
Santos (also known as Quincas Larenjeiras), an early advocate of the
Spanish school of Tárrega in Brazil (Prat 1934). He recorded at least
eight discs for Odeon in the 1920s (Antunes 2002), which showcase
his own compositions infuenced by light dance music forms including
the valsa, tango and mazurka. One of Albano’s compositions, Tar-
antella, was of suffcient standing to be included in the repertoire of
Canhoto and Barrios, the latter recording the piece twice for Odeon
(1921 and 1928–9). Chaves (also called “Gurú”) was a guitarist who
was known for including classical guitar repertoire in his concert pro-
grams (Antunes 2002). His recordings, which were made for Columbia
(1929/1930) and Odeon (around 1932), include choros (Pernambu-
co’s Sons de Carrilhões), tangos and arrangements of light classical
favorites such as Rimpianto by Italian composer Enrico Toselli (1883–
1936), recorded as Serenata de Toselli (Columbia 5037-B). The latter
is backed by the well-known tremolo style guitar piece, Uma Lágrima,
by Gaspar Sagreras (father of famous Argentinian classical guitarist,
Julio Sagreras). In a closer affliation to the European classical reper-
toire, Chaves also recorded an arrangement of Schumann’s Traümerei
(Columbia 5054-B), a piece recorded by Barrios for the Odeon label
around the same time.
The notable absence on the Brazilian scene during this period was
Segovia, who did not begin to make an impact in Brazil until 1937
when he performed in São Paulo (Orosco 2001).26 However, his asso-
ciation with the composer Heitor Villa-Lobos during the 1920s and
1930s played a key role in bridging the divide between popular tra-
ditions of the Brazilian guitar and the emerging classical perspective.
Segovia had frst met Villa-Lobos in Paris around 1923 or 1924 when
the latter was at the height of his creative powers. There are various
82 The Recording Model Established

accounts of what took place at this meeting (see Santos 1985; Béhague
1994) but the upshot was that Villa-Lobos committed to compose
new guitar music for Segovia to perform, beginning with the famous
set of 12 Estudos (Studies) which were completed in 1929. These met
with Segovia’s approval and in his later dedication to the published
score he suggested that they were the equal of Chopin’s piano stud-
ies. Béhague (1994), in his discussion of the nationalistic aesthetic of
the Estudos, has suggested that they “transcend for the most part the
stereotypical nineteenth-century techniques”, and has drawn a paral-
lel with the Spanish composers Segovia was interested in at this time
such as Turina, Torroba and Rodrigo whose guitar works “must have
appeared propitious to Villa-Lobos in the development of his own na-
tionalist credo” (1994: 139). Villa-Lobos composed two further works
for Segovia which have become central to the classical guitar canon –
the 5 (originally 6) Preludes (1940) and the Concerto for Guitar and
Small Orchestra (1951).
It should be emphasized that Villa-Lobos was himself an able gui-
tarist who had played the instrument from an early age as a member of
the chorões. Unlike many of his Brazilian guitar playing contemporar-
ies he had also studied the instrument from a classical perspective and
was knowledgeable of the repertoire of the early nineteenth-century
Spanish school of Sor and Aguado. Later in Paris, Villa-Lobos also
formed a connection with Miguel Llobet, thereby further cementing
his links with these traditions. Prior to his meeting with Segovia, he
had already made a number of transcriptions for the guitar, including
the Bach Chaconne (Santos 1985), and composed a number of solo
guitar pieces, of which the Suite Populaire Bresilienne (c.1908–12) and
Choros No. 1 (1920), are today classical guitar repertoire standards.
At the same time Villa-Lobos’ cosmopolitan and often experimental
musical leanings precluded an overtly orthodox approach to writing
for the instrument, which was highly suitable for Segovia’s repertoire
needs. While Segovia included Villa-Lobos’ music in his concert pro-
grams from the late 1930s onwards, he did not commit to recording it
until 1949, when he released the frst and eighth studies on Columbia
LX.1229 (see Chapter 5).

NOTES
1. Credit is due to Dick Spottswood (1996) for frst drawing attention to
these recordings and for pointing researchers towards important data
that have enabled them to be traced.
2. Verdi’s piece was also popular with guitarists in other parts of Latin
America. For example, it appears frequently in the programs of con-
cert guitarists in Brazil in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
(Antunes 2002).
3. I am grateful to Syracuse University Library for making the audio of
these cylinders available to me.
4. Werner and Burt are profled in Millard et al. (1995).
Early Recording: Latin America 83

5. For an account of the Sooys activities in Mexican territory see Sooy,

H. Harry O. Sooy Memoir at https://digital.hagley.org/LMSS_2300_
Sooy#page/1/mode/2up> [Accessed 23 October 2020].
6. Documents, such as the Tablatura de vihuela (c. 1740), show that the
vihuela was widely used in Mexico until the eighteenth century (see
Stevenson 1952, 1968; Arriaga 1982), as well as the Baroque guitar
(Russell 1981; Tyler and Sparks 2002; Vera 2008). It also is possible that
Santiago de Murcia (1637–1739), a major guitarist of late Spanish Ba-
roque, whose music was discovered in the Saldivar manuscript in Mexico
in the twentieth century, may have visited and perhaps even resided in the
country for a time.
7. These particular Columbia records were not published in England during
this period, hence Sisley sourced his discs from a contact referred to only
as “Alauris”.
8. Barrios is known to have stayed in the country for brief periods during
the mid and late 1930s. Regino Sainz de la Maza also visited in 1937 (see
Stover 1992; Molina 1988a, 1988b).
9. See https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/11061/Otermn_
Julio_J._instrumentalist_guitar
10. For biographical information concerning Anido, see Guitar News (1952),
Bone (1972) and Rodríguez (1992).
11. The details of Anido’s Victor recordings are available at: https://
adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/13142/Anido_Maria_
Luisa_instrumentalist_guitar
12. Cassinelli is profled in Prat (1934).
13. The details of Oyanguren’s Victor recordings are available at: https://adp.
library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/124380/Martinez_Oyanguren_
Julio_instrumentalist_guitar
14. See Victor discs 68-1998 (La Chalchalera/Ahi Nomas) and 68-1849 (Car-
navalito). A number of Ezcaray’s recordings are available on the Doremi
Segovia and His Contemporaries series, Vol. 11.
15. See: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/47768/Aguilar_
Jos_Mara_instrumentalist_guitar.
16. Early on in its existence the Odeon company was noted for its innovative
approach to recording. For example, it was responsible for introducing
the double-sided record in 1904, which initially gave it a signifcant ad-
vantage in the marketplace and ultimately revolutionized the industry. In
1909 the English branch of the Odeon company also pioneered the frst
large scale orchestral recording (of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite) which
according to Gelatt (1977: 178) “succeeded in breaking the old formula
of overtures, medleys and salon pieces and setting a new one that called
for works from the standard orchestral repertoire in reasonably intact
versions”.
17. Given these facts it is therefore surprising to note Vernon’s (1997) obser-
vation that Odeon “remains the single most important un-researched re-
cord label”. Fortunately this is a situation that has begun to be addressed
in recent years with the Lindström Project, a multiple volume edition
which has brought forth much valuable information about the activities
of Odeon and other associated labels to light.
18. Disco Nacional was an Odeon sub-label aimed at the domestic market-
place in Argentina.
84 The Recording Model Established

19. Manufactured by Crosley Radio Corp., Cincinnati (OH). For further

information on this unique device see https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/
crosley_33bg.html
20. Particularly those made after 1928 using the microphone. Stover (1992)
suggests that Barrios’ strings were probably tuned fatter than concert
pitch to alleviate the pressure on the bodies of his guitars which were
typically designed with lower tension gut string use in mind.
21. Tucker was involved with Jason Waldron in assisting with transcriptions
for John Williams’ 1977 recording of Barrios’ music.
22. For an informative discussion of the current situation of Barrios record-
ing see Dumigan (2017).
23. Well-known classical guitarists who have recorded Pernambuco’s pieces
include David Russell, Rene Bartoli, Ernesto Bitetti, Marcelo Kayath and
Turibio Santos.
24. The session in question may refers to Coelho’s debut disc for the label,
Odeon 10514, A mosca na moça/Sá querida (1929).
25. Robledo was also a signifcant presence in Rio de la Plata. She returned
to Brazil for a fnal time in 1923.
26. The data of Poveda (2009) suggest, however, that Segovia had toured in
Brazil as early as 1928.
Part Two

The Recording Model

Consolidated
5
Segovia at American Decca

INTRODUCTION
This second chapter devoted to the recording career of Andrés Segovia
begins with a consideration of the maestro’s various recording activities
of the 1940s as he reinstated his recording career towards the end of the
Second World War. Following this the focus moves to the post-1950s
period and the recordings made by Segovia during his time at American
Decca/MCA between 1952 and 1969, concluding with a brief consid-
eration of the late LPs made following his departure from the label in
1970. In particular, Segovia’s recordings during this period are placed in
the context of the move to the LP format which had a marked impact
on the conception of the classical guitar recordings thereafter. Here
Segovia’s evolving notion of the album program is discussed alongside
the critical reception of his recordings, with particular reference to his
reliance upon the “miscellaneous” repertoire paradigm and the strate-
gies later employed to modify this. The chapter also gives further atten-
tion to Segovia’s approach to recording and continues to build upon the
earlier discussions of classical guitar production aesthetics, which are
by this point beginning to be conditioned by new concepts of recording
emerging from the so-called “high fdelity” movement.

EARLY POST-WAR RECORDINGS AND THE

TRANSITION TO LP
As is well-documented, the momentum of Segovia’s global concert ca-
reer was temporarily halted by the Second World War, during which
time he resided in Uruguay in Montevideo (where he had relocated in
mid-1937 to escape the Spanish Civil War). Interestingly Segovia did
not make any recordings while living in Montevideo, despite becom-
ing well-established there as a concert artist. It is feasible that Sego-
via might have been offered a recording contract by the Odeon label,
which had developed a considerable catalogue of guitar recordings.
However, the label’s activities were curtailed during this time due to the
German war effort which naturally diverted resources away from its

87
88 The Recording Model Consolidated

recording industry remit. Moreover, it is unlikely that Segovia would

have regarded Odeon (at least in the Latin American context) as an
equal to HMV in terms of prestige where classical music recording was
concerned, particularly given its association with “popular” guitarists
such as Barrios whose recordings did not strictly ft the classical guitar
mold.
After the Second World War the focus of Segovia’s recording career
shifted to the United States. Towards the end of 1943 he was able to
undertake a short period of concertizing in North America, marking1
his frst appearance in the continent after four years of absence. The
success of this tour enabled Segovia to resume his performing activ-
ities in the country and attract new contracts from record labels, be-
ginning with American Decca in New York. Segovia refers to his new
recording deal in a letter to his daughter, María Rosa, in January 1944:

I have played six concerts in New York, to full halls. I am the mu-
sical fgure of the day. […] I am going to record, starting this next
Monday, thirty pieces on discs. They give me 6,000 – six thousand –
dollars for them plus 10 per cent of the sales.
(quoted in Escande 2012: 255)

The recording sessions in question took place between 10 January

and 28 January 1944, a relatively short period of intensive activity
that yielded a considerable number of sides (Ruppli 1996). Most of
these recordings were issued at intervals between 1944 and 1949 us-
ing the early Decca boxed “album” format in which typically three
or more 78s were bound together as collections. The frst, released in
1944, was Decca Album No. A-384, Andrés Segovia Playing the Music
of Albéniz and Granados, which comprised six pieces on 3 × 12-inch
discs. This was followed in 1947 by Decca Album No. A-596, Andrés
Segovia Classical Guitar Solos, on 4 × 10-inch discs, which contained
a more wide-ranging program of arrangements (by Segovia) of music
spanning the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods,
including works by Dowland, Domenico Scarlatti, Rameau, Purcell,
Haydn and Paganini. This album also contained recordings of two
pieces – Gavotta and Sarabanda – attributed to the Baroque composer,
Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725), although both in reality were by
Ponce constituting another hoax in the manner of the latter’s Suite in
A attributed to Weiss (as recorded by Segovia on HMV DB.1565 and
DA.1225).2 In this case these particular movements comprised part of
the composer’s fve moment Suite No. 2 in D major, a work eventually
published in its complete form in 1967.
In 1949 a number of the remaining sides from the 1944 sessions were
compiled for release as Album DU-710 Andrés Segovia Guitar Recital
Vol. 2, comprising 4 × 10-inch discs of works by Milan, de Visée, Tár-
rega, Llobet as well as new recordings of three works by Torroba (the
Burgalesa and Albada from Piezas Caracteristicas and the Arada from
Suite Castellana). In the same year Decca also re-issued the earlier
Segovia at American Decca 89

Album A-384 under its original title, but now as DU-707, this effec-
tively becoming the companion Vol. 1 to DU-710. At the same time
these two sets of recordings were repackaged for the newly emerged
LP format, now re-named as Andrés Segovia Guitar Solos (DL 8022),
with the contents of DU-707 on Side 1 and DU-710 on Side 2. The
simultaneous issuing of the same recordings on both 78 rpm and LP
refected the industry’s cautious attitude towards the new LP format
at this time. The frst Long Playing records had only recently been in-
troduced in 1948 and the marketplace for 78 rpm recordings naturally
remained strong in 1949, hence the various packages were designed
to cater to both forward and backward looking consumers.3 A signif-
icant number of the recordings made by Segovia in the 1944 sessions
still remain unissued. These particular sides (thirteen in total) are de-
scribed in the Decca catalogues (Ruppli 1996) as “Studies” and are in a
variety of keys. The composer is not identifed although the likelihood
is that these are the recordings of the Fernando Sor studies that had
been destined to accompany the sheet music release of Segovia’s well-
known collection of Studies for the Guitar by Fernando Sor (Edward B.
Marks Music Corporation) in 1945.4
Taken as a whole the 1940s American Decca recordings re-
fect the relatively conservative Euro-centric position of Segovia’s
repertoire-building project at this time. With the exception of the
pieces by Torroba and the Ponce–Scarlatti pastiche, the emphasis is
primarily on transcriptions of earlier music and popular works by
nineteenth-century Spanish composers, with the music of Albéniz
(Granada and Sevilla) and Granados (Danzas Españolas 5 and 10 – all
previously recorded for HMV in 1939 – continuing to represent the
quintessentially Spanish element of Segovia’s concert repertoire. Re-
views of these recordings indicated that Segovia’s playing continued to
be held in high regard, although critics were recognizing limitations in
the scope of this repertoire, at least in so far as it was represented in re-
corded form. Discussing A-384, Dewey Dunn writing in Capital Times
commented, “Why he has limited his talents to the works of these two
Spanish pianists I do not know, for he has an expansive repertoire to
choose from” (Dunn 1945: 11). In his discussion of the same record-
ings in BMG, A. McK. Houston levelled a more general critique which
was to become commonplace in the LP period:

My one criticism of Andrés Segovia’s playing (judged from re-

cords, be it noted) is that, perfect though it is, it tends to become
monotonous. Perhaps this lies more in his choice of compositions,
which have a certain “sameness” about them. I personally, con-
sider that more contrasts in the type of solos played would add
immeasurably to one’s enjoyment of a recital of Segovia records.
(McK. Houston 1946: 82)

The two 78 sets and DL 8022 LP, in their refecting an extended record-
ing format, provide early examples of how a typical Segovia album
90 The Recording Model Consolidated

would be organized in the future, pre-empting the “historical survey”

approach exhibited on the early 1950s American Decca albums in par-
ticular. The DL 8022 LP also provided a conveniently packaged means
of promoting a typical Segovia recital to concert venues that remained
skeptical about the capacity of the guitar to be played in a soloistic
context. As Harold Shaw (1923–2014),5 who worked with Sol Hurok
in promoting Segovia concerts in the late 1940s, remarked:

We would say “Listen, I must talk to you about this most fantas-
tic guitarist.” And the frst answer we would get is, “What do you
mean, guitarist? We’ve got all the guitar players around here we
need”. The frst Decca recording gave us a real break because we
could put the platter down and say, “If I can’t communicate with
you about what he’s doing, will you listen to this so that you can
understand?” Up to that point no one would believe you could
play a Bach suite on the guitar. You were taking a folk instrument
and trying to put it into the classical tradition.
(Ferguson 1983: 34)6

DL 8022’s liner notes (which frst appeared in the A-384 box set) also
provided an early example of the narrative that was carefully woven
around Segovia’s image in the service of proselytizing on behalf of the
classical guitar as an instrument worthy of recognition by the classical
music establishment. The notes present a succinct biographical account
of Segovia’s early life and career familiar from the guitarist’s own writ-
ings and interviews – including his being self taught, his early struggles
to gain the instrument a place in the concert hall, culminating in his
successful Paris debut in 1924, subsequent global tours and press ac-
claim. The guitar repertoire is also discussed in reference to Segovia’s
efforts to garner music for the instrument through the transcription
of earlier “lost” historical literature and encouraging contemporary
composers of signifcance to write for the guitar. Also highlighted is
his ambition to ultimately secure the guitar’s “recognition as one of
the integral solo instruments of the orchestra”. A typical Segovia quo-
tation is also reproduced: “My greatest satisfaction has come, not from
the plaudits of the peoples of many nations, but from the knowledge
that I have given the guitar its rightful place in the musical gallery”
(Anon 1949b).
While the 1944 recordings represent the beginning of Segovia’s long-
term association with American Decca, his career with the label was
initially diverted by brief firtations with other recording companies
during the mid to late 1940s. These produced some signifcant discs,
which again pointed the way forward in terms of Segovia’s later re-
corded repertoire. For example, in December 19467 Segovia made sev-
eral Bach recordings on 78 rpm for Musicraft8 in New York, which
were subsequently released in mid-1947 as Musicraft Album M-85
(Bach Chaconne) and M-90 (Bach Selections). Segovia’s frst recording
of the Bach Chaconne (from Violin Partita No. 2 BWV 1004) was a
Segovia at American Decca 91

signifcant event given that this was his most ambitious and controver-
sial undertaking of a Bach transcription for the classical guitar. It had
frst been auditioned in a live performance context in Paris in 1935,
hence the recorded interpretation refected over a decade of matura-
tion on the concert stage. The Bach Chaconne album is notable for
the inclusion of an extensive justifcatory program note reproducing
a letter written to Segovia in 1935 from the French musicologist Marc
Pincherle (1888–1974). This text, as Wade (Wade and Garno 1997a:
86–7) has observed, is a clever piece of propaganda arguing for the
transcription’s legitimacy in reference to Bach’s appreciation of the
lute and positing that the Chaconne’s music is essentially “Andalu-
sian” in character. Transcribing Bach for guitar remained problematic
for some critics and by reproducing this text in the album’s liner notes
Segovia was no doubt intending to quell skepticism on behalf of the
listener. The two Musicraft albums, when taken as a whole, mark a
signifcant step towards the establishment of a Bach-focused recital
tradition on the guitar, offering a foretaste of the later all-Bach albums
of Bream, Yepes and Williams as well as contrasting (in their single
composer focus) with the eclectic “miscellany” of the earlier twentieth-
century guitar recital program that Segovia continued to foreground
on his 1950s recital discs.

RETURN TO ABBEY ROAD

In 1949 Segovia returned to Abbey Road Studios in London to un-
dertake recording sessions (between 21 June and 12 July), this time on
behalf of Columbia in association with EMI, the latter company hav-
ing emerged from the merger of HMV with Columbia in 1931. In con-
trast to his Decca recordings, the music that was issued commercially
from these sessions focused on works by twentieth-century composers,
some re-recorded, others appearing for the frst time – Castelnuovo-
Tedesco (Tarantella), Torroba (second recordings of the Fandanguillo
and Arada from the Suite Castellana), Turina (a second recording of
the Fandanguillo Op. 36), Argentinian composer Jorge Gómez Cre-
spo (Norteña), Heitor Villa-Lobos (Estudos 1 and 8) and Ponce (the
Rondo movement from the Sonata Clásica and the complete Sona-
tina Meridional).9 This in effect marked the resumption of Segovia’s
campaign to document in recorded form the expanding contemporary
guitar repertoire in his preferred neo-Romantic guise. The Villa-Lobos
recordings are particularly notable for being among the earliest made
of this composer’s guitar music, with Segovia’s endorsement in effect
giving a seal of approval to Villa-Lobos’ music as “legitimate” guitar
repertoire.10 Critical reception of the new material was on the whole
positive. Of the Ponce recording the Gramophone’s reviewer wrote,
“This is a novelty. Mostly, guitar pieces are short, and detached. A
sonatina – we might call it a short suite – is unusual” (W.R.A. 1950:
224). Edward Sackville-West wrote that “Turina’s Fandanguillo, and
the Two Studies of Villa-Lobos (Col.) in particular, are worth playing
92 The Recording Model Consolidated

again and again, for each time they appear musically more consider-
able” (1950: 218). Malcolm MacDonald found Segovia’s recording of
Crespo’s Norteña to be a “fascinating addition to his recorded reper-
tory” although he chastised Ponce’s accompanying Rondo (a pastiche
of Fernando Sor), which “not even Segovia can make sound other
than inoffensively dull” (M.M. 1952: 140). The Columbia recordings
also showed a marked advance in sound quality, the guitar now ap-
pearing to be represented within a reverberant acoustic (albeit the
small-room “boxy” character of Abbey Road Studio No.3), and the
improved microphone technology making critics acutely aware of the
detail of Segovia’s playing. Gramophone reviewer L.S. remarked of
Segovia’s Torroba/Turina disc (LX 1248), “My only reservation about
these two admirable sides concerns the distracting squeak of Segovia’s
hand sliding along the neck, which has been picked up very clearly by
the mike” (1950: 145).
A particular landmark for the Columbia sessions was Segovia’s world
premier recording of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Guitar Concerto No. 1 in
D, Op. 99, performed with the New London Orchestra conducted by
Alec Sherman (Columbia discs LX 1404–6). This work, composed in
1939 and performed on a number of occasions by Segovia during the
1940s, is one of the frst signifcant guitar concertos of the twentieth
century. Its appearance is contemporary with two other equally im-
portant works for guitar and orchestra, Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto
de Aranjuez (1939) and Manuel Ponce’s Concierto del Sur (1941), the
Ponce concerto also becoming closely associated with Segovia. In his
liner notes to the 1994 Testament re-issue of the concerto recording,
Duarte (1994) states that this was “probably the frst LP Segovia ever
made, and it is certainly the frst LP of a guitar concerto to be issued
in Britain – a signifcant event in the history of the classical guitar”. It
is interesting to note however that, while LP records were being issued
in the US from 1948, British audiences were at frst only able to experi-
ence Segovia’s concerto recording on three 12-inch 78s. The reason for
this was that EMI, which controlled the manufacturing of Columbia
and HMV recordings in Europe, remained resistant to the introduc-
tion of the LP until 1952 (Gelatt 1977: 296–7).
The signifcance of the Castelnuovo-Tedesco recording, which was
one of the earliest releases of a guitar concerto on disc (only preceded
by Regino Sainz de la Maza’s recording of Rodrigo’s Concierto de
Aranjuez in 1948, also issued by Columbia) is conveyed in Duarte’s re-
view in BMG (October 1951) which makes frequent reference to the re-
cording context. After giving an account of the musical aspects of the
work, and discussing Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s approach to solving the
problem of writing a concerto for an instrument of limited dynamic
range, Duarte underlines the importance of the recording situation for
the successful presentation of the music:

The balance of the guitar and orchestra is perfectly kept and in

a way in which can never be realized in a concert hall. This is the
Segovia at American Decca 93

complete answer to those sceptics and purists who frown on gui-

tar concertos because they can never be adequately realized in the
concert hall. If, for instance, Castelnuovo had concurred with this
idea we should never have had this fne recording – and the more
our loss.
(1951a: 19)

Duarte also praised the sonic quality of the recording (undertaken in

Abbey Road Studio No. 1), which he suggests has “none of the ‘boxi-
ness’ and hollowness that marred the previous solo recordings by Sego-
via on the Columbia label, and every infection of tone and nuance is
faithfully reproduced” (1951a: 20). In a plea for more projects of this
kind, he also made a point of thanking Columbia for undertaking the
recording, urging that listeners purchase the disc, “thus supporting the
enterprise of the Columbia Co. with gratitude – and acquiring a price-
less possession of music” (1951a: 19).

SEGOVIA AT AMERICAN DECCA: REDEFINING THE

CLASSICAL GUITAR IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD
In 1952 Segovia commenced an exclusive contract with the American
Decca label which shaped the development of his recording career
thereafter for nearly two decades. This was announced in Billboard on
29 March 1952, where it was described as “an exclusive waxing pact”,
for which “the Spanish classical guitar artist will be recorded both here
and in Europe”. The deal entailed creating a “basic catalog of guitar
works both as solo musician and with symphonic orchestras and cho-
ral groups”, all of which would be released on Decca’s Gold Label
(Anon 1952b: 44). The Decca Gold Label series, introduced in 1950,
represented American Decca’s bid to establish a reputation for quality
within the classical music marketplace and Segovia’s recordings con-
stituted an important fagship for the new direction.11 The ambitions
of the series were outlined by Segovia’s frst American Decca producer,
Simon Rady (Director of Classical and Children Records), in a 1954
Billboard article:

With a large and important popular catalog in hand and con-

stantly growing, Decca was wise enough to realize that the well-
founded catalog must have the cream topping. A record catalog
simply is not a record catalog without classical music. […] It wasn’t
until 1950 with the creation of its Gold Label series, that Decca en-
tered the classical recording feld with consistency and permanent
interest.
(Rady 1954: 36)

American Decca (also referred to as the Decca Record Company

Inc. (USA)) was established in 1934 as the American arm of British
Decca.12 Initially focused on popular music13 and jazz, by 1935 the
94 The Recording Model Consolidated

label had also begun to develop a reputation for producing afford-

able recordings of classical orchestral music, which it continued to
build upon during the 1940s and 1950s (Gelatt 1977). After the label
became independent from its British counterpart in 1939 (Cerchiari
2012), American Decca LPs were marketed in the UK on its “Bruns-
wick” label (based in London) while British Decca LPs sold in the
US were marketed under the “London Gramophone Corporation”.
Hence Segovia’s albums through to the late 1960s were issued in the
US by American Decca (later under MCA) on its Gold Label series
and, in the UK, on its Brunswick label,14 although not all Segovia’s
American Decca recordings received a British release. It is also im-
portant to add that the UK-based Brunswick operation had no in-
volvement in the engineering and production of Segovia’s recordings,
the majority of which were undertaken in American Decca’s New
York studios. In this and subsequent chapters all post-1950 Segovia
recordings are referred to by their Decca issue numbers rather than
the Brunswick ones.

THE LP AND THE STRUCTURE OF SEGOVIA’S EARLY

RECORDED PROGRAMS
A key factor in the evolution of Segovia’s recording practice with
American Decca was the emergence of the 33⅓ Long-Playing (LP).
This groundbreaking new format for the presentation of recorded mu-
sic had been developed for CBS by Peter Goldmark and William S.
Bachman in the mid-1940s and was frst introduced to the marketplace
in 1948 (Goldmark 1973). Goldmark’s instigation for creating the LP
had been to improve the experience of recorded classical music, partic-
ularly in regard to continuity within extended movements, which had
been an impossibility with time limited 78 rpm records whose brevity
necessitated repeated interruption when transitioning between discs.15
Gelatt (1977: 293–294) summarizes the main benefts of the LP me-
dium as follows:

LP records offered listeners the cherishable satisfaction of hear-

ing recorded performances without breaks in continuity; they
minimized the twin woes of surface scratch and record wear; they
alleviated the problem of storage; they provided more music per
dollar than had ever been offered before …. These considerations,
together with a continuing improvement in LP sound quality, gave
Columbia’s new product substantial support from those dedicated
collectors of classical music who spent $100 or more per year en-
larging their record libraries.

For a period there remained a resistance to the LP format, partic-

ularly in Great Britain, much of the debate being played out in the
editorial pages of the Gramophone during the late 1940s and early
Segovia at American Decca 95

1950s (see MacKenzie 1949, 1950). Criticisms included concerns with

quality control: microgroove technology was initially more unforgiv-
ing of small imperfections in surfaces and there was the problem of
deterioration in quality when dubbing old 78s to LPs (back cata-
logues were initially a primary source of material for the LP format).
One of the most interesting questions concerned the organization
of the content of LPs now that the playing time had been increased.
In particular commentators speculated on whether, given that music
previously occupying two sides of a 78 could now be placed on a
single side, this would result in records having to include un-related
(and therefore unwanted) fller on the fip side to fll up the remain-
ing space (MacKenzie 1950: 195). To put it another way, critics were
continuing to evaluate the programming of LPs in terms of the 78
paradigm – as essentially a vehicle for the consumption of short mu-
sical items of between 3 to 4 minutes in length but now with the
conundrum of how to utilize the extra space. One solution proposed
was the “programme” record, which was discussed by Gramophone
critic C. S. Neale in a more optimistic evaluation of the situation in
April 1951:

It has been argued that the LP record is an unsuitable medium for

the recording of short works and in an effort at overcoming this
defect, we have seen the introduction of the “programme” record
which consists of a collection of separate short items. Although
this may not be an altogether desirable solution of the problem,
there is a steady demand for these records which indicates that,
while they may be frowned upon by individual collectors, they are
not universally unpopular. For those who demand one short work
and no other, the 78 rpm. record is likely to remain at least for the
present.
(Neale, 1951: 260)

Ironically it was the “programme” record (also referred to as the “re-

cital disc”) that most closely cohered with the structure of the classical
guitar recital at this time, which tended to focus on collections of short
pieces rather than larger extended works. This allowed Segovia to
transition quite smoothly into the new recording format, the question
being simply one of deciding on an appropriate ordering of the reper-
toire he was recording. The content of his frst three LPs, for example,
was recorded in bulk during the period March–April 1952,16 with the
resultant material being distributed across each disc chronologically
in the manner of an historical survey recital program. Album titles
unambiguously function to invoke the idea of the concert experience –
An Andrés Segovia Recital (DL 9633), An Andrés Segovia Concert (DL
9638), An Andrés Segovia Program (DL 9647), while Martin Diller’s
liner notes echo the traditional concert program format in their short
vignettes explaining the provenance of each item, accompanied by
96 The Recording Model Consolidated

“stock” biographical material reprinted from DL-8022. The programs

for Segovia’s frst three albums are shown below:

An Andrés Segovia An Andrés Segovia An Andrés Segovia

Recital (DL 9633) Concert (DL 9638) Program (DL 9647)
Side 1: Side 1: Side 1:
Mudarra, Romanesca Milan, Fantasía Milan, Pavana (originally
(originally for vihuela) (originally for vihuela)
for vihuela)
Weiss (actually by De Visée, Suite in D
Handel, Sarabande and
Ponce), Prelude, Ballet minor Minuet (presumably
and Gigue (the latter Segovia transc.)
Sors (sic), Variations
from the Suite in A) on a Theme by Gluck (Dance of the
Bach, Prelude from Mozart Op. 9 Blessed Spirits)
Cello Suite No. 1 in G Bach, Sicilienne from
BWV 1007; Gavotte I Side 2: Violin Sonata No. 1 in
and II from Cello SuiteHandel, Allegretto G minor BWV 1001 and
No. 6 in D BWV 1012 Grazioso and Gavotte Bourrée from Lute Suite in
(transc. Segovia) E minor BWV 996
Bach, Bourrée from
Sor, Allegro from Partita No. 1 in B
Grand Sonata Op. 25 Side 2:
minor BWV 1002 and
(ed. Segovia) Courante from Cello Sor, Minuet from Grand
Side 2: Suite No. 3 in C BWV Sonata Op. 25
1009 Chopin, Prelude in A Op.
Mendelssohn, Song 28 No. 7 (Segovia transc.)
without Words Op. 19 Giuliani, Allegro
No 6 (transc. Segovia) spiritoso from Sonata Schumann, Romanza
in C Op. 15 (transc. Segovia)
Schubert, Menuetto
from Piano Sonata Falla, Homenaje, Paganini/Ponce, Andantino
in G Op. 78 (transc. Pour le Tombeau de Variato
Tárrega) Debussy Brahms, Waltz, Op. 39 No.
Torroba, Sonatina in A Villa-Lobos, Étude 2 (Segovia transc.)
(1923) (Estudo) No. 7 Torroba, Madroños (c. 1929)
(c. 1929)
Albéniz, Leyenda Villa-Lobos, Prelude
(transc. Segovia) No. 1 (1940)

These programs encapsulate some of the key facets of Segovia’s re-

cording practice with American Decca during the early–mid 1950s.
Firstly they refect a process of consolidating his existing concert rep-
ertoire in recorded form, including the re-recording of earlier material.
Here one can imagine that Segovia would have been keen to re-visit past
recordings of works in the light of improved technology, as well em-
brace the opportunity to document new interpretations. In addition, the
possibility now presented itself for Segovia to record complete versions
of works that he had previously only been able to partially represent in
the 78 rpm format, such as the Torroba Sonatina. A proportion of the
repertoire on these LPs also continued to be derived from transcriptions
of works from earlier epochs and from other instrumental contexts such
as the cello, violin and piano, many of which were made by Segovia
Segovia at American Decca 97

himself.17 There is little sense, initially at least, that the extended LP

format was prompting the consideration of longer pieces – for example,
rather than recording the whole of Sor’s Grand Sonata Op. 25 for a
single album (as Rey de la Torre had done with Sor’s Op. 22 for Alle-
gro during this same period), Segovia opted to include only isolated
movements, one on DL 9633 and another on DL 9647. In essence, the
LP format was offering a convenient means of accommodating the full
gamut of material from a typical Segovia miscellany recital, cohering
with Segovia’s general aims as a recording artist, as outlined in his brief
recorded message placed at the end of Side 6 of the celebratory Golden
Jubilee box set (1959): here Segovia states that records for him play two
roles – “as the eagerly awaited herald of my concerts, or in following
them soon after as a musical souvenir of what has already been heard”.
Another signifcant aspect of Segovia’s early 1950s American Decca
recordings, which was also engendered by the emergence of the LP, was
their visual presentation, which drew upon contemporary art aesthetics.
This was a purposeful strategy for the Gold Label series, which Rady
regarded as being of equal importance to the recordings themselves:

To match the prestige of the Gold Label line, we pursued a spe-

cialized packaging idea founded on developing a highly artistic
presentation for the fne recordings. Decca’s application of mod-
ern art forms for album covers has earned the company plaudits
around the world.
(Rady 1954: 52)

For Segovia’s 1952 albums, An Andrés Segovia Recital, An Andrés

Segovia Concert and An Andrés Segovia Program, the cover art
was created by Eric Nitsche (1908–1998), a Swiss artist infuenced
by Bauhaus and Art Deco traditions who was prevalent in Ameri-
can graphic design during the 1950s (Heller 2004). Nitsche’s sleeves
adopt what might be most appropriately described as a “scientifc”
aesthetic, characterized by limited color and the use of geometric
confgurations of shapes, which often allude to, or emphasize, par-
ticular details of the guitar, such as the sound hole, or suggest its
sounding properties. A similarly abstract approach is apparent in
the artwork for Segovia’s 1954 discs, An Evening with Andrés Sego-
via (DL 9733), Andrés Segovia Plays (DL 9734) and Bach: Chaconne
(DL 9751), which were illustrated by Alex Steinweiss (1917–2011), a
pioneering fgure in the evolution of the album cover in the 1940s18
and 1950s. The modernism of the Nitsche/Steinweiss covers at frst
appears at odds, and even in tension with, Segovia’s more traditional
musical inclinations. However, their abstract design can be seen to
have served a useful marketing purpose at time when it was still nec-
essary to convince American audiences that the guitar could be a
vehicle for serious classical music performance. In particular the art-
work eschews conventional imagery referring to stereotyped musi-
cal contexts associated with the guitar, serving to neutralize listener
98 The Recording Model Consolidated

pre-conceptions about the instrument or its musical provenance.

This aesthetic only lasted for a brief period however. Around the
time of Rady’s departure from American Decca in 1956, Segovia’s
album covers for a period moved away from modernist abstraction
to a more conventional depictions of performance settings – as seen
on Segovia and the Guitar and Masters of the Guitar, for example.
Then, from 1958 onwards they were distinguished by a new fgurative
aesthetic developed by Vladimir Bobri (1898–1986).

REPERTOIRE PROGRAMMING AND EVOLUTION OF THE

SEGOVIAN ALBUM CONCEPT
According to Segovia’s producer Israel Horowitz, decisions about
what to record were always frst and foremost Segovia’s: “Noone goes
to Segovia and says, ‘This is what we want to record – go prepare it.’
You don’t work with him that way. There is some discretion, and very
often I may have some infuence when it comes down to options, but
Segovia decides what he is going to record more than most artists”
(Kozinn 1978b: 58). The freedom granted to Segovia in choosing what
to record obviously had much to do with American Decca’s desire to
maintain the good will of one of their most important artists. Also,
given the still ambiguous nature of the guitar as a “classical” instru-
ment during the 1950s, it would have made sense for the label to be
led by Segovia’s unique expertise in this area. To put it another away,
American Decca’s classical guitar recording paradigm at this time was
being shaped from the perspective of the artist rather than a generic
record company remit to make a “classical guitar” album.
In the early period of his recording career, the specifc content of
Segovia’s albums was largely determined by the repertoire he was pre-
paring for his concert tours. However, he would also sometimes se-
lect repertoire with the recording process specifcally in mind (Kozinn
1978b). This is indicated in some of the deviations in Segovia’s early
American Decca recordings away from the miscellany program to-
wards a more “thematic” approach. An Evening with Andrés Segovia
(DL 9733), for example, is essentially a vehicle for the promotion of
works written for Segovia by his favorite contemporary composers
– Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Capriccio Diabolico (1935), Ponce’s Six Pre-
ludes (c.1930), Torroba’s Nocturno (1926) and the recently commis-
sioned Cavatina Suite by Polish composer Alexandre Tansman, which
had won frst prize at the 1951 Accademia Chigiana Competition in
Siena. Segovia’s 1954 Bach: Chaconne album (DL 9751) also partially
departs from the predominantly mixed recital structure with Side 1
exclusively devoted to works by Bach, providing concentrated focus
on the work of a single composer. The content of this recording in fact
echoes the earlier Musicraft discs M-85 and M-90 both in Segovia’s
choices of repertoire (the Prelude BWV 999, Chaconne BWV 1004
and Gavotte en Rondeau from Violin Partita No. 3 BWV 1006) and in
the fact that liner note in this instance reproduces the Marc Pincherle
Segovia at American Decca 99

letter used on the original M-85 cover, which argues for the Cha-
conne’s effcacy in transcription for the guitar. Side 2, by way of relief
from the intellectual intensity of the preceding music, reverts to the
more typical mixture of shorter, more lightweight pieces by Sor and
Mendelssohn with Villa-Lobos (the Bach infuenced Prelude No. 3)
as the contemporary choice. Another album which suggests a move
away from the mixed historical program is Masters of the Guitar (DL
9794), which contains music by two composers only – Side 1 is de-
voted to works of Fernando Sor and Side 2, a selection of Francisco
Tárrega favorites.
The critical reception of Segovia’s American Decca recordings
during the 1950s and 1960s provides valuable insight into the changing
perspectives of reviewers regarding classical guitar LP programming.
In the early 1950s, critics accustomed to the miscellaneous format of
the Segovian guitar recital generally recognized and accepted its emu-
lation on disc. Of DL 9633 for example, Gramophone’s reviewer (A.P.)
wrote, “a better cross-section of the guitar repertory could hardly be
devised” (1953: 261). However, even at this time there were hints of a
growing dissatisfaction with the overall effect of the mixed program
format as revealed in an LP context. Observing the “miscellaneous”
character of DL 9638, Malcolm MacDonald implied that this was a
product of the medium itself – “the twelve-inch LP recital is not an
ideal medium for the gramophonic presentation of anything” (M.M.
1953: 104). A year later MacDonald showed considerably more exas-
peration at the repetitiveness of Segovia’s programming strategy on
DL 9647:

The mixture as before: a succession of tiny pieces chosen, well,

from nearly all the different channels of supply open …. All of
them good ones; and the whole recital – we expect it so much as
a matter of course that it barely seems worth mentioning – both
played and recorded with utter perfection. Does this perfection,
though, extend to the fundamental idea of the constant provision
of such a long succession of tiny pieces?
(1954: 260)

With reference to Segovia’s habit of isolating single movements, he

also commented on the problem of the “serious guitar work – for
whose recognition Segovia has fought for so long” being “purposely
cut up into short separate movements”, adding, “If Sor’s Minuet is
acceptable, surely its parent Sonata would be?” (1954: 260). Critics
also raised questions about the effcacy of certain transcriptions, or
whether particular aspects of the classical guitar literature themselves
constituted appropriate material for recording. Discussing DL 9734, a
High Fidelity reviewer noted, for example, that some of Segovia’s tran-
scriptions (of Haydn, Grieg and Franck) were not “likely subjects” for
guitar repertoire, although he added “none of these, thanks to Sego-
via’s brilliant transcriptions, and his great musicianship, seem in the
100 The Recording Model Consolidated

least out of place” (J.F.I. 1955: 66). Discussing Segovia’s 1962 Granada
album (DL 710063), BMG’s Discus commented that:

The primarily didactic studies of the guitar’s classic composers are

basic to the proper study of the instrument and some come near to
genuine musical beauty but practically all are debatable material
for the recording studio or even the concert platform on to which
they so often trespass.
(Discus 1964: 204)

Discus also echoed MacDonald’s views in his observations that Side

2’s music did “little to make this a substantial whole”, and question-
ing why only one movement of Ponce’s Sonatina Meridional should
have been included on the album. The inclusion of Spanish Dance
No. 5 by Granados, he also felt was “overworked”. Like many critics,
Discus could not fault Segovia’s unique sound, but he saw this as no
compensation for the repertoire shortcomings on the album: “playing
of a beauty that has yet to be matched by anyone else is not quite
enough” (1964: 204). Critics also became more exacting in their criti-
cism of Segovia’s interpretative idiosyncrasies; Discus (1955: 85), for
example, holding him to account for not observing his own dynamic
and tempo instructions in the published score of Ponce’s Preludes on
DL 9733. In reference to the Granada album, Gramophone critic Mal-
colm MacDonald raised a “heretical” question in regard to Segovia’s
performing style:

Segovia plays with all his old style and skill, though with a rhyth-
mic freedom, particularly in the Spanish pieces, that seemed to me
to hold up the progress of the music somewhat. Conscious of ut-
tering a very great heresy, I should now hastily add that the record-
ing of the disc is certainly very good.
(1963: 16)

Criticism of Segovia’s LP programming also extended to his contem-

porary repertoire choices which were often felt by reviewers to lack
substance or be ineffective on the guitar. Reviewing DL 9733, Dis-
cus suggested that Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Capriccio Diabolico was “a
sheer waste of recording time”, although Tansman’s Cavatina Suite
“alone is worth the price of the record” (1955: 85). High Fidelity’s re-
viewer on the other hand commented that Tansman’s Cavatina while
“quite lush in sound and sophisticated in make-up, is much too long
for its slight material” (R.E. 1954: 78). Regarding the same disc Gram-
ophone’s Malcolm MacDonald, after complaining (once again) that
“this twelve-inch omnibus is carrying too many passengers”, found cer-
tain contemporary items to be “too short” (the Ponce) while ironically
suggesting the Capriccio Diabolico was “very considerably too long”
and the Tansman to be “none too effectively laid out for the guitar”
(M.M. 1955: 531). Such reviews highlight the continued questioning
Segovia at American Decca 101

of the tenets of the Segovian repertoire concept, which was to become

more pronounced as younger classical guitarists began to emerge onto
the scene with contrasting musical outlooks.
From the mid-1950s, however, Segovia’s album programs begin to
exhibit a greater willingness to explore the potential of the LP format
for the presentation of repertoire in ways that were not completely
reliant upon the conventional recital structure. Signifcantly this coin-
cided with the inception of Segovia’s relationship with producer Israel
Horowitz (1916–2008) with whom he sustained a long-term working
relationship through to his fnal recordings in the late 1970s. Horow-
itz was a classically trained musician who had studied violin at the
Juilliard School of Music, and prior to his arrival at Decca, had also
been a reporter for Billboard in the late 1940s.19 From 1958 until 1971
Horowitz was the director of classical artists and repertory for Decca,
and in addition to his long association with Segovia, worked with nu-
merous major artists including Leopold Stokowski, Ruggiero Ricci
and Noah Greenburg and the great famenco guitarist Sabicas (Koz-
inn 2009). Horowitz states that upon joining the label, he met Segovia
“very quickly because he was obviously the No. 1 priority”, adding that
“I adored the man and his work, and as a romanticist in many ways,
I was very moved by his playing and his presence” (Smith 2002: 18).
His view that the role of the producer was “to create an atmosphere so
that the best that’s available at the time comes through”, enabled him
to work in a manner that suited Segovia’s often temperamental ap-
proach to recording and capture his best performances. From an A &
R perspective Horowitz was also interested in expanding Segovia’s ex-
isting recording profle and, while accepting the precedent of Segovia’s
preference for the recital structure of his earlier recordings, was keen
to encourage alternative approaches to programming. In an interview
for Guitar Player in 1978, he commented that:

He [Segovia] tends to look upon an album as two program

segments – the way he might give them in concert. Again this is
not for every album, but in general. I must say that this is an area
where, as a record person, I would occasionally prefer to have con-
cept albums.
(Kozinn 1978b: 58)

Horowitz’s frst project with Segovia was Segovia and the Guitar (DL
9931), recorded in 1956, an LP which signaled a major departure from
the guitarist’s typical approach to building his recording programs in
terms of short pieces. Here the whole of the second side of the album is
devoted to the Fantasía Sonata by the Spanish composer Joan Manén,
an extended 20-minute work that had been written for Segovia many
years previously (it was published by Schott in 1930). Manén’s piece
was, relatively speaking, an abstract musical conception which con-
spicuously lacked the immediate melodic appeal of the typical Segovia
repertoire. Its appearance in a Segovia recording caused critics to take
102 The Recording Model Consolidated

notice. High Fidelity’s reviewer commented that the album was Sego-
via’s best to date because “the contemporary work by Manén, which
occupies one side, is of high quality” and “of primary value because
in using the full coloristic resources of the guitar it elicits some of the
artist’s most magical playing” (R.E. 1957b: 83). A good proportion of
the review is devoted to the Manén piece and its value, the critic con-
cluding that Segovia’s performance should make it “very popular”, as
well as remarking on the fact that the transcriptions of earlier music by
Narváez, Dowland and Scarlatti that occupied Side 1 had a “purity”
that balanced “the heady richness” of the piece. This sheds interesting
light on the criteria by which critics were prepared to judge classical
guitar recordings – that the inclusion of lengthier and more substan-
tial music appeared in their minds to then mitigate the miscellaneous
character of other parts of the same recording.
Segovia’s association with Horowitz also coincided with an import-
ant new phase in the visual presentation of his LPs. From the late
1950s onwards these were designed by Vladimir Bobri, a Ukrainian
graphic artist who had emigrated to the United States in 1921, where
he quickly became recognized for his advertising copy and children’s
books. As a guitarist and able composer, he was also actively involved
with the Society of the Classic Guitar in New York and its infuential
pro-Segovia periodical, the Guitar Review, for which he contributed ar-
ticles and illustrations. His close association with Segovia began when
he painted the frst of many portraits of the guitarist in 1936 (McK-
enna 1987). Bobri’s artwork, which featured almost continuously on
Segovia’s recordings from 1958 until 1970, was characterized by a sim-
ple, elegant fgurative style, which often drew attention to aspects of
the album’s musical program or concept. One of his most recognized
images is the engraved profle portrait of Segovia which was published
in Guitar Review in 1959 to commemorate his 50 years on the concert
stage. This subsequently became the artwork for the 1964 Platero and
I (Second Series) album. Bobri’s artwork also appears on the follow-
ing LPs: Three Centuries of the Guitar (DL 710034), the Golden Jubi-
lee box set, Segovia (DL 710043), Five Pieces from Platero and I (DL
710054), Segovia (DL 710112), Mexicana (DL 710145), and Castles of
Spain (DL 710171). His cover for the Granada LP (DL 710063), which
depicts the iconic Andalusian city, received a Grammy for “Best Al-
bum Cover – Classical” in 1963.
After the Manén album, Segovia’s next project with Horowitz was
more substantial in its scope – a three-disc Golden Jubilee collection
(DXJ 148 released in late 1958) which was initiated to mark the fftieth
anniversary of Segovia’s frst concert appearance in Granada in 1909.
This was a lavish box set presentation which included a booklet con-
taining excerpts from Segovia’s autobiography (then in progress), and
essays by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Bernard Gavoty and Vladimir Bobri,
whose visual aesthetic also informed the elegant imagery and general
design of the package. The concept of the Golden Jubilee set was, in
essence, Segovia himself, and the distinctive musical identity he had
Segovia at American Decca 103

created for the classical guitar over a long career. All the recordings
contained therein were new and ranged widely across the historical
repertoire, including previously unrecorded music by Baroque-era
composers Ludovico Roncalli (1654–1713) and Santiago de Murcia
(1673–1739). Segovia’s favorite modern composers were also well rep-
resented, namely Castelnuovo-Tedesco (a complete recording of the
Sonata “Omaggio a Boccherini”), Ponce (the fourth movement of the
Sonata Mexicana and a Prelude in the “Weiss” style for the uncom-
mon combination of guitar and harpsichord, performed with Rafael
Puyana), Óscar Esplá (a miniature entitled Antaño), Tansman (Three
Pieces for Guitar, anticipating the later Suite in Modo Polonico), Ro-
drigo (Fandango, dedicated to Segovia) and Torroba (a complete re-
cording of the Piezas Caracteristicas). Of even greater signifcance,
however, were the two guitar concertos that occupied the fnal disc
– Ponce’s Concierto del Sur (1941) and Rodrigo’s Fantasía para un Gen-
tilhombre (1954). Both were world premier recordings of major gui-
tar works dedicated to Segovia, which, in addition to constituting a
unique and defnitive interpretative perspective on the music, also set
a precedent for guitar concerto recording practice per se, particularly
in regard to their utilization of the sumptuous acoustic of the Pythian
Temple. The Golden Jubilee set was enthusiastically received by critics
on both sides of the Atlantic, who approved the included repertoire
and praised the sonic quality of the recordings, in effect serving to
rejuvenate Segovia’s position as a recording artist.
From the early 1960s Horowitz’s infuence on Segovia’s album pro-
gramming in terms of concepts, as opposed to conventional recital
structures can be more frequently discerned in his recorded output.
The focus of his 1961 Boccherini–Cassadó/Bach album (DL 710043),
for example, was on cello transcriptions for guitar. Side 1 featured
cellist-composer Gaspar Cassadó’s transcription of Boccherini’s Cello
Concerto No. 6 for guitar and orchestra, which was in effect an ex-
periment with new repertoire possibilities in an ensemble context, co-
hering with Segovia’s oft-cited ambition to bring the guitar into the
larger instrumental setting. The album’s liner notes quote Cassadó’s
Pincherle-like justifcation for undertaking the transcription, “to en-
rich the repertoire … with a composition of the classical era which
might prove adaptable to the guitar without sacrifcing either the har-
monic character or the artistic spirit of the work”. On Side 2 was Sego-
via’s recording, in its entirety, of the Bach Cello Suite No. 3 in C major
BWV 1009, in a recent transcription (to the key of A major) by John
W. Duarte. This was the frst time that Segovia had committed a full
Bach suite to record, a development that may have been inspired by the
recent recording of the same transcription by John Williams in 1959.
Another Duarte musical contribution – his well-known English Suite,
composed for Segovia in 1962 – also featured on the later Segovia on
Stage album (1967).
A number of Segovia’s albums of the 1960s function as platforms
for the promotion of new works written for him by his preferred
104 The Recording Model Consolidated

contemporary composers. DL 710054 (1962) for example, is focused

on selections from Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Platero and I, a collection of
28 pieces inspired by the poems of Juan Ramón Jimenez. Bobri’s cover
emphasizes the album’s theme in its depiction of the poet with Platero,
“the small silver-gray donkey who accompanied the poet on his travels
and was the confdant of his most intimate thoughts”, while the nar-
ratives of the fve related poems are outlined in a detailed liner note
written by Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Side 2 of the album resorts to the
conventional mixed program, a typical strategy of Segovia when pro-
gramming new and unfamiliar material in his recitals. The standard-
ization of Segovia’s practice in this regard is noted by Shirley Fleming
in her liner notes for the Castles of Spain album (DL 710171):

It is also in the tradition of a Segovia recital that the new work be

balanced by a wide ranging selection of pieces drawn from the sev-
enteenth century onwards: lute music, original guitar music, tran-
scriptions from piano – here, too Segovia (for many years almost
single-handedly) has built a concert repertoire for the instrument.
(Fleming 1970)

Five more pieces from the Platero and I sequence are included on the
1964 “second series” disc (DL 710093), where they now function as
Side 2 fller to the more substantial Ponce Sonata Romántica on Side
1. The latter highlighted Segovia’s continuing commitment to docu-
menting the composer’s major guitar pieces (the Thème Varié et Finale
had already been recorded on DL 9734 and Sonata III on DL 9795).
Two large-scale Ponce works also appeared on the LP Mexicana (DL
710145, released 1967) – the Sonata Mexicana (an early composition
written for Segovia in 1923) and the Sonata Clásica (1930), a light-
hearted neo-classical work written in homage to Fernando Sor. Al-
exandre Tansman’s Suite in Modo Polonico is the main focus of DL
710112 (1965), a work inspired by ancient courtly dances of Poland,
which occupies the whole of Side 1. Again the visual presentation
matches the concept with the overt nationalistic implications of the
music being given visual form in the costumed fgures shown in Bo-
bri’s album artwork. Side 2 is focused on two other works dedicated to
Segovia, Federico Mompou’s Suite Compostelana and the Dos Minia-
turas by Mariá Esteban de Valera (a close friend of Segovia who was
also a composer). The title of Castles of Spain (1970), Segovia’s last
important recital album for Decca/MCA, refers to Castillos de España,
a suite of eight pieces written for him by Torroba, each inspired by
Spanish history, landscape and architecture.
During the 1960s Segovia’s recordings continued to be well received
by the critics who, while continuing to express reservations about the
substance of the contemporary works he was performing, accepted
that in Segovia’s hands they could be made to speak effectively. The
prevailing critical perspective on Segovia’s recorded output at the end
of the 1960s is succinctly expressed in the closing remarks of a High
Segovia at American Decca 105

Fidelity reviewer of The Unique Art of Andrés Segovia (DL 710167,

1969). With this LP Segovia had once again reverted to the typical
potpourri-style selection of short pieces – Milan, Bach, Albéniz and
Villa-Lobos – which provided an easily digestible backdrop to world
premier recordings of new pieces by Tansman (Prelude from the Suite,
Hommage à Chopin) and American composer, Albert Harris (Varia-
tions and Fugue on a Theme of Handel):

If one wants to carp it could he pointed out that such a feast of

expressivity tends to become just a bit too rich for easy diges-
tion, and that the maestro’s persuasive personality tends to blur
the individualities of the composers. But it is of course Segovia
himself – “the same yesterday, today, and forever” – who is the
prime magnetic appeal here. And surely his multitudinous admir-
ers would not wish it any other way.
(R.D.D. 1969: 128)

Segovia’s relationship with American Decca endured until 1970 when

MCA (which had acquired the label in 1962) began to reduce its classi-
cal provision and move the focus to popular music. At this point Sego-
via decided to part ways with the company because “I did not want to
be mixed with the hippies” (Kozinn 1978a: 104). After his departure
from MCA Segovia made a small number of recordings for the Span-
ish label Discos Movieplay S.A. (established in the late 1960s) which
were issued by RCA during the 1970s. On these sessions he continued
to work closely with Horowitz and also beneftted from the skills of
Spanish engineers such as Juan Vinader (1946–2019) and Fernando
Braso (b. 1951) who maintained the sonic excellence of Segovia’s re-
cordings. The miscellaneous program model is once again reinstated as
a general structural principle, as evident, for example, on My Favorite
Encores (1973), which, as the title suggests, featured popular works
“which I choose to reward the audience when, after the regular por-
tion of my concert is over, they ask for encores”. Intimate Guitar Vol. 2
(1976) was more adventurous, refecting, in Shirley Fleming’s words,
“the range of Segovia’s activities – as transcriber, of course (and espe-
cially a transcriber of Bach); as an explorer ferreting out little-known
original guitar music, and as an inspiration to contemporary com-
posers” (Fleming 1976). Of particular interest on this album are the
several pieces from Bach’s Anna Magdalena Notebook on Side A and
two contemporary works written for Segovia – Gustav Samazeuilh’s
short Sérénade and the more substantial 10-minute Diferencias sobre
un Tema by José Muñoz Molleda. Samazeuilh’s piece had been pub-
lished as early 1926 and appeared here as the premier recording, while
Molleda’s had been written as recently as 1975, but stylistically both
closely cohered with Segovia’s conservative musical tastes. Another
contemporary composer in whom Segovia became interested during
this period was Vicente Asencio (a native of Spain), whose music ap-
pears both on Intimate Guitar Vol. 1 (1975) and Segovia’s fnal album,
106 The Recording Model Consolidated

Reveries (1978). The latter disc also featured a number of new tran-
scriptions of piano music by Robert Schumann, including selections
from Album for the Young, Op. 68.

SEGOVIA IN THE STUDIO

During his American Decca period Segovia retained his ambivalent at-
titude towards the recording process, tending to regard it as an inconve-
nience that served to promote his live performance career. Nonetheless,
as Horowitz (Kozinn 1978b) has confrmed he understood and respected
the requirements of the recording situation and was for the most part
happy to cooperate with the necessary technicalities. Shirley Fleming
offers a revealing portrait of Segovia during a 1961 recording session for
the Boccherini–Cassadó Guitar Concerto album (DL 710043):

Through all the multiple details of experimenting with balances

and adjusting tempos he remains patient, becoming annoyed only
at his own rare mistakes, when he will slap his knee in exasperation
and, in French, beg “pardon, pardon”.
(Fleming 1961: 10)

At other times however, Segovia could quickly grow impatient with

the preparations involved in setting up a recording. Horowitz observed
that he “was already performing from the frst take, and sometimes
the best performances were missed because we weren’t ready yet”
(Lehmann-Haupt 2002: 23). Thomas Frost, who worked as a producer
at American Decca from 1952–57 and assisted on Segovia’s early re-
cordings for the label, thought that recording for Segovia “was torture”
principally because he “felt the great responsibility of laying down the
work for posterity” (Harvith and Harvith 1987: 360). Segovia told
Shirley Fleming that,

I would rather give ten concerts than make one record and I would
rather make ten records than be once on television. But the micro-
phone is – what is the word? – inhibiting. When you record and are
thinking that you play a piece for eternity, it is hard to play it well
in the present.
(Fleming 1961: 10)

By the time Segovia had begun to record with American Decca in the
1950s the introduction of magnetic tape had begun to offer consid-
erably increased fexibility for recording and editing. In spite of this
Segovia retained the one-take approach to recording he had been used
to in the 1920s and 1930s when recording for HMV. Thomas Frost
remarked that:

He [Segovia] didn’t like performances to be spliced. He recorded

some very diffcult transcriptions which were seemingly impossible
Segovia at American Decca 107

to play on the guitar; he always felt guilty when there was a certain
amount of splicing because he felt he should have been able to play
the pieces note perfect the frst time.
(Harvith and Harvith 1987: 359–60)

Asked whether there were “hardly any splices in those early Decca
Segovia recordings”, Frost confrmed that there “are considerably
fewer splices than in most recordings that are produced today with
a guitarist, a pianist, or other soloists” (Harvith and Harvith 1987:
360).20 Discussing Segovia’ recording career in the late 1970s Israel
Horowitz corroborates Frost’s analysis of his recording approach:

The most diffcult thing for [Segovia] to do is to record a short

segment of a piece. He does not share the contemporary view of
the studio taken by many younger artists, who have grown up with
medium …. When he does a performance, it is always a complete
performance. He does not like to chop up a movement.
(Kozinn 1978b: 58)

Horowitz explained that if there were problems with a take then rather
than homing in on a bar or group of notes, Segovia would prefer to
play the entire piece over again. For Segovia “Every take for him is a
performance” and “you know that a recording by Segovia will not be
a fragmented montage” (Kozinn 1978b: 60). According to Horowitz
Segovia rarely did more than three takes, of which the frst would usu-
ally be the best, and he would then select from these for the master.
He eventually came to accept small adjustments being made to his re-
cordings to correct problems and trusted Horowitz with dealing with
these in his absence. Horowitz recalls, for example, an instance when
Segovia contacted him while on tour to ask for the three chords at
the beginning of the Boccherini concerto (the Cassadó transcription
on DL 710043) to be given “more strength” which in practical terms
entailed a 2dB boost in the mastering (Lehmann-Haupt 2002). On the
other hand Segovia was not concerned with the use of micro-editing to
remove fnger-squeak noises from the recorded sound. While this was
a concern of some engineers at Decca, Horowitz comments that “it
never really bothered Segovia, and it never bothered me, either; it went
with the playing” (Lehmann-Haupt 2002: 24).
In the 1950s the single-take approach was very much in keeping with
the prevailing orthodoxy which held that to compile a classical music
performance from a number of shorter takes was essentially inauthen-
tic. This perspective was fueled by the writings of infuential critics
in publications such as High Fidelity and Gramophone. The views ex-
pressed here ranged from the idea that splicing ruined the integrity of
a performance, or as Glenn Gould (1966: 52) put it, “the claim that
the common splice sabotages some unifed architectural conception
which they assume the performer possesses”, to the notion that such
practices could be used to disguise poor musicianship. In an article
108 The Recording Model Consolidated

entitled “Pangs of Progress”, published in High Fidelity in January

1958, Roland Gelatt wrote that:

A musician imperfectly equipped for the task at hand can, to be

sure, overcome certain mechanical problems by taping a piece a
number of times: afterward a reasonably note-perfect composite
can be made of the best moments from each “take”. But does any-
body imagine that this artifcial tape-splicing results in a truly con-
vincing performance?
(1958: 41)

Gelatt then compared what he called the “malefactions of magnetic

tape” with earlier processes of cutting straight to disc, which he sug-
gested (inaccurately as it turned out) were being revived:

Any veteran recording artist will confrm that the challenge of the
unpatchable wax blank stimulated a musician to do his utmost,
and today more and more performers in the recording studio are
getting away from the “we can repair it later” philosophy in favor
of a return to the old principles.
(1958: 41)

Among classical guitarists Segovia was by no means alone in his pref-

erence for the single-take approach during the 1950s. His contem-
porary Rey de la Torre, for example, regarded recording as akin to a
concert performance and preferred to record in “complete takes, with
no splices” (Weller 2005). Alexandre Lagoya, whose earliest recordings
(in duet with his wife, Ida Presti) date to the mid-1950s, made the fol-
lowing comments regarding “edits”:

Neither Ida or I liked those, and in the early days – we made seven
recordings for RCA in the ffties on 45 rpm and fve on 33 rpm,
– they just didn’t have the technology to edit it properly. But we
wouldn’t have used them if they’d been possible: it simply takes the
real live excitement away from the music. If you listen carefully you
can tell it’s “live”.
(Kerstens 1990a: 36)

By the mid-1960s this attitude towards splicing began to change as

artists and producers recognized that recorded performances were not
obliged to serve as refections of live performance, a development which
coincided with the dramatic increase in the facilities of studio technol-
ogy for editing sound. The accompanying philosophical shift was her-
alded in Glenn Gould’s famous article, “The Prospects of Recording”,
published in High Fidelity in April 1966. Gould observed that while
there were still recordings being made whose objective was “to pro-
vide for the listener the evocation of a concert experience”, there were
also recordings being made that subscribed to “to that philosophy of
Segovia at American Decca 109

recording which admits the futility of emulating concert hall sonorities

by a deliberate limitation of studio techniques” (1966: 49). Gould de-
voted a signifcant amount of attention in his article to re-buffng the
criticisms of splicing technique. In reference to an example of his own
recording practice (a Bach fugue) he advocated splicing as a means
of amalgamating the most satisfactory interpretative strategies culled
from different takes. In addition, what he called the “post-taping af-
terthought” – that is, critiquing takes outside the recording session –
allowed the artist to gain a critical perspective on a performance that
would not be obvious in the heat of the moment while recording.
Gould’s position was also echoed by classical recordists working in the
early 1960s, such as EMI’s producer Suvi Raj Grubb who held the view
(inherited from Walter Legge) that,

There are no moral or ethical principles involved in “editing” as

is sometimes suggested; the white heat of inspiration cannot, any
more in a studio than at a concert, be maintained continuously.
At a concert high points of a performance carry more pedes-
trian sections, but on a record, subject to repeated hearings and
a close scrutiny, the level of the music making has to be kept
high at all times.
(1986: 10)

This dramatic re-evaluation of the recording process had important

implications for the recordings made by the younger generation of
guitarists from the 1960s onwards, including Julian Bream and John
Williams.

SEGOVIA’S RECORDINGS AND THE AESTHETICS OF

“HIGH FIDELITY”
Segovia’s recording career with American Decca also coincided with
another signifcant paradigm shift in classical music recording practice
– the emergence of “high fdelity” recording. This had particular con-
sequences for the evolution of classical guitar recording aesthetics
thereafter as acoustic environments now began to feature as a signif-
cant and ultimately desirable element of recorded guitar sound. High
fdelity refers to a general trend in the late 1940s and early 1950s to-
wards the cultivation of a particular kind of “live” sound in record-
ings, achieved primarily by moving outside the purpose-built studio
to record in venues possessing highly reverberant acoustics including
ballrooms, concert halls and churches (Schmidt-Horning 2013). Bruce
Swedien has suggested that this development was a response to the
“dead” sound of many studios of the era that were acoustically treated
in a manner that reduced the reverberation time in the high and mid
frequency ranges while doing little to absorb low frequencies, thereby
engendering a certain muddiness in the sound (Swedien 2009: 25). It
also coincided with important advancements in recording technology,
110 The Recording Model Consolidated

particularly in regard to microphone sensitivity, which were making

it possible for the acoustic properties of venues to be more effectively
harnessed in the aesthetic presentation of recordings. Among the la-
bels that participated in the location based high fdelity trend were Co-
lumbia, which used the Liederkranz Hall, and RCA which used the
Webster Hall, both in New York (Swedien 2009). Also important was
Mercury, whose innovative producer team of Wilma Cozart and C.
Robert Fine used a wide range of venues across the United States in
the service of its “Living Presence” aesthetic. In the case of American
Decca, high fdelity sound was achieved by recording in the “Pythian”
in New York. This location was highlighted by Rady, in his aforemen-
tioned Billboard article.

From the outset, we were conscious of the growing public interest

into the expanses of audible sound, the development of full fdel-
ity recordings. Decca discovered in New York’s Pythian Hall an
ideal recording studio wherein high fdelity recording would be the
norm rather than the occasional event.
(Rady 1954: 36)21

The Pythian Hall (also referred to as the Pythian Temple) was situ-
ated at 135 West 70th Street and had originally been a meeting place
for the Knights of the Pythian. It housed an auditorium on the third
foor which was converted into a recording studio by Decca in the early
1940s (Simons 2004: 169) and was used extensively for classical and
pop recording until the building was sold in the late 1950s. Milt Ga-
bler (who produced Bill Haley’s recordings for Decca in the 1950s),
described the Pythian as “an old ballroom” with “a big high ceiling”,
“drapes hanging from the balconies” and a “live wooden foor” (Fox
1986: 91). Its unique reverberant sound is readily apparent in Haley’s
classic 1954 recording of “Rock around the Clock” for which Gabler
made a deliberate attempt to exploit the auditorium’s resonance. Israel
Horowitz described the Pythian as “one of the best places in town for
natural sound” (Kozinn 1978b: 28). He relates the details of the audi-
torium as follows:

They called it a ballroom, [but] it was a theater type of thing with-

out fxed seats. Wood. With a balcony and a stage, a lot of space.
And Decca had an exclusive on the use of this as a recording stu-
dio and we had our equipment there permanently in a small room.
[…] It was problematic [except] for relatively small forces, in terms
of an orchestra maybe forty-fve or ffty pieces …. The best Sego-
via recordings were made there.
(Gollin 2001: 252–3)

The acoustic of the Pythian Temple informs the sound of the ma-
jority of the Segovia recordings made between approximately 1954
to 1958, encompassing the albums from An Evening with Andrés
Segovia at American Decca 111

Segovia and Bach: Chaconne (the earliest to state “especially rec-

ommended for Hi Fi” on their covers), to the Golden Jubilee box
set.22 After the sale of the Pythian to the New York Institute of
Technology (Berger 1958) Segovia recorded in a number of different
“service” studios around New York. It is apparent from the choices
of location here that Horowitz was aiming to retain the acoustic
qualities that Segovia had become used to in the Pythian. For exam-
ple, certain recordings were made in the top-foor ballroom of the
Manhattan Towers Hotel in New York (the 1967 Segovia on Stage
album)23 and Bob Fine’s studio in the ballroom at the Great North-
ern Hotel.24 Segovia also began to make occasional recordings in
Spain during this period, such as the 1967 Mexicana album which
was recorded in Hispavox’s studios in Madrid. After Segovia’s de-
parture from MCA in the early 1970s his fnal recordings were also
undertaken in Spain, either at commercial studios, or at his home in
Los Olivos. His two Guitar and I discs, made at Los Olivos, are of
particular interest for their somewhat unusual intimate, small-room
character, which is in keeping with the confessional nature of Sego-
via’s spoken narration.

ACOUSTICS IN CLASSICAL GUITAR PERFORMANCE: A

BRIEF DIGRESSION
Location-specifc recording aesthetics became fundamental to the evo-
lution of classical guitar recording from the 1950s onwards, principally
because they brought the performance situation closer to the acoustic
ideal of the live classical guitar concert. The importance of acoustic
environments in classical guitar performance practice has been ac-
knowledged by guitarists since the early nineteenth century when the
possibilities of the guitar as a public recital instrument were frst being
explored. Dionisio Aguado, for example, gives attention to the matter
in his Nuevo Método para Guitarra (1843), regarding “Conditions for
the player and where he plays”:

In addition to the guitar being good, the place where it is played

must be resonant. The length of the strings, their lack of tension
and the way in which they are plucked make this a delicate instru-
ment, and the least of its voices must not be lost. For this reason, I
consider that it will never be heard to advantage in a theatre, how-
ever skilled the performer. A rectangular room of medium size,
neither high- nor low-ceilinged, and with little furniture, is perhaps
more suitable.
(Aguado 2004: 9)

Aguado’s recommendation of a medium sized room and nothing

larger than this, “however skilled the performer”, was no doubt due
to the limited projecting capacities of the pre-Torres guitar at this
time. As discussed in Chapter 2, this view of the unsuitability of the
112 The Recording Model Consolidated

guitar for performance in larger auditoria was entrenched until the

challenge brought by Segovia in the early twentieth century. Once
Segovia had legitimized the classical guitar on the concert stage and
demonstrated the potential of the post-Torres instrument, guitar-
ists gained the confdence to develop and refne their performance
practice in the context of resonant concert hall acoustics. This
brought a range of benefts, not least because such environments
afforded the possibility for developing new approaches to articula-
tion. For example, Julian Bream, who has frequently discussed the
nature of the classical guitar’s interaction with its acoustic environ-
ment, comments that:

A resonant hall can only be an advantage because the guitar, like

all plucked instruments, has one great acoustical problem: from
the moment the note is plucked there is a decay in the sound, which
makes it diffcult to obtain a cantabile, or melodic line. So one can
use acoustics to enhance one’s phrasing.
(Snitzler 1987: 29)

What this is dependent upon is the reverberation time of the envi-

ronment in question, which in effect determines the speed at which
the performer becomes aware of the refection of the direct sound of
the instrument from the surrounding surfaces. In the same interview
Bream highlights the effect of differing reverberation times on his per-
formance speed:

When I play in a drier hall I pick slightly quicker tempi. When I

play in resonant hall I like to take just a little more time because
articulation in such a hall tends to be somewhat less delineated
than in a drier one.
(Snitzler 1987: 29)

This is echoed by Belgian classical guitarist Raphaëlla Smits, who adds

that musical interpretations are as much informed by acoustic environ-
ments as they are by strictly musical factors:

How the sound is moving inspires you in a certain way. So, if a

concert hall has a lot of echo, it will be necessary to make the
articulation very accurate. If you would do the same in a dry hall
it would sound horrible. But if you always play legato in an over-
reverberant hall, even in the very rapid passages it would become
unclear. These things do contribute to the inspiration of the mo-
ment. So it’s not only the inspiration of yourself, or the composer,
it’s also the inspiration of what is surrounding you.
(DeRoche 2004–5: 74)

This concern with the relationship between musical articulation and

the surrounding acoustic has in some cases led some guitarists to think
Segovia at American Decca 113

in terms of quite precisely measured acoustic responses, as illustrated

by Argentinian guitarist Ernesto Bitetti’s preference for churches with
particular reverberation times:

The acoustics can be superb in churches. I fnd that you get the
most ideal sound if the reverberations fade within 1½ –2 seconds
after you strike the strings. You need only walk into the church and
clap your hands and you can know immediately if it is acoustically
right, by timing the duration of the reverberations – and most im-
portantly, you must listen to the quality of the reverberations.
(Irving 1985: 14)

Bitetti’s comment was made in reference to his 1984 album of Gaspar

Sanz’s Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española (Hispavox
197302) which was recorded in the Iglesia de San Bernabé de El Es-
corial in Madrid. It is interesting to note that in historical terms this
is unlikely to have been a venue in which Sanz’s music would typically
have been heard during the composer’s own lifetime (1640–1710).25
However, in this instance the acoustic signifcantly enhances the ef-
fect of Sanz’s music. A fnal beneft of large resonant environments
more generally relates to the “psychological” boost that accrues to
the performer as they sense the instrument’s sound expanding into
a large acoustic space. Japanese guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita com-
ments that:

Good acoustics in a venue is the most satisfying element and helps

greatly with my performance inspiration. Often, the bigger the
hall, the better the communication and concert experience. For
example, I like Davis Symphony Hall in San Francisco. In June, I
played at a castle in the Czech Republic (the Křivoklát Castle) that
had a very lively musical acoustic.
(Ferrara 2012: 67)

The preceding discussion has so far concerned the utility of concert

hall acoustics from the performer’s perspective, but there is also an-
other important consideration – that of the audience perception of
the sound. Here the concern is with an individual audience member’s
proximity from, and position in relation to, the performer, as well as the
nature of the auditorium itself, whose acoustics, as Leo Beranek puts
it, “form the conduit between the performing body and the listener
and, hence, shape what the latter hears” (2003: 16). In his aforemen-
tioned treatise, Aguado (2004: 9) makes a brief remark on the matter
of audience distance: “The player should so place himself that there
is some distance between him and the frst listeners, in order to have
a clear space around him”. Although he does not elaborate further it
is likely that Aguado advocates such “clear space”, frstly to permit
the direct sound to be distributed unimpeded and secondly to engen-
der a certain proximity that will enable an agreeable experience of the
114 The Recording Model Consolidated

guitar’s sound by the listener. This relates to a generally accepted idea

amongst guitarists that there is a particular ideal distance at which the
refections of the environment in question combine with the guitar’s
direct sound to augment and enrich the character of the guitar tim-
bre. An anecdote of Christopher Parkening relating his experience of
hearing Segovia at close range in a masterclass succinctly encapsulates
the importance of a distanced acoustic perspective in cementing the
particular character of Segovia’s sound:

He demonstrated a section of the piece for me, from just three feet
away. It was startling to hear his sound so close, because it had a
roughness to it—still beautiful but not the enchanting sound I was
used to hearing on his recordings or at his concerts. It reminded
me of the too-close recording made at my Royce Hall debut or of
standing too close to a painting. All the beauty was there, but you
needed to get a few feet away before it became magical.
(Parkening and Tyers 2006: 46–47)26
It is the particular quality of classical guitar sound which results from
its crystallization at a certain ideal point of distance that is the es-
sence of Stravinsky’s oft-quoted observation (after hearing Segovia
perform in Paris) that, “the guitar does not play loud but far” (Wade
and Garno 1997b: 484).
In a recording situation the dual concerns of performer interac-
tion with the surrounding acoustic, and the audience member’s per-
ception of their sound in relation to this acoustic, also become the
preoccupation of the producer. On the one hand there is a desire to
undertake classical guitar recordings in an environment possessing
an acoustic that the performer can relate to in a comparable manner
to a live situation – in other words a location comparable to resonant
concert hall – which engenders the comfort and familiarity necessary
to induce a performance worthy of committing to posterity. The sig-
nifcance of American Decca’s decision to re-locate Segovia’s record-
ing sessions to the Pythian can be readily appreciated in this regard.
Segovia was an artist accustomed frst and foremost to live concerts,
who had evolved a performance aesthetic governed by the projection
of his instrumental sound within large auditoria. The feeling of be-
ing in a dedicated performance space rather than a functional studio
environment would undoubtedly have brought the recording process
closer to what was already familiar. At the same time the producer’s
concern is to achieve an optimum balance between the guitar’s sound
and its acoustic environment, both to simulate the ideally situated
audience member’s experience of the instrument and provide more
generally an ambience suggestive of the concert hall setting. In these
circumstances the audience perspective is of course a surrogate one,
evaluated by the producer and engineer in the control room through
negotiation with the artist.
Segovia at American Decca 115

THE SOUND OF SEGOVIA’S AMERICAN DECCA

RECORDINGS
Unfortunately there is little information available regarding the pre-
cise nature of the set-up for Segovia’s recordings during the period in
which he recorded at the Pythian. However, as these recordings were
made monaurally, we can deduce from general high fdelity recording
practice at this time, as undertaken by labels such as Westminster and
Mercury, that the set-up is likely to have involved careful placement
of a single microphone at a particular distance from the performer
and in a certain relation to the refective surfaces of the auditorium.
Judgement as to what constituted the best position would ultimately
have been informed by the need for clarity of guitar sound relative to
the presence of the surrounding acoustic. It is apparent from listening
to Segovia albums recorded at different times in the mid-1950s that his
preferences varied considerably in this regard. This can be observed
by considering the sound of two albums of the period – Masters of
the Guitar (DL 9794) and Segovia and the Guitar (DL 9931), the frst
recorded mainly in March 1955 and the second across three separate
sessions in April and December 1956 and March 1957. On the for-
mer, Segovia’s recordings of works by Sor and Tárrega are recorded
with what appears to be a fairly consistent medium distance set-up
that allows for subtle presence of the surrounding acoustic without
compromising defnition. By comparison on Segovia and the Guitar,
there is both a more marked variation in recorded perspective, and a
tendency to admit greater amounts of the reverberant sound of the
Pythian into the balance. This can be appreciated in the April 1956 and
December 1956 recordings, such as the Esplá Levantine Impressions
and the Dowland and Narváez works, which are recorded with more
immediate presence than those cut in March 1957, such as the two
Ponce (i.e. Alessandro Scarlatti pastiche) pieces, the latter exhibiting
a noticeably more distant and “boomy” reverberant character. Like-
wise the large Joan Manén work on Side 2, which was also recorded in
December 1956, appears to possess a pronounced distant character of
its own with the reverberation clearly intended to be a key aspect of
the recorded presentation.27 It is interesting to speculate on the reasons
for such variations beyond the practicalities of maintaining compara-
ble microphone set-ups between sessions. For example, it is possible
that Segovia may have felt it necessary for the perceived distance from
the instrument to be more or less pronounced dependent upon the
style of music being performed, an approach that certainly became
common practice in the later recordings of Bream and Williams. Did
Segovia decide, for example, that the listener’s experience of the more
abstract musical gestures and coloristic sonorities of the Manén work
would be enhanced by using the reverberant acoustic to “smear” the
guitar’s sound? On the other hand, it may also indicate that Segovia
remained perpetually dissatisfed with how his guitar sound was being
116 The Recording Model Consolidated

represented on recordings, which is certainly supported by accounts of

those who worked with him during this period.
While the vast majority of Segovia’s Pythian Temple recordings
were monaural, stereo experiments were undertaken in 1958 during
the making of Golden Jubilee album, enabling some of the music re-
leased on these particular discs to be issued in both mono and stereo
(Kozinn 1978b). With the full transition to stereo in the early 1960s the
approach to capturing Segovia’s recorded sound became more refned.
Horowitz recalls that the set-up was typically “two mikes fairly close,
and two more at a distance to pick up a room sound. It was just a mat-
ter of blending them to get the effect we wanted” (Kozinn 1978b: 28).
An illustration of a dual microphone set-up can be seen in the photo-
graphs taken by Horowitz at Manhattan Towers ballroom during the
recording of the Segovia on Stage album (reproduced in the booklet
accompanying the 1994 Andrés Segovia: A Centenary Celebration box
set). The photographs also show that a certain amount of acoustic
treatment, in the form of sound absorbent panels and hanging drapes,
has been used to temper the large room acoustic.
Horowitz’s liner notes for Segovia’s fnal (June 1977) recording, Rev-
eries (RCA RL12602), give a revealing account of the typical process
of setting up a session to achieve a guitar sound that was acceptable
to Segovia.

Initially microphones are positioned based on prior experience

elsewhere. But only a moment of listening indicates that a differ-
ent placement is called for here. Where is the glow of Segovia’s
unique sound? Time passes as adjustments are made, and he en-
dures all with characteristic patience. Finally, producer and engi-
neer feel the sound is good. A short test is recorded, and Segovia
comes into the control room to listen. Almost, but still not quite
right. He suggests a slight change. This is made, and yet another
test satisfes all that the sound of the instrument has been truly
captured.
(Horowitz 1978)

This album was recorded in RCA’s Madrid studio which Segovia had
not used beforehand even though he had recorded frequently in Spain
since the 1960s. It is interesting to observe that a microphone set-up
based on prior recording experience is quickly abandoned because it
does not reveal the essential qualities of Segovia’s sound in this partic-
ular environment.
Horowitz has commented on a number of occasions on the importance
of the recorded sound to Segovia and his sensitivity to “subtle variations”
(Kozinn 1978b: 60). He recalls that when reviewing takes Segovia would
listen “primarily for sound, not so much for the performance” and that “it
would annoy him [Segovia] no end if a particular note didn’t ‘speak’ well
in the musical context” (Lehmann-Haupt 2002: 23).28 Segovia was also
acutely aware of the ways in which electronic technology could mediate
Segovia at American Decca 117

the timbre of the guitar and would react if he detected any undue corrup-
tion of the signal. Horowitz comments:

He couldn’t stand what he called an “acid” sound, usually certain

high notes that weren’t well rounded. Sometimes he wasn’t aware
of this in the studio, but he’d hear it later on the acetate that he was
sent for approval. Then he would send me messages from around
the world: “We’ve got to get rid of it – please!” So we would soften
up the sound a little with reverberation, which he accepted.
(Lehmann-Haupt 2002: 23)

Interestingly, despite the great technological advances that had oc-

curred during the course of his recording career, Segovia ultimately
remained unconvinced that recordings were an accurate representa-
tion of his sound. While he appreciated that surface noise had been
successfully reduced (“now we have suppressed all the little things that
the nail [a reference to early gramophone needles] used to do”), he
was nonetheless of the view that “electricity falsifes real purity of the
sound” (Ferguson 1983: 46). When asked by Larry Snitzler whether he
found his recordings to be satisfactory, Segovia commented,

The guitar is an instrument of nuances; not the force, not the

strength, but the nuance. It is the worst to be recorded. I don’t hear
my recordings – never. Very seldom. Downstairs I have all the records
I have made. I never put on a record of mine because I don’t like to
hear the sound. It is very far away from the real sound of the guitar.
(Ferguson 1983: 46)

NOTES
1. Escande (2012: 384n) notes that on April 3, 1943, Segovia’s manager Er-
nesto de Quesada “received a note from his American colleague Sol Hu-
rok confrming that Segovia was guaranteed a minimum of ten concerts
in the United States for a period beginning on November 1, 1943 and
ending on January 31, 1944”. Segovia had made his United States debut
many years earlier on 8 January 1928 at Town Hall, New York and this
was followed by further tours of the US in 1929. However, between 1939
and 1943 Segovia encountered diffculties in securing concert venues in
the United States on account of his pro-nationalist stance regarding the
Spanish Civil War. See Wade and Garno (1997a: 105).
2. For further discussion of these particular pieces see Alcázar (2000:
221–3).
3. Gelatt (1977: 296) notes however that the 78-rpm shellac disc “suffered a
swift decline. Indeed, by 1950 it was no longer standard in America except
for ephemeral dance records”.
4. These recordings are mentioned in Guitar Review No. 4, 1947 (see Bobri
1975: 94).The reasons for their suppression are not known.
5. From 1949 Shaw worked for the National Concert Artists Corporation
(NCAC) which dealt with bookings for artists represented by Sol Hurok,
including Segovia (see Tosone 2000: 133–148).
118 The Recording Model Consolidated

6. Shaw gives a similar account in Tosone (2000).

7. This date is confrmed in Ruppli (1998: 225). Re-issues of these record-
ings, on the Naxos and Doremi labels, respectively, appear to disagree on
the dates of the Musicraft recordings. See Andrés Segovia: The 1946 New
York and the 1949 London Recordings, Naxos 8.110088 (2006); Andrés
Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 3: Segovia & Walker, Doremi DHR
7709 (1998).
8. The Musicraft label began operations in 1937 and recorded a wide range
of music including classical, jazz and popular. It ceased trading in the
late 1940s and the catalogue was sold in the 1950s. See Gardner (2002).
Segovia’s Bach recordings for Musicraft have been re-issued on vinyl and
CD, most notably Segovia Plays Bach (SAGA 5248) and the above cited
Naxos/Doremi editions.
9. Segovia also recorded further works by Bach in these sessions (the
Bourrée and Double from Partita No. 1 in B minor) and Fernando Sor
(the Six Divertimentos Op. 2) although these were not released at the time
(eventually appearing on the Testament CD, The Complete 1949 London
Recordings released in 1994).
10. Segovia ultimately recorded relatively very little of Villa-Lobos’s output
however; in effect leaving the composer’s works available for later guitar-
ists to make their interpretative mark.
11. Another signifcant artist recorded by Decca at the inception of the Decca
Gold Label series was Leroy Anderson.
12. The British Decca company was established by Edward Lewis in 1929 and
quickly became an important player in the business, acquiring the British
rights to the German Polydor label in 1930 and purchasing Edison Bell in
1933. A particular boost to its remit came in 1941 with the acquisition of
the Brunswick label, at that time a well-established name associated with
classical, popular music and jazz. For further discussion of the history of
the Decca labels see Gelatt (1977); Dearling et al. (1984); Fortey (2001);
Cerchiari (2012).
13. Early American Decca “popular” signings included Bing Crosby, Fletcher
Henderson, Ted Lewis and the Dorsey Brothers.
14. Brunswick became a subsidiary of the American Decca label in 1943
after a period of insolvency, having previously been owned by Warner,
the American Record Co. and CBS. For further information, see Weber
(2001).
15. The format also quickly became important for musicians working within
the jazz, popular and electronic music felds who wished to expand onto
a broader canvas. See Evans (2017).
16. Concentrated periods of recording were commonplace to ft with Segov-
ia’s concertising schedule and to coincide with a time when the material
would have been “hot” for recording purposes. The next three albums
– An Evening with Andrés Segovia (DL 9733), Andrés Segovia Plays (DL
9734) and Bach: Chaconne (DL 9751) were similarly collated from mate-
rial recorded en masse in the Spring and Summer of 1954.
17. Segovia’s American Decca recordings also served as excellent promo-
tional tools for the sale of the “Edition Andrés Segovia” collection which
included sheet music editions of many of Segovia’s transcriptions.
18. For further discussion of Steinweiss’s iconic album covers, see Heller
(1994), Reagan and Heller (2011).
19. Horowitz later re-joined the magazine as an editor in 1973.
Segovia at American Decca 119

20. Frost was, at this time, speaking of record production in the early 1980s
and could not have envisaged how much more ubiquitous such practice
was to become with later digital technologies.
21. In this sense the use of the Pythian corresponds to the evolution of a
classical music recording aesthetic concerned with engendering a “realist”
perspective in recorded sound.
22. The recordings made by Segovia for Decca between 1952 and 1955 were
made in New York and produced by Simon Rady with the exception of
the Segovia with Strings of the Quintetto Chigiano album, part of which –
the Castelnuovo Quintet for Guitar and Strings, Op. 143 – was recorded
in Siena in 1955, where Decca may have employed an on-location produc-
tion team (the individual pieces that make up the remainder of the same
album were all recorded in New York however).
23. During the 1960s Manhattan Towers was often used as a recording venue
for popular music recording (most notably Joan Baez) by the Vanguard
label. See Tyson, The Long Trail (2010).
24. For this information I am grateful to John Lehmann-Haupt for allowing
me to hear a recording of an unpublished interview with Horowitz made
in 2000.
25. Bitetti freely admits that authenticity was not his concern when perform-
ing early music (Irving 1985: 14).
26. In addition to the distance factor it is important to remember that the
perception of the sound as uniquely “Segovian” also had much to do with
Segovia’s own individual strategy for designing his timbre at the point
of execution, determined by the balance of fesh to nails tone, angle of
attack on the strings, capacity to harness the sounding resources of his
particular guitar and so on.
27. Another recording of this period which possesses a similarly distanced
ambience is the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Sonata “Omaggio a Boccherini”,
recorded in December 1957 and issued on the Golden Jubilee album.
28. For further comment from Horowitz on Segovia’s focus on sound see
Ferguson (1983: 46–48).
6
The North American Backdrop to Segovia

INTRODUCTION
To provide further context for the developments of Segovia’s recording
career, this chapter surveys the emerging marketplace for classical gui-
tar recordings in North America from the late 1930s to the early 1960s.
During this period a number of guitarists emigrated to the United
States from Spain and Latin America, establishing fruitful recording
careers with the major labels. Their recordings constituted an import-
ant alternative perspective on the Segovian repertoire at a time when
the latter’s 78s and LPs were being widely proliferated. Vicente Gómez,
for example, brought the folkloric aspects of Spanish guitar tradition
into play with his classical leanings, which he conveyed to a substan-
tial audience through both his recordings for American Decca and his
Hollywood flm career. Rey de la Torre offered an alternative view of
the guitar which refected a Spanish perspective derived from Llobet,
his Cuban roots, as well as an affnity with European music more gen-
erally. In bringing the eclectic Brazilian perspective on the classical gui-
tar to the United States, Laurindo Almeida, who recorded prolifcally
for Capitol, played an important part in loosening stylistic boundaries.
These together with the numerous minor artists who passed through
the New York based Spanish Music Center, contributed through their
recordings to the wider circulation of the Latin American view of the
classical guitar outside the continent. Finally, the beginnings of an in-
terchange of ideas between the classical and popular spheres of guitar
performance provided the foundation for the re-orientation of the rep-
ertoire by North American classical guitarists in the 1970s and 1980s.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN

CLASSICAL GUITAR MARKETPLACE
Prior to Segovia’s arrival at American Decca the 1920s and 1930s had
seen the gradual emergence of a North American marketplace for clas-
sical guitar recordings, fueled primarily by an infux of Spanish and
Latin American guitarists seeking opportunities to concertize more
120
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 121

widely outside their home countries. These artists naturally attracted

the attention of the major North American labels, two of which –
Columbia and Victor – had already been actively involved in record-
ing Latin American guitarists. In the late 1930s Columbia signed Julio
Martínez Oyanguren, who, following his re-location to the US from
Uruguay, was beginning to achieve a high profle as a concert artist and
broadcaster in the country (Krick 1940). Oyanguren turned out to be
a prolifc recording artist, cutting a large number of 78s for the label in
1937 which display the considerable breadth of his performing reper-
toire, from the Spanish school from the vihuelists (Milan and Narváez),
to Sanz, Sor, Aguado and Tárrega. He also ranged more widely how-
ever, recording music by obscure guitarist-composers such as José Prats
Sirera (1884–1931), examples of tango music (an arrangement of the
well-known La Cumparsita, by Gerardo Matos Rodriguez) as well as
his own compositions (two descriptive pieces entitled Arabia and An-
dalucia). Taken as a whole, Oyanguren’s recordings imply the breadth
of the historical recital program that was to dominate the structure
of classical guitar discs in the early LP era.1 In the late 1930s Oyan-
guren was regularly the focus of discussion in the British plucked string
magazine, BMG, whose writers had been able to gain access to his Co-
lumbia recordings. In particular Geoff Sisley’s “Gallery of Guitarists”
columns (January and February 1937), devoted to La Cumparsita and
Arabia, offer useful insight into the reception of Oyanguren’s discs at
this time. Concerning his handling of the tango form in La Cumparsita,
Sisley notes Oyanguren’s evident affnity with dance idioms, suggest-
ing that music of this nature ought to be heard more frequently on the
“fnger-style” guitar to counterbalance “heavy classical” music (in other
words, the Segovian aesthetic). Indeed he suggests that Oyanguren that
should not be compared to Segovia, as “the spheres of the two artists
are entirely different” (1937a: 94). More importantly, Sisley also de-
votes a considerable amount of attention to the production values of
Oyanguren’s recordings, offering observations that constitute some of
the earliest examples of criticism focused on the aesthetics of classical
guitar recording. In reference to La Cumparsita, Sisley comments that:

Those who have been fortunate enough to have heard this record
may have noticed that the tone of the guitar is unusually penetrat-
ing for an instrument strung, apparently, with gut strings. I wonder
if the recording process is responsible for this, or is it that Oyan-
guren’s instrument is of a particular quality of tone.
(Sisley, 1937a: 94)

He also observes that there is very little string noise produced by the
left hand on the recording, offering suggestions as to how this might
have been achieved:

It can sometimes be avoided by turning the arm of the instrument

away from the microphone. Whether this will always be a remedy,
122 The Recording Model Consolidated

with the ever-advancing effciency of modern microphones, I am

not prepared to say.
(1937a: 94)

In his discussion of Arabia, Sisley speculates on Oyanguren’s particu-

lar approach to the tuning of his strings, observing that the recording
process can sometimes give a “mistaken impression of pitch” (1937b:
125). He also offered thoughts on the handling of the guitar’s frequen-
cies by the engineers:

As in “La Cumparsita” the tone of the guitar is excellent and nicely

balanced which, with so many guitar recordings being inclined to
over heaviness on the bass vibrations, is indeed pleasant to the ear.
(1937b: 126)

In his concluding remarks Sisley draws attention to the important role

that classical guitar recordings were playing in advertising guitarists’
capabilities in advance of their public appearances:

Taking these records as a guide I look forward to the time when

Oyanguren visits this country. His playing is a joy to hear; and
a recital, when he would have the opportunity of playing other
numbers he must have “up his sleeve” (as the saying goes) would
undoubtedly give guitarists something to talk about.
(1937b: 126)

In 1939 Oyanguren signed an exclusive contrast with American

Decca,2 which, like Columbia, was beginning to build up a signifcant
catalogue of classical guitar music. Among Oyanguren’s frst record-
ings for the label (made in 1940) was a two volume collection of 78s,
entitled Latin American Folk Music3 (Decca “Personality Series” al-
bum Nos 174 and 186).4 This was unique compilation of Latin Amer-
ican guitar music from across the continent, offering North American
audiences a captivating alternative to the Segovian repertoire concept.
Included were original pieces and arrangements by established names
in the Latin American guitar world – Agustín Barrios (the Danza
Guaraní), Villa-Lobos (his Choros No. 1), Ponce (a “Canción Popu-
lar”) and Uruguayan guitarist Isaías Sávio (variations on the lullaby,
Arrorró mi Niño), as well as arrangements by Oyanguren of popular
melodies by Pedro Elías Gutiérrez (Venezuela) and Ricardo Romero
(Chile).
American Decca’s most high-profle guitarist signing at this time
was Vicente Gómez (1911–2001), whose recordings, alongside those
of Oyanguren, formed the bedrock of American Decca’s growing clas-
sical guitar remit, effectively paving the way for Segovia’s long-term
engagement with the label after the Second World War. Gómez was a
Spanish guitarist who had moved to the United States in the late 1930s
after a period of concertizing in Europe and Latin America. He had
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 123

been thoroughly trained in the traditions of the Spanish school at Ma-

drid Academy of Music, where he was taught by Quintin Esquem-
bre (1885–1965), a pupil of Tárrega, but was also an adept famenco
guitarist who was able to move freely between classical and folkloric
perspectives (Lynn 1957; Bone 1972). His frst recordings were made
for the American Decca “Personality Series” between 1938 and 1939
and issued as a three volume set of 78 rpm discs (Decca albums A-17,
A-60 and A-117). Their content is, as one might expect, refective of
this classical–folkloric dualism, balancing famenco-inspired original
pieces with established standards of the nineteenth-century Spanish
repertoire (Sor, Aguado, Tárrega and Antonio Cano (his El Delirio)).5
These are for the most part treated in a tasteful “classical” manner,
although Gómez takes artistic license in Aguado’s Estudio de Con-
cierto (his Study No. 12, published in the 1843 Nuevo Método), add-
ing a famboyant Spanish-infected introduction and interludes. In a
gesture to the contemporary Segovia repertoire, Gómez also recorded
Torroba’s Fandanguillo from the Suite Castellana, giving the work
an energetic and extrovert interpretation in keeping with its famenco
leanings. Much of Gómez’s popularity as a guitarist can be attributed
to his appearances in Hollywood flms during the 1940s, particularly
Blood and Sand (1941) for which he contributed the soundtrack music
(released in 1941 as the Vicente Gómez Quintet on A-265).6 The Blood
and Sand score is best known for the inclusion of the famous Romance
de Amor, an anonymous piece that Gómez had also recorded as a gui-
tar solo in the frst volume of the above mentioned debut Decca release
(A-17, 23070 Side B), re-arranged in the flm for voice and ensemble.
Gómez’s recordings, like those of Francisco Salinas and Oyanguren,
received particular attention in Britain, where they were issued on the
Brunswick label, and, as was commonplace at this time, circulated via ra-
dio broadcasts. The flm Blood and Sand, for example, was of particular
importance in cementing Gómez’s reputation in Britain, its soundtrack
being played in its entirety by the BBC Home Service on 5 June 1942.
During the 1940s Gómez was also the subject of regular discussion in
Wilfred Appleby’s monthly BMG column, “The Spanish Guitar”, where
his technique, like Segovia’s, was a particular source of fascination:

surely one of the most fascinating instruments to watch is the Span-

ish guitar, whether played in the punteado (classical) or famenco
styles. Film directors sometimes realise this; as in the flm “Blood
and Sand” where we were given several magnifcent “close-ups” of
Vicente Gómez in action. The quiet effciency of his right-hand ac-
tion was an unforgettable lesson in technique for players and a source
of wonder to people not particularly interested in the instrument.
(Appleby 1946b: 204)

Appleby also wrote a substantial feature on Gómez in September 1947

which highlighted his capacity to comfortably move between contrast-
ing styles of music as well as his open-minded attitude to the formalities
124 The Recording Model Consolidated

of public performance. Noting Gómez’s regular engagements in New

York nightclubs, for example, Appleby commented that “the miracle
of making a nightclub audience sit spellbound listening to Bach and
Mozart has been accomplished by this wizard of the guitar”. Appleby
also discussed Gómez’s outlook in relation to Segovia suggesting they
were “rivals” who work “to make the Spanish guitar better understood
and appreciated”, adding that “Segovia of course does not play in the
famenco style” (1947: 223).

THE RECORDINGS OF THE SPANISH MUSIC CENTER

While Segovia enjoyed a high-profle status as a recording artist in
North America during the 1950s, largely due to the international reach
of the American Decca label, signifcant developments had also been
taking place within the independent recording sector. These were fed
by a younger generation of Latin American classical guitarists born in
the 1910s and 1920s, originating from countries such as Brazil, Ven-
ezuela, Cuba and the Rio de la Plata area, whose careers had pro-
ceeded largely independently of the European context that had been
dominated by Segovia. Typically these guitarists were émigrés who had
come to the United States in the 1940s and 1950s to further their per-
formance careers and teach, who, once established, pursued oppor-
tunities to make recordings. Lacking the infuence to secure lucrative
recording contracts with the majors, such artists naturally gravitated
towards the smaller independent labels that had begun to appear at
this time, which, in hindsight can be seen to have contributed an im-
portant Latin American perspective to the classical guitar recording.
An important presence in this regard was the Spanish Music Center
(SMC), based in New York and run by Gabriel Oller (1903–1988), a
Puerto Rican émigré who had arrived in the city with his family in
1917. Oller entered the music business in 1934 with his company, Dy-
nasonic, and was among the frst to record Latin American music in
New York. His Tatay’s Spanish Music Center began existence in the
same year, initially operating as a store selling 78 rpm records, pianola
rolls, sheet music and guitars (the Valencian “Tatay” line in particu-
lar) as well as offering instrumental tuition.7 The SMC label itself was
established by Oller in 1947 and became an important focal point for
Latin American artists based in New York (Salazar 2002). In addition
to running the SMC label’s affairs, Oller, who had studied electronics,
performed a number of practical recording roles in the studio, includ-
ing sound engineer and tape editor.
Oller’s SMC recordings showcase a diverse range of classical gui-
tar styles drawn predominantly from the Latin American émigré
pool. His frst classical guitar recording took place around 1949–50
and featured the Argentine guitarist Felix Argüelles (d.1994). The
scanty information we have concerning Argüelles comes primarily
from hearsay, and currently these recordings provide the only con-
crete evidence of his existence as a performer. They were issued in two
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 125

volumes (SMC Pro-Arte 506/507) on 10-inch 33 1/3 vinyl discs under

the general title Classic Guitar Recital. In keeping with this descrip-
tion they contain staple compositions and arrangements of the clas-
sical guitar repertoire – Tárrega’s Capricho Arabe, the “Alard” Study
in A and Danza Mora, Malats’ Serenata Española, Albéniz’s Leyenda,
and pieces by Bach and Sor. However, there are also less well-known
works by composers refecting the Argentinian perspective (either na-
tives of or émigrés to that country), including pieces by Pedro M.
Quijano and Antonio Sinopoli (the latter’s Vidalita), a tremolo study
by Juan Siro Orlandi as well as pieces in the famenco style composed
by Argüelles himself.8
The issuing of classical guitar recordings as 10-inch double-disc sets
appears to have been typical of Oller’s marketing strategy throughout
the 1950s and 1960s, and, in keeping with trends in innovative album
sleeve design during this period, many of these were often packaged
with attractive cover art designed by Puerto-Rican artist Manuel
Garcia-Rey. In terms of programming, Oller’s recordings utilized ei-
ther the “miscellaneous” recital disc format of contrasting pieces by
different composers (as in the Argüelles discs), or focused on the work
of a single composer. An example of the latter is the two-disc set re-
corded for SMC in the late 1940s/early 1950s by José Rey de la Torre
(1917–1994), one of the most notable guitarists to arrive in America
from Cuba at this time (see later in this chapter). His frst disc, SMC
Pro-Arte 516 comprises a selection of popular guitar works by Tárrega,
including a number of Preludes, favorite miniatures and the tremolo
study, Recuerdos de la Alhambra. The second, SMC Pro-Arte 517, con-
tains recordings of thirteen studies of Fernando Sor, the choice and
ordering of which was clearly infuenced by the selections published in
the aforementioned Segovia edition of Sor’s studies issued in 1945 by
Edward B. Marks. In some cases SMC artists opted to recorded length-
ier works, such as Cuban guitarist, Rolando Valdés-Blain (1922–2011),
whose premier recording for the label (Pro-Arte 546) is a 10-inch disc
devoted to Fernando Sor’s four movement Grand Sonata, Op. 22 (is-
sued as part of a two-disc series entitled “Guitar Masterpieces”).
Some classical guitarists, such as Rey de la Torre, undertook one-off
recording sessions with Oller which typically yielded a double 10-inch
LP’s worth of material. These albums helped to launch their record-
ing careers and enabled them to move on to other more high-profle
labels. Others cultivated a more longstanding recording relationship
with SMC, such as the Cuban guitarist Elías Barreiro (b. 1930), whose
output for the label was, relatively speaking, prolifc. Barreiro, who
emigrated to the United States in 1966, and established himself as a
teacher of classical guitar at Tulane University in New Orleans, was
initially courted by Oller to produce two albums for SMC but had
enough repertoire for more. In his liner notes for Barreiro’s LP Elías
Barreiro in Guitar Classics Vol. 2, Oller recounts that in 1966 he “in-
duced Sr. Barreiro to make a fying trip to New York, and within
72 hours my good friend Elías established a world’s record, having
126 The Recording Model Consolidated

produced enough recorded materials to complete three Long Playing

recordings of music by world famous composers” (Oller n.d.). These
were SMC-1111 Vol.1 Famous Composers, SMC-1112 Vol. 2 Span-
ish Composers and SMC-1113 Latin-American Composers, issued to-
gether under the “Guitar Classics Series”. The frst two volumes are
very much in the vein of the well-established Spanish model, featuring
transcriptions and arrangements of music by nineteenth-century Eu-
ropean composers (Chopin, Schumann, Schubert and Jules Massenet)
and staple historical guitar repertoire such as Milan and Sanz (in Pu-
jols’s editions), Robert de Visee’s Suite in D minor, Granados’ Spanish
Dance No. 5 and Llobet’s El Testament d’Amelia. The third volume,
however, offered a more unique survey of works by (mostly Cuban)
Latin American composers, including Sebastián Yradier, Jorge Anker-
mann, Gonzalo Roig, Oyanguren, Ernesto Lecuona, Manuel Saumell
and Villa-Lobos.
During this same period Oller also recorded the Ecuadorian gui-
tarist Cesar Meneses Leon, who, following a period of musical study
in Spain, had moved to New York in the mid-1960s, making his de-
but at the Town Hall in May 1966 (A.H. 1966).9 Leon made two re-
cordings for SMC’s multi-volume Guitar Masterworks series, both of
which were entirely devoted to the works of Fernando Sor (SMC-575
and 576). The interest of these recordings lies in their somewhat niche
coverage of the repertoire – concentrating solely on Sor’s valses and
divertimentos. Similarly Barreiro made a number of recordings for the
Masterworks series that were single-composer focused, each title pre-
fxed with the line “Elías Barreiro plays…”, respectively, the works of
Napoléon Coste (SMC-570), Fernando Sor (SMC-571) and Fernando
Carulli (SMC-573 and 577). Coste’s work (in this case Barreiro cov-
ers a number of the Etudes) had hardly been recorded at all before
this time, the most notable disc being Llobet’s rendition of the Etude
Op. 38 No. 23, while Carulli’s music (here Barreiro’s focus is on the
composer’s Etudes, Minuets and Sonatas) was, given its reputation as
didactic material, an unlikely choice for a recording by a virtuoso con-
cert guitarist.
It is interesting to speculate on the reasons for Oller’s encouraging
guitarists to focus on the work of one or two composers in their re-
cordings, especially given that none of the aforementioned perform-
ers’ recital programs tended to adopt this approach. Aside from the
obvious benefts of recording public domain material free of licens-
ing issues, it is probable that Oller’s recording strategy was in many
cases linked to the SMC’s educational sheet music publishing remit.
Since its inception the SMC had operated as a music-teaching studio
and had published its own editions of didactic literature for beginning
guitarists, and these were frequently promoted as tie-ins with SMC
recordings. This served both as a convenient means of identifying and
selecting repertoire for recordings and provided guitarists themselves
with a particular recording objective. For example, an advertisement
for Anatole Malukoff’s SMC Pro-Arte 1019/1020 recordings in Guitar
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 127

Review 20 (Spanish Music Center 1956) states that, “each record in 12ʺ
HiFi (Lp) is priced at $3.95, and musical scores exactly as recorded may
be obtained from us in individual folios, $1.50 each”. To emphasize the
connection with the albums the printed SMC editions of Paganini’s
29 Original Compositions for the Guitar and Carcassi’s 25 Melodious
Studies for Guitar also included the subtitle, “as recorded by Anatole
Malukoff on SMC (Lp) Record #”. It is likely that the aforementioned
Rey de la Torre recordings may also have been undertaken with this
purpose in mind given that their emphasis is on the didactic repertoire
(Sor studies) and Romantic guitar miniatures by Tárrega, which were
commonly learned by beginning to intermediate level guitarists.
In addition to single-composer compilations, Oller also commis-
sioned recordings from guitarists that were explicitly promoted as
audio accompaniments to tutorial books. In 1956, for example, SMC
advertised a product by the Californian famenco guitarist Jack Buck-
ingham, described as an “anthology of basic famenco rhythms …
including textbook and instruction” (apparently released as SMC
1018). The book, published in 1957, was entitled El Arte Flamenco,
with Spanish text by Oller. In the same year the famenco guitarist
Carlos Ramos recorded an album for SMC entitled El Arte Flamenco,
which also appears to have been intended as a further audio tie-in
with the book. In the early 1960s, Julio Prol (1925–1999), an infu-
ential guitarist and teacher on the New York scene made an album
for SMC (SMC Pro-Arte 1077) entitled, Sounds of the Guitar: Spanish
Guitar Technique. This was accompanied by a book of the same ti-
tle by Prol co-authored with Rosalind Browne and published in 1962,
which contained short pieces by Aguado, Coste, Cano and Carulli.
Prol’s recording does not contain any spoken instruction, offering
only renditions of the pieces in the book, which effectively allowed
it to possess a dual function as a conventional classical guitar album,
a clever strategy on Oller’s part. SMC also issued another recording
around this time, which again bore the title Sounds of the Guitar (SMC
Pro-Arte 1076), this time recorded by the guitarist Mark Olf, a trou-
badour in the Richard Dyer-Bennet mold, best known for his albums
as a guitarist-singer on the Folkways label. This particular disc was de-
signed to be used in conjunction with Olf’s book, Mark Olf’s Spanish
Guitar Technique: A Practical Approach to the Art of Finger-playing,
for Self-accompaniment, Classical and Flamenco (1960), which was
aimed at singers who wished to improve their accompaniment skills.
Oller’s recording work with guitarists also extended outside the clas-
sical feld to musicians working in the crossover between classical and
popular genres. An interesting anomaly in the SMC’s guitar output is
an album entitled Magic Strings (SMC Pro-Arte 1002), recorded by
plectrum guitarist Al Valenti (b. 1914) which constitutes the guitarist’s
only extant commercial solo recording. Valenti, whose playing style is
in the tradition of Nick Lucas, straddled numerous genres with much
of his repertoire comprising solo guitar arrangements of popular tunes
(such as Riccardo Drigo’s Serenade from Les Millions d’Arlequin) and
128 The Recording Model Consolidated

classical pieces. However he was also renowned for his ability to execute
sophisticated classical guitar repertoire such as Tárrega’s Recuerdos de
la Alhambra, a piece normally requiring the sustained engagement of
the thumb and three of the right hand fngers, using only a pick (Bay
1995: 122).10 The particular interest of Valenti’s SMC album lies in its
focus upon predominantly classical repertoire, including arrangements
of pieces by Wagner, Grieg, Schubert and Tchaikovsky as well as clas-
sical guitar music (a Carcassi Etude).11 Oller also capitalized on the
early career success of Argentinian guitarist Jorge Morel in New York
during the 1960s, recording him on the album Guitar Moods (SMC
Pro-Arte 1110) in 1967. With this album Morel gave nods to the Sego-
via repertoire with signature classical pieces such as Albéniz’s Sevilla,
Torroba’s Arada and Turina’s Soleares as well as compositions and
arrangements by Morel himself, including a version of Jobim’s “Girl
from Ipanema”.12
Oller’s last notable classical guitar signing was Carmen Marina (b.
1936) who made four albums for the label between 1971 and 1972
during a period of touring in the United States. Of Spanish origin,
Marina received tuition both from Segovia and Regino Sainz de
la Maza and these infuences are refected in the repertoire choices
on the frst three albums. For the frst two – Recordando de Espana
(SMC-1121) and 19th Century Guitarists (SMC-1122) – the choices
are not entirely predictable. For example, the works by Emilio Pu-
jol (Zortzico and Juegos) and Marina’s teacher Sainz de la Maza
(Rondeña and Zapateado) on the frst album are somewhat niche,
while Barrios (represented by La Catedral and his Preludio Op.5 No.
1) was then not as widely known to North American and European
audiences as he was to become by the late 1970s. The inclusion on
the second album of a number of studies by Giuliani, Aguado and
Coste is reminiscent of the didactic perspective of earlier SMC re-
cordings. Albéniz for the Guitar (SMC-1123), the third album, treads
more familiar territory in its comprehensive coverage of the “war-
horses” of the composer’s transcribed piano repertoire. The fourth
and fnal album (SMC-1124) comprises an all-Bach recital, by now a
well-established rite of passage for recording classical guitarists who
wished to be taken seriously. Here Marina performs transcriptions
of widely performed works such as the Prelude and Gavotte en Ron-
deau from Lute Suite No. 4 BWV 1006a and the Prelude, Fugue and
Allegro BWV 998.

THE SPANISH MUSIC CENTER AND LO-FI RECORDING

AESTHETICS
Compared with the recordings of Segovia for American Decca, or
Laurindo Almeida for Capitol, the Spanish Music Center discs re-
fect the fip side of high fdelity recordings of this era, being made
at low cost in a small local studio and characterized by an “informal”
approach to capture and editing which often accepted performances
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 129

“warts and all”. Oller’s working methods with the many artists who
frequented his studio varied depended on their level of facility and
confdence with the recording process. Elías Barreiro, for example, re-
calls that all the tracks for his frst three SMC albums were recorded
over a short time period in single takes with the exception of one
piece, the Villa-Lobos Prelude No. 1 which was recorded twice so that
Oller would have two versions to choose from (Delgado 2017). Rey de
la Torre’s SMC recordings, like Barreiro’s, also appear to have been
done in single takes and are professional sounding in their execution.
In other cases it is evident that recordings have been spliced together
from short sections, and this can be sometimes be heard quite obvi-
ously, such as in the Valdés-Blain’s Fernando Sor recording and the
Anatole Malukoff discs. With certain artists such as Felix Argüelles,
performance standards are variable across an album and it is common
to fnd imperfectly rendered passages retained in released recordings,
presumably because in spite of their blemishes an individual take was
considered to be satisfactory as a whole. Typical classical guitar re-
cording issues are often apparent, such as the accidental sounding of
open strings, buzzes and choked notes resulting from inaccurate fret-
board position. In terms of their audio quality there is no attempt to
cultivate a resonant acoustic like that of the Pythian Temple, or to
locate an aesthetic particular to the needs of an individual performer’s
sound and technique. Microphone placements are often close and the
room sound small with a dry acoustic: as Anthony Weller puts it in
reference to Rey de la Torre’s SMC recordings, “the sound is clear and
unforgiving” (1994: 6). Essentially Oller’s aim, as one would expect
of a jobbing producer operating a busy local recording studio, is frst
and foremost to capture as best as possible within limited means, the
character of his artists as live performers. Also, given that SMC discs
were often designed to complement sheet music editions of music sold
in the store, a “rough” but broadly accurate rendition may have been
regarded as suffcient.
The relatively primitive character of SMC’s recordings naturally
led to unfavorable reviews when they were placed alongside the well-
rehearsed and immaculately engineered Segovia discs that had been
accumulating since the latter’s HMV period. For example, a Gramo-
phone commentator, discussing the two Felix Argüelles discs in 1951,
remarked that:

To put over four LP sides of guitar music would require either far
less empty and repetitious stuff than most of this, or the technical
and interpretative mastery of a Segovia. Mr. Argüelles is clearly
no Segovia: he is distressingly careless about damping (evidence
of a faulty harmonic sense), and wrong notes and chords (e.g.,
the Alard Study); and some of his rapid passagework (as in the
Tárrega Alborada) is downright bad. He is, however, an erratic
player, and is considerably better in the Albeniz Leyenda and the
Orlandi Nocturno. The Bach Courante is played without much
130 The Recording Model Consolidated

conviction, and its lack of ease reminded me of Dr. Johnson’s dic-

tum about performing dogs.
(L.S. 1951: 251)

BMG, a magazine which was appreciative of a much wider range of

approaches to playing the Spanish guitar, was of a different view how-
ever and welcomed the Argüelles discs:

The Spanish Music Center in New York has issued many sides of
interest, including two long-playing albums of solo guitar by Felix
Argüelles, of whom we know too little in this country. The two
albums contain a wide variety of music (much of it unfamiliar)
which is well-played and shows Argüelles to be a musician of taste
and no mean ability.
(Discus 1952: 81)

A favor of Oller’s approach to the recording process can be gleaned

from a unique and vivid account he has left of working with Russian
guitarist Anatole Malukoff on the double volume set of Paganini and
Carcassi in 1956 (SMC Pro-Arte 1019/1020 “Guitar Masterpieces”
series):

For six weeks Anatole Malukoff spent an average of fve hours a

day in my studio, during which time we struggled against many ob-
stacles to put into recording form the music you now hear in this
recording. With the aid of two professional Ampex tape recorders
and many bottles of imported Spanish wine (Marques de Riscal),
Anatole Malukoff and the writer were able to conclude the task of
recording the works of Niccolo Paganini and Matteo Carcassi, a
total of 54 both short and long compositions, each running from
half a minute to over 5 minutes in duration. Among the obstacles
surpassed were the noises of airplanes fying low over our roof, or
the hissing sound of steam-heat radiators, or fre engines answering
fre calls in our immediate neighborhood. But at long last, at the
end of eight weeks we fnished with the tedious and intricate task of
modern (Hi/Fi) recording. All we had to do now was the editing of
our tapes, and getting into sequence our recorded music. This took
us a short time, so that the fnal result is this record you now hear.
(Oller 1956)

As this suggests, Oller had a professional attitude to record production

and was committed to working closely with his artists within the con-
straints of his operation to achieve a satisfactory recorded product.
The practical problems he recounts were not uncommon for smaller
independent labels at this time, which could not usually afford to rent
purpose-built studio facilities or hire large concert halls and therefore
recorded in a more ad hoc “on location” fashion. This often meant
settling for less than ideal acoustics with little soundproofng and the
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 131

risk of noise interference from the local environment when record-

ing in urban areas. For example, the recording of Rey de la Torre’s
Fernando Sor Grand Sonata and other works for the Classical Guitar
album for the Allegro label (AL76) took place in a small New York
apartment (Weller 1994). This provided so little insulation against ex-
ternal noise that car horns can be easily heard during the quieter mo-
ments (especially during the more subdued Adagio of Sor’s Op. 22),
providing a unique recorded ambience. According to Schudel (2007)
one of Charlie Byrd’s early guitar recordings for Washington Records
was made in label owner Robert Bialek’s living room and was beset
by interference from a noisy refrigerator. It is worth adding of course
that the tendency to regard such issues as problematic has much to do
with the modern listener’s expectation that “non-musical” noises will
be expunged from recordings.

THE RECORDING CAREER OF REY DE LA TORRE

Of the various Latin American artists discussed in this chapter, José
Rey de la Torre was among the few émigrés to sustain an active re-
cording career in the United States during the postwar period. His
LPs, the most important of which were recorded for Epic in the mid
to late 1950s and early 1960s, provide a unique perspective on the con-
temporary guitar repertoire at a time when the dominant perspective
was that of Segovia. Also, as one of the few outstanding pupils of
Miguel Llobet to record consistently (the others were Luise Walker
and Maria Luisa Anido), his recordings can be seen to embody in
their performance style and musical aesthetic, the spirit of the Llobet
tradition. This, according to Cuban-Spanish composer Joaquín Nin-
Culmell (quoted by Weller 2005), can be understood in terms of Rey
de la Torre’s “purist” concept of technique, manifested in playing that
was “aristocratic and exact, quite different from the romantic, impro-
visational school of Segovia”. As a teenager Rey de la Torre was sent
from Cuba to Barcelona to be taught by Llobet in 1932, subsequently
becoming one of his most outstanding pupils. His reminiscences of
this period (Rey de la Torre 1985) emphasize the powerful impact of
Llobet’s personality, his musicianship and broad musical tastes upon
his own outlook as a musician and guitarist.13 On completion of these
lessons Rey de la Torre returned to Cuba for a brief period, before em-
igrating permanently to the United States in 1938, from which point
his reputation in North America as an outstanding concert and re-
cording artist began to grow.
Around the time of his aforementioned SMC debut, Rey de la Torre
was also making recordings on short-term contracts with other small
independent labels – Allegro and Philharmonia Records. Allegro was
a short-lived company (operative between 1948–1951), specializing in
classical LPs and children’s music, which during its brief duration was
able to attract major classical talent. The company was established by
Samuel Paul Puner, the founder of the Musicraft label (Bonner 2008),
132 The Recording Model Consolidated

for whom Segovia had recorded the Bach Chaconne in 1946. Rey de la
Torre’s frst album for Allegro (AL 76) was devoted exclusively to the
solo guitar works of Fernando Sor, including two lengthier pieces – the
Grand Sonata Op. 22 (a recording contemporary with Rolando Valdes
Blain’s SMC disc), and the Mozart Variations Op. 9. The remainder
of the LP is concerned with shorter minuets and studies (5, 12 and 19
in the 1945 Segovia edition) effectively flling the gaps in the series left
in his earlier SMC recording. As discussed in reference to SMC, the
single composer approach of AL76 is at odds with the “miscellaneous”
repertoire surveys found in the LP recordings of Segovia at this time.
Rey de la Torre’s second Allegro album (AL90) German Song from
the Minnesingers to the Seventeenth Century features the guitarist in
accompaniment to the tenor Earl Rogers. In its focus on early German
music, which was probably prompted by Allegro’s director of artists
and repertoire, Richard Moses, it represents an interesting anomaly
given Rey de la Torre’s Latin American background and Hispanic rep-
ertoire leanings. It also anticipates the later historically focused record-
ings of German music by Siegfried Behrend.
Rey de la Torre’s two recordings for Philharmonia Records, made
in 1950 (PH101) and 1952 (PH106) respectively, signaled a fur-
ther progression into new repertoire territory. Philharmonia was a
self-fnanced label established in 1951 by string players Sylvan and
Jay Shulman together with engineer Norman Pickering, which in its
short lifespan (it folded in 1954) made several valuable prototype
“audiophile” recordings of classical music (Shulman 2004). Rey de la
Torre’s frst LP for Philharmonia (PH101) was undertaken with the
Stuyvesant String Quartet, performing the Boccherini Quintet in D,
today a well-established chamber work featuring the guitar. 20th Cen-
tury Music for the Guitar (PH106) was of greater signifcance in its
devotion entirely to solo guitar works which moved beyond Rey de
la Torre’s early repertoire focus to modern music by composers with
connections to Spain and Cuba. Of particular importance here are the
performances of Rodrigo’s earliest guitar piece, the Zarabanda Lejana,
and two works – Joaquín Nin-Culmell’s Six Variations on a Theme of
Milan and Julián Orbon’s Prelude y Toccata – that had been written
for Rey de la Torre himself. The album also includes gestures to Rey
de la Torre’s teacher Miguel Llobet in the choices of Manuel de Fal-
la’s Homenaje (written at Llobet’s instigation) and the two Granados
pieces (La Maja de Goya and Spanish Dance No. 5) that occupy the
latter half of Side 2, both in the Llobet transcriptions. The detailed
liner notes are also written by Rey de la Torre, and compared to the
generally descriptive accounts that became typical to the Segovia al-
bums of this period, these demonstrate a certain analytical insight
into the music being performed and a concern with highlighting con-
nections between the contemporary pieces played and their affliation
with the guitar’s earlier Spanish musical traditions.
Rey de la Torre’s Philharmonia recordings also constitute unique
examples of location-based recording aesthetics, suggesting that this
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 133

was not the exclusive province of the major labels at this time. Both
are informed by the ambience of the specially chosen Village Church
of Bronxville in New York whose “superlative acoustical qualities” are
also drawn attention to on the albums’ liner notes. Philharmonia hired
the services of acclaimed14 engineer Norman Pickering (1916–2015)
to make the recordings, who recalled that the venue was of “large, of
rough stone, with a long reverberation time” and that a single Neu-
mann U-47 was used. Rey de la Torre recalled that additional acous-
tic treatment was employed to moderate the building’s reverberance:
“carpets were hung in the church to help the sound”. Pickering also
observed that Rey de la Torre was “totally non-temperamental about
recording”, being willing to “play things over and over with no ob-
jections so I could get the right sound” (Weller 2005). The sound of
Rey de la Torre’s Philharmonia’s recordings was distinctive enough to
invoke comment from critics. In reference to Rey de la Torre’s 20th
Century Music for the Guitar LP, a High Fidelity reviewer noted that
“oddly, the sound of the guitar alone, in the old Village Church at
Bronxville, is not nearly so good as was that of the same guitar with
a chamber orchestra; it is oversized, somewhat thunderous” (J.M.C.
1953: 63). Such criticism of classical guitar recordings that appeared
to fout the conventions of concert hall “realism” was later to become
commonplace in the reception literature.
In the late 1950s Rey de la Torre was able to secure a longer-term
record deal with a more prominent label, Epic (a Columbia Records
subsidiary), resulting in fve LP recordings between 1957 and 1961.
These are essentially recital discs whose approaches to organization
of repertoire vary, but are again unifed in their central focus on Span-
ish and Latin American music, as well as continued acknowledgement
of Miguel Llobet whose arrangements and pieces feature frequently.
Plays Classical Guitar (1957), in keeping with the format of the time,
adopts a fairly conventional historical model surveying music from
the vihuelists via Sor to Tárrega and Torroba, including examples of
Llobet’s Catalonian songs. Morris Hastings’ (1957) liner notes, like
those of Segovia’s discs of this period, are concerned to situate the
guitar in relation to its historical predecessors such as the “Spanish
lute”, and allude to the theme of the instrument’s struggle for legit-
imacy in the concert hall. Virtuoso Guitar (c.1958) is less concerned
with chronology and concentrates mainly on late nineteenth century
and early twentieth-century composers (Tárrega, Turina, Falla) with
more geographical diversity in the inclusion of Giuliani (in a notable
early recording of the Sonata Op. 15) and Villa-Lobos’s Choros No.
1. The theme of Romantic Guitar (1959) is Spanish composers “linked
by a romantic-nationalist orientation which gained a powerful impetus
from the work of Felipe Pedrell” (Jellinek 1959). Here the classic Tár-
rega–Llobet tradition of transcriptions and pieces is given particular
priority and there are re-recordings of Rodrigo’s Zarabanda Lejana
and Falla’s Homenaje. Rey de la Torre’s fourth Epic album, Music for
Two Guitars/Music for One Guitar (1960), partially diverts from the
134 The Recording Model Consolidated

solo guitar format, programming Emilio Pujol’s arrangements for gui-

tar duo (Rey de la Torre playing both parts) of Albéniz (Tango Español
and Córdoba) and Granados (Intermezzo from Goyescas) on Side 1
contrasted with solo repertoire – studies by Sor and Villa-Lobos – on
Side 2. His fnal album for Epic, Recital (1961) once again featured
re-recorded repertoire, here the Orbón and Nin-Culmell works that
frst appeared on PH106, presumably to revisit the original interpre-
tations and capitalize on improved production values. This album is
also of interest for its Latin American content, in particular the two
waltzes by Venezuelan composer, Antonio Lauro, whose reputation
was not yet widely established outside his country, and the two dances
by nineteenth-century Cuban composer Ignacio Cervantes transcribed
from the piano by Nin-Culmell. Outside his commitment to Epic, Rey
de la Torre also made one further recording in 1961 for the indepen-
dent label Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI 147) as accompanist to
soprano Adele Addison in Noel Lee’s Five Songs on Poems of Fed-
erico García Lorca. The choice of music here indicates a willingness to
engage with more abstract (in this case twelve-tone) musical languages,
anticipating the direction that the recordings of Bream and Behrend
were to take a few years later.
Reviews of Rey de la Torre’s recordings offer occasional insight into
the reception of his performance style and programming approach rel-
ative to his contemporaries. Discussing a later HMV re-compilation
of Epic material (CLP 3607), Malcolm MacDonald, the vociferous
Gramophone critic of Segovia’s “miscellaneous” recordings, remarked
upon the “classical restraint” of Rey de la Torre’s playing of Tárrega
and Torroba: “here one listener might wish for more abandon, where
another would settle gladly for the skill and reserve of the present
performance”. MacDonald also remarked upon his programming of
more substantial segments of material: “the growing tendency to pres-
ent guitar sonatas and suites in complete rather than separate move-
ment performances is a most welcome one” (M.M. 1967b: 591).
Regarding production values, it is clear from the audio quality of
the Epic recordings that Rey de la Torre was by this time able to avail
himself of well specifed recording facilities. It is quite likely, given
the label’s provenance, that he recorded at CBS’s acclaimed 30th
Street Studio, which possessed excellent acoustics (it was housed in
a converted church) and was staffed by adept recording personnel.15
The Epic recordings are characterized by a detailed, close sound with
subtle ambience, reminiscent of the early Columbia recordings of
John Williams, and the scrutiny to which Rey de la Torre’s playing
is subjected by the microphone confrms a technique of great preci-
sion and cleanliness. Indeed for some tastes this perspective was simply
too revealing, as noted by High Fidelity reviewer H.G. (in reference
to the Music for Two Guitars/Music for One Guitar) who commented
that: “Epic’s sound is full bodied and brilliant, but more distant mi-
crophoning might have eliminated some of the extraneous string buzz”
(H.G. 1960: 96). Music for Two Guitars/Music for One Guitar is of also
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 135

particular interest for the double-tracking of guitar parts in the duets

by Granados and Albéniz on Side 1. This can be seen in the context of
the advances that had taken place in the multi-track studio during the
1950s and the new possibilities such technology was now presenting
for experimental recording practice. In addition the growing accep-
tance of stereo in the early 1960s was encouraging new ways of think-
ing about the spatial dimensions of recordings. This particular disc
was advertised as employing “Stereorama”, for “Outstanding High
Fidelity Through Radial Sound”, one of the many slogans devised by
record labels to attract consumers during the early stereo period. Da-
vid Johnson’s liner notes for the album drew attention to the particular
musical benefts of this technique:

As has been said, both Albéniz and Granados were strongly infu-
enced by guitar idioms, but their music is often too complex in har-
mony and fguration for a single guitar to do it justice. Two-guitar
arrangements, such as those by Emilio Pujol used in this record-
ing, are a good way of obviating this problem. Modern recording
technique allows the artist to perform both parts, thus assuring a
reasonably unifed approach to the composition.
(Johnson 1960)

The disc also met with approval of High Fidelity reviewer, H.G., who
suggested that stereo enabled better appreciation of the musical detail,
as well as pointing out the earlier precedents for the practice of over-
dubbing oneself:

By means of electronic trickery, De la Torre can here be heard play-

ing duets with himself. He thus continues a hallowed tradition that
dates back to the far-off days of Heifetz and Heifetz. (Remember
his… their… recording of Bach’s Double Concerto?). Stereo greatly
augments the pleasure on this side of the disc, for the instruments
are sharply separated between the two speakers and the musical
line is impressively clarifed. I found that reversing the tracks so
that the accompaniment came from the right-hand side enhanced
the effect still more.
(H.G. 1960: 96)

LAURINDO ALMEIDA’S RECORDINGS OF THE 1950S

AND 1960S
Laurindo Almeida (1917–1995) was one the few contemporaries of
Segovia whose recording career in the 1950s and 1960s was actively
sustained by a major North American label, in this case Capitol Re-
cords. This enabled him to provide, as Wade notes, an “alternative
to Segovia’s virtual monopoly of the guitar on disc” (1980: 197) and
achieve a global reach which made him the frst Brazilian classical
guitarist to become internationally known to the general consumer of
136 The Recording Model Consolidated

classical guitar recordings. Almeida’s eclectic and typically Brazilian

open-mindedness towards boundaries between musical styles can also
be regarded as an important challenge to the notion of what consti-
tuted “classical” repertoire as Segovia had defned it, pre-empting the
later de-stabilization of the entrenched Segovian position in the 1970s.
Almeida was born in Santos, São Paulo and began his career per-
forming for radio in Rio de Janeiro, before becoming widely known
across South America for his work as station arranger and as a widely
published songwriter. In 1947 he re-located to the United States, where
he was quickly hired by jazz bandleader Stan Kenton, with whom he
made his frst American recordings.16 Almeida’s frst Capitol recording
as a solo guitarist was Concert Creations for Guitar (LC6669), released
in 1950, an album which displays a typically Brazilian crossover per-
spective in its programming of classical guitar style transcriptions – the
Bach Bourrée in B minor (made famous by Segovia) and Malagueña
by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona – with arrangements of pop-
ular songs, such as “Tea for Two”, and Almeida’s own compositions
including his well–known Brazilliance. The freshness of the album’s
content was welcomed, with BMG’s critic Discus commenting that,
“Light music verging on jazz is a great rarity in the world of the au-
thentic Spanish guitar, let alone recorded by such a beautiful player as
Almeida” (1954: 17).
After Concert Creations further albums for Capitol followed in
quick succession which served, over the next decade, to frmly establish
Almeida’s credentials within the classical guitar feld. His 1955 Guitar
Music of Spain (P8295) disc surveyed the Spanish canon (Sor, Albéniz,
Tárrega, Torroba, Turina), with a nod to Segovia in the inclusion of
two of the maestro’s own compositions. This LP was praised by Gram-
ophone’s reviewer, L.S., for a program that was “conspicuously well
chosen, taking into account contrast, chronology and all the other fac-
tors of good programme building” (1955: 228). Almeida’s 1955 album,
Guitar Music of Latin America (Capitol P8321), was also received
enthusiastically. This contained a more original survey of works by
Villa-Lobos (selections from his Preludes and Etudes), the Mexican
composers, José Barroso (1901–1986) and Ponce (the Valse from Cua-
tro Piezas previously recorded by Segovia for HMV), two major works
by Barrios (the Bach-like Preludio Op. 5 No. 1 and Choro da Saudade),
and three of Almeida’s own pieces. In particular the reviewer approved
of Almeida’s departing from the more frivolous dance music cliches
associated with the continent and commenting that “probably this is
a side of Latin American music that guitarists think should be better
known” (M.M. 1957: 67). Such comments tend to contradict the view
of Wade (1980), who downplays Almeida’s caliber as a classical gui-
tarist in comparison to Segovia.17 Indeed Almeida was given credit for
album programs which marked an advance on the mixed recital model
that some critics were starting to fnd problematic in regard to Segov-
ia’s LPs. Reviewing Almeida’s album, New World of the Guitar (P8392)
in the Gramophone, Malcolm MacDonald commented that:
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 137

This has at least one substantial advantage over every other guitar
record of which I know: it does not consist entirely of short pieces
… I would like to think that it opens up a new era in guitar records,
one in which our old friend the “movement form” is promoted from
his hitherto permanent place of standby to where he belongs –
the exceptional. Short pieces, of course, do suit the guitar very well
indeed. But you can have too many of them at a stretch, and until
this happy record appeared you have had to do so, relentlessly, on
the guitar’s twelve inch LP’s.
(1958: 498)

This reviewer was referring in particular to Joaquín Turina’s

three-movement Sonata for Guitar Op. 61 and the decision to program
six of Ponce’s twelve Preludes (Nos 2, 5, 8, 10, 11 and 12) en masse.18 In
terms of the contemporary repertoire, the inclusion of John Duarte’s
Miniature Suite, Albert Harris’s Sonatina for Guitar, and Rodrigo’s
En Los Trigales was also signifcant. BMG’s critic Discus (aka Duarte)
praised Almeida’s performance of his own piece and wrote of the al-
bum that, “Other recording artists could well take heed of Almeida’s
enterprise in his choice of programme” (1958: 278). Almeida also re-
corded two LPs of Villa-Lobos’s music. Villa-Lobos – Music for the
Spanish Guitar (SP8497), released in 1960, while surveying much of
the same music that Segovia had recorded on his American Decca re-
cital discs during the 1950s, was unique in its all-Villa-Lobos focus. His
1966 release of the Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra (SP8638)
was the earliest recording of the work to appear in North America.19
The album’s liner notes emphasize the importance of Almeida as an
interpreter of Villa-Lobos’s music, drawing attention to his “close per-
sonal friendship with the composer” (a photo of Almeida with Vil-
la-Lobos is included on the cover) and the fact of his having “to work
from the manuscript score to prepare the frst recording” due to the
work being unpublished at this time.
One of Almeida’s most forward-thinking explorations of reper-
toire on LP was Contemporary Creations for Spanish Guitar (1958),
which was comprised entirely of new works for solo guitar by con-
temporary North American composers. Contributions to the album
ranged widely, including music by composers associated with flm and
television (Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Alex North and David
Raksin) and jazz and popular music (Martin Paich and Jack W. Mar-
shall)20 constituting a unique and unprecedented combination of mu-
sical styles for a classical guitar disc. Some of the music on the LP
was directly commissioned by Almeida (Paich, Mancini), some was
arranged by him (Raksin), while other pieces had been composed pre-
viously, such as Goldsmith’s Toccata, an important solo guitar work
described in the liner notes as “the most modern and yet the most
severely classical composition on the album”. In this regard Contem-
porary Creations pre-empted by more than decade the landmark re-
cordings of modern European guitar music by Bream and Behrend,
138 The Recording Model Consolidated

as well as marking the inception of an indigenous American school

of classical guitar composition that operated at a certain distance
from the Spanish repertoire cliches (only Lewis Raymond’s Danza
overtly emulates this characteristic). The album’s liner notes state that,
“All the compositions represented here are American, a fact that Mr
Almeida believes to be signifcant, for to him it suggests that in the not
too distant future his instrument will be associated primarily with one
particular culture”. This is a prophetic statement given the later prom-
inence of the American school of classical guitar performance and
composition from the late 1970s onwards. At the same time the remark
also constitutes a more general observation regarding the centrality of
the guitar in American musical culture at this time in many different
musical contexts.
In addition to his solo guitar focused recordings, Almeida also re-
leased several LPs which explored the ensemble format, receiving par-
ticular praise for his work with vocalist Salli Terri and fautist Martin
Ruderman for Duets with Spanish Guitar (1958), an album combining
Brazilian folksongs and French music21 from the sixteenth to nine-
teenth centuries. This disc, incidentally, won a Grammy in 1958 for
“Best Engineered Recording (Classical)” in reference to recordist
Sherwood Hall III. Impressões do Brasil (1957/8) was a collaboration
between Almeida and jazz pianist Ray Turner that included the Con-
certino for Guitar and Piano by Brazilian composer Radamés Gnattali
(1906–1988), with whom Almeida became closely associated. Gnattali
was of a similar musical outlook to Almeida, possessing a background
in commercial radio music and popular music arranging, in addition
to his strong “art” music leanings (Béhague 1979). Gnattali’s music
appears on The Guitar Worlds of Laurindo Almeida (1961), which takes
as its concept the historical distribution of the European traditions of
guitar and lute music in Latin America. Here the repertoire is divided
into two areas: “Classic” on Side 1, on which Almeida’s guitar/lute
accompanies the viola d’amore in a range of Baroque period works
(including Sanz, Weiss, Santiago de Murcia and Francisco Guerau)
while “Modern” on Side 2 fnds Almeida partnered with the fute (Ru-
derman again) and viola, in Gnattali’s Sonatina for Flute and Gui-
tar. Gnattali also wrote four guitar concertinos, the most popular of
which, the Concerto de Copacabana (P8625), was recorded by Almeida
for Capitol in Rio de Janeiro in 1966. Composed in 1956 this work is
of a strongly nationalist character, showing a marked infuence of the
bossa nova, which undoubtedly accounted for the commercial success
of the album.

THE SOUND OF ALMEIDA’S RECORDINGS

High fdelity production aesthetics were an important aspect of the
promotion of Almeida’s records, which were marketed using Capitol’s
“Full Dimensional Sound” branding (or FDS for short). This record-
ing approach had been pioneered by Capitol since the early LP era
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 139

(from around 1949) and was in keeping with the general trend in min-
imal miking technique that was also being promoted by other labels
such as Mercury (the “Living Presence” brand) and RCA (the “Living
Stereo” brand). Advertisements for FDS branded products that ran
throughout the 1950s in publications such as High Fidelity and Gram-
ophone used common expressions such as “the best seat in the house”,
“tonal realism”, and “it’s like opening a window to the live perfor-
mance”, while also stressing the role of Capitol’s engineers and pro-
ducers in ensuring the exacting standards of its recordings (which were
scrutinized by an appointed “Review Committee”). The key attributes
of FDS were summed up in an advertisement (“A Sound Refection!”)
in Gramophone in June 1958:

Long before any Capitol Full Dimensional Sound record is is-

sued, its artistic and technical merits are very carefully considered
over and over again. For a record to qualify for the now famous
“F.D.S.” symbol, it must pass well-above average standards of ac-
ceptability as regards: background noise; electrical and acoustic
distortion; frequency and dynamic range; separation; musical bal-
ance and performance. When, and only when, there is unanimous
agreement that an exceptional performance has been fawlessly re-
corded, will Capitol permit the FULL DIMENSIONAL SOUND
symbol.
(1958a: 20)

Almeida’s recordings would almost certainly have been made in Cap-

itol’s legendary purpose built studios on the West Coast at Melrose
Avenue, and, after 1956, at the purpose built Capitol Tower on Holly-
wood and Vine.22 According to Cogan and Clark (2003), echo cham-
bers were an important part of the Capitol production aesthetic during
this period and it is interesting to speculate on the extent to which
they would have been employed to achieve Almeida’s particular guitar
sound. Almeida’s 1950s recordings were produced by Robert E. Myers
(1912–1976), who was primarily responsible for shaping his profle as a
classical (rather than jazz) guitarist at Capitol. Myers was also closely
associated with the development and promotion of the FDS brand (he
was on the label’s Review Committee for FDS recordings) and would
no doubt have been keen to observe the principles of the “high fdelity”
in the context of solo classical guitar recording. Certainly Almeida’s
(monaural) recordings of the 1950s possess an un-doctored quality,
exhibiting a close, natural character without overt reverberation.
The promotion of Almeida’s recordings confated FDS with the
unique experience of Almeida’s playing and the sound worlds he was
able to conjure. An advertisement in High Fidelity for the Guitar Music
of Spain/Latin America (April 1956) describes his recordings as open-
ing “a private door to the dark, rich, brooding world of brilliant Span-
ish composers Sor, Tárrega and Torroba…the strange and secret world
depicted by the Spanish Guitar”:
140 The Recording Model Consolidated

You’ll enter this world soon after you touch needle to either of
Mr. Almeida’s two new Capitol Recordings – “Guitar Music of
Spain” or “Guitar Music of Latin America.” Collections of the
fnest pieces ever written for the Spanish Guitar, they’re recorded
by Capitol in fawless “Full Dimensional Sound”.
(1956a: 73)

The high fdelity production character of Almeida’s recordings was fre-

quently remarked upon by critics. In reference to Guitar Music of Latin
America, Gramophone reviewer M.M. commented, “I do not see how the
recording could be bettered in any way at all – even the guitar, easiest of
soloists, has surely seldom been caught so well as this” (1957: 67). Of the
same album, Howard LaFay wrote in High Fidelity, “Perhaps never be-
fore has such purity of recorded sound been lavished on a guitar recital.
Almeida matches the achievement of the engineers with masterful, moody
readings of a dozen South American guitar compositions” (1956: 79).
Almeida was also one of the few guitarists at this time to adopt
multi-tracking techniques in the service of more ambitious arrangement
strategies for his albums. His had begun experimenting with building up
guitar tracks through tape overdubbing (mixed monaurally) in the early
1950s with his recordings for Coral – Famous Serenades (1951) and Latin
Melodies (1955). Then, early in the stereo era, he released The Spanish
Guitars of Laurindo Almeida (1961), which featured arrangements for
two and three guitars (including an alto guitar) of keyboard repertoire
by Bach, Debussy, Chopin and Rachmaninoff, with all parts recorded
by Almeida. While this was certainly an unusual move relative to clas-
sical guitar recording practice per se, it is less surprising in this context
given that Capitol had a well established reputation in popular music
recording at this time and would not have regarded such an “artifcial”
technique as being out of the ordinary. Interestingly, the liner notes, by
music editor of Stereo Review, David Hall, are focused on justifying
Almeida’s recording approach by demonstrating that his objectives have
a genuinely musical end. He states that overdubbing techniques were
“employed with taste by a frst rate artist” to “open up some remarkably
fascinating horizons in the realm of musical performance”, and that
arranged in this way, “the guitar takes on some of the solidity of tex-
ture that we associate with the piano or harpsichord” while at the same
time retaining “the fexibility peculiar to its being an extension of the
individual player” (Hall 1961). Furthermore, the use of reverberation,
serves to “enhance of the overall sonority of the performance”. A sec-
ond overdubbed album, Reverie for Spanish Guitars (Capitol SP 8571),
followed in 1962, whose liner notes proclaim that Almeida “performs
all the parts himself, through the miracle of modern multiple recording
techniques”. Again the liner notes are employed primarily to rebuff any
anticipated criticism the use of these recording techniques:

These arrangements were conceived not as display pieces to at-

tract attention to their own stereo or hi-f trickery but as sincere
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 141

evocations of great composers in their moments of dreaming

….The warmth of high fdelity recording and the wide-spread
aura of stereophonic sound serve a purely musical end.
(Anon 1962a)

One reviewer of this particular album remained unimpressed, how-

ever, asking “why must all classical guitarists persist with this type of
acrobatics?” which caused the intimacy of the instrument to be “com-
pletely lost”: “we seem to hear some monster instrument with eighty
enormous strings and the result is rather disturbing if not downright
frightening” (H.G. 1962: 76).

THE CLASSICAL GUITAR AND AMERICAN POPULAR

MUSIC AND JAZZ
By way of a conclusion to this chapter, some consideration is now given
to developments in North America which refect the infuence of pop-
ular music on the emerging classical guitar scene. This relates both to
the phenomenon of classical guitarists who began to re-situate their
classical guitar performing activity within the popular music context,
and situations in which the classical guitar was adopted as a medium
of expression by popular musicians themselves. The former refers to
the occasional instances of classical guitarists who, having begun their
careers as concert performers, later inclined increasingly towards the
popular music sphere as their careers progressed. The US-based Cuban
guitarist Rolando Valdes-Blain (1922–2011), for example, whose debut
LP for the SMC label was a recording of Sor’s Op. 22, was by end of
the late 1950s guesting for Mercury on Hi-Fi a La Española with Fred-
erick Fennell and the Eastman-Rochester Pops Orchestra (1957). Then
in 1959 he recorded La Guitarra: The Genius of Rolando Valdes-Blain
with Radio City Hall music arranger, Rayburn Wright (for the Roulette
label). Here he ported several of the well-known “hits” of the classi-
cal repertoire into a “light” music context, including Tárrega’s Adelita,
Granados’s Spanish Dance No. 5 and Turina’s Fandanguillo (mistak-
enly credited to Tárrega on the disc label). These were programmed with
a number of arrangements of well-known folk melodies from various
parts of Latin America many of which are couched in a sugar-coated
orchestral accompaniments typical of the 1950s light music genre.
At the same time artists working in the popular feld were enthusias-
tically adopting classical material into their solo guitar recordings as
a means of reaching beyond their own disciplines. Without question
one of the most important links between the classical and popular
domains during the 1950s and 1960s was Chet Atkins (1924–2001), a
pioneer of the sophisticated solo guitar arrangement on electric and
steel strung acoustic guitar. From the mid-1950s Atkins also began to
include a nylon strung instrument in his recordings and gradually be-
gan to incorporate material from the classical guitar repertoire. Early
examples include the RCA Victor albums Finger-Style Guitar and Chet
142 The Recording Model Consolidated

Atkins in Three Dimensions (both released c.1956). Finger-Style Guitar,

an electric guitar album, devoted its B-side to classical material includ-
ing Spanish repertoire (Tárrega’s Adelita) and arrangements (Gossec’s
Gavotte in D and Brahms’ Waltz in A-fat) as well as popular tunes.
The classical music content is not drawn attention to explicitly in this
instance, rather the pieces are chosen primarily to demonstrate Atkins’
virtuosity as a fnger-style guitarist. Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions,
however, makes a point of highlighting the genre boundaries by divid-
ing the repertoire into “Folk”, “Popular” and “Classical”, the latter
category encompassing arrangements of Bach, Chopin, Heinz Provost
and Fritz Kreisler. All are played on electric guitar with the exception
of the Bach Minuet and Prelude which utilizes a classical instrument.
The album’s liner notes assert that the interest of Atkins’ foray into
classical territory here lies both in the fact that “this is an area where
the average guitarist never treads” and “the same man who has just
been playing folk and pop songs now displays a unique mastery of
and a great sensitivity for the delicate and the intricate” (Digby 1956).
The Other Chet Atkins, released in 1960, was the frst of Atkins’
LPs to be recorded entirely using a classical nylon strung instrument,
although the focus in this instance is on arrangements of Latin-style
pop. With Class Guitar (1967), however, Atkins moved more reso-
lutely into the classical repertoire territory, combining canonical fa-
vorites, such as Tárrega’s harmonics showpiece Alborada (Capricho)
and Lágrima, Llobet’s version of El Testament d’Amèlia, and Ponce’s
Scherzino Mexicano, with arrangements of popular Latin and North
American songs such as Bonfá’s “Manhã de Carnaval”, “Yellow Bird”,
“El Humahuaqueño” and Leonard Bernstein’s “I Feel Pretty” (from
West Side Story). Signifcantly the latter three arrangements were by
the Argentinian classical guitarist, Jorge Morel, who was also at this
time gaining a reputation in the United States for his crossover ac-
tivities.23 While Atkins’ performances on this LP display considerable
technical accomplishment, he nonetheless felt compelled to include an
almost apologetic proviso on the album’s sleeve: “Please realize that
this album is not meant to compete with any of the fne contemporary
classic guitarists in the scene today. It is only another adventure for me
in the wonderful world of the guitar” (Atkins 1967). This concealed
a certain seriousness of intent, however, as Atkins had devoted much
time to studying the classical guitar, using the guitar method of Tár-
rega pupil Pascual Roch (Atkins and Cochran 2003) and later studied
with Liona Boyd (Boyd 1998). Atkins was also personally acquainted
with Segovia with whom he was apparently on good terms until the
latter discovered that he also played electric guitar! By the 1970s At-
kins had made the nylon strung guitar a central aspect of his public
performances and recordings.
The beginnings of a close relationship between the classical guitar
and the feld of jazz can also be observed during this period, as exem-
plifed by the work of Charlie Byrd (1925–1999) and Bill Harris (1925–
1988). Byrd, a pupil of the Washington-based guitarist Sophocles
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 143

Papas and Segovia, had begun his career as a classical guitarist and
had even made recordings of the early classical guitar repertoire (An
Anthology of Guitar Music: The Sixteenth Century) for the Washing-
ton record label (c. 1958). By the late 1950s he had transferred his al-
legiance to jazz, focusing his classical technique on sophisticated solo
arrangements of jazz standards. Byrd’s crossover into the genre was
marked by his aptly titled, Jazz Recital LP (released on Savoy in 1957)
which included solo arrangements of several Rodgers and Hart com-
positions of My Funny Valentine, Little Girl Blue, My Heart Stood Still
and Spring is Here, as well as Byrd’s own compositions. Byrd’s almost
Segovian manifesto for the use of the classical guitar in a jazz context
was outlined in the album’s liner notes:

I’d like to see the guitarists of today using more of the vast store
of knowledge that has been piled up by the great lute players and
guitarists of the past 400 years. Men like Dowland, Milan and
Weiss wrote and played very complicated things that have not been
surpassed to this very day! The Pick technique of the guitar al-
lows rapid scale type passages and a sharp attack for rhythm, but
doesn’t have nearly as much variety and beauty as the Finger tech-
nique. Finger playing on the unamplifed Spanish guitar shows the
delicate tonal colors of the guitar, which is its strongest feature!
(Stein 1957)

Bill Harris was another Papas pupil and seasoned popular musician (a
member of the R & B vocal group The Clovers) who recorded two in-
novative LPs of jazz arrangements for Mercury-owned subsidiaries in
the late 1950s – his debut, Bill Harris (EmArcy 1956) and Great Guitar
Sounds (Wing 1959). Like Byrd’s Jazz Recital, the liner notes to Harris’
discs highlighted the benefts to jazz of the classical guitar fusion.

The Bill Harris approach to jazz guitar should give pause to many
of those who, in their haste to take advantage of the electric fa-
cilities available to them, may have by-passed some of the great
innate resources of the instrument. In these sides you will fnd
combined some of the great spirit of Segovia, the creative bril-
liance of Django and the linear development of the typical modern
jazzman, all fused into a style that is both academically and emo-
tionally without parallels in the annals of contemporary plectrism.
(Anon 1956b)

One of the most signifcant innovators of jazz performance on the

classical guitar between the 1950s and 1970s was Laurindo Almeida,
who alongside his activities as a classical soloist pursued a paral-
lel career as a guitarist with a number of jazz ensembles. The 1955
“Brazilliance” LP (Pacifc Jazz PJ-1204), recorded as the Laurindo
Almeida Quartet with saxophonist Bud Shank, showcased Almei-
da’s sophisticated soloistic playing in the context of the small jazz
144 The Recording Model Consolidated

ensemble (see for example, the introductory solo guitar passage work
on tracks such as Stairway to the Stars and Nonô, or Amor Flamengo
with its distinctive Spanish infections). Almeida’s later 1964 album
Collaboration (Atlantic 1429) recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet
moved closer to classical repertoire with arrangements of Bach’s (rel-
atively obscure) Fugue in A minor BWV 947 and a re-working of the
slow movement from Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, in which the
orchestration was carefully adapted by the group’s pianist John Lewis
while leaving the guitar part in its original form. Both arrangements
anticipated the approach taken by John Williams with the band Sky
in the late 1970s.

NOTES
1. Oyanguren also recorded for Victor in the early 1940s, covering repertoire
of a more contemporary Spanish character. See Victor 4546, for example,
which contains Falla’s Homenaje and Turina’s Rafaga. Many of Oyan-
guren’s early recordings of this period are surveyed on the Segovia and
His Contemporaries series Vols 1 and 8.
2. Announced in BMG, November 1939.
3. Both volumes were later issued together on LP, Decca DL 8018 in 1950.
4. The source of this information is Ruppli (1996a).
5. The frst two albums were later issued on LP, DL 8017. Material from
Gómez’s recordings was also published in sheet music form by Mills at
this time.
6. Other flms in which Gómez’s music and playing featured include Duel in
the Sun (1946) and Captain from Castile (1947).
7. Located at 1291 Sixth Avenue, New York.
8. Argüelles is also the author of suite of compositions entitled El Flamenco,
published in sheet music form by the SMC in 1966.
9. Leon was also a composer and frequently included his own works in his
recitals. Unfortunately, he did not record any of these pieces for SMC.
10. Valenti played steel strung guitars made by John D’Angelico, including
an instrument that he had modifed in the early 1960s to accommodate
nylon and silkwound strings in the manner of a classical guitar (Schmidt
1998).
11. Prior to this Valenti had also appeared as an accompanist to the
Swedish-American folksinger and guitarist William Clauson (1930–2017)
on a Spanish language album of Christmas songs entitled Canciones de
Navidad (SMC Pro-Arte 556). Clauson was himself a classical guitarist
who had chosen to utilize the instrument in an accompaniment role to his
voice in the manner of Richard Dyer-Bennet.
12. Morel’s frst US recordings were made for American Decca in 1962–3.
13. See also Weller (1994).
14. Pickering, a Juilliard trained musician, instrument designer and inventor
of a phonograph pickup cartridge, was the prototype of the later musi-
cally literate engineer associated with labels such as Deutsche Grammo-
phon. He was also a co-founder of the Audio Engineering Society.
15. Unfortunately, however, there are no documented recollections of any of
the sessions he undertook for this label in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
The North American Backdrop to Segovia 145

16. For a succinct profle of Almeida’s career to the early 1950s see Duarte
(1951b).
17. Critics generally recognized that Almeida was not necessarily intending
to compete with Segovia and therefore did not tend to draw comparisons.
18. This refers to the Schott edition of 12 Preludes (GA 124-5), edited by
Segovia. The liner notes for Almeida’s LP suggest that he opted for these
particular Preludes in response to Segovia’s 1954 recording of Nos 1, 3, 4,
6, 7 and 9 on An Evening with Andrés Segovia (DL 9733).
19. It was preceded only by Maria Livia São Marcos’s 1962 LP which was
made in São Paulo and had not at this time received wide circulation
outside Brazil.
20. Jack Marshall (1921–1973) was a well-known jazz guitarist who later be-
came an important infuence on the development of his cousin Christo-
pher Parkening’s career.
21. See also follow-up albums, For My True Love (P8461) and Songs of
Enchantment (P8482), released in 1959 and Conversations with Guitar
(P8532), released in 1960.
22. For further discussion of Capitol’s studio facilities in the 1950s see Cogan
and Clark (2003) and Schmidt-Horning (2013).
23. See, for example, Morel’s albums for American Decca, The Magnifcent
Guitar of Jorge Morel (1962) and The Warm Guitar (1963).
7
Developments in Latin America

INTRODUCTION
This chapter gives an overview of the development of classical guitar
recording in Latin America from the 1950s to the 1970s in reference to
activities of guitarists in Brazil, the Rio de La Plata, Venezuela, Mex-
ico and Cuba, all territories which gave rise to classical guitar cultures
whose musical outlooks were integral to the later development of the
mainstream classical guitar repertoire in North America and Europe.
A key purpose is to provide further context for an appreciation of the
Latin American “corrective” which refers to debate played out in the
recorded classical guitar canon between the Segovian view of the clas-
sical guitar as propagated via his American Decca recordings and the
emerging Latin American identity within which Spanish perspectives
were reconciled with indigenous musical ambitions. In particular the
Latin American corrective is refected in an essentially nationalistic
stance taken by classical guitarists in their recordings, manifested in
the prioritization of local musical forms and works by Latin American
guitarists and composers who were not central to the Segovian reper-
toire vision.

THE DOCUMENTATION OF LATIN AMERICAN

GUITAR MUSIC
The beginnings of an awareness of Latin American guitar music out-
side the continent can be charted in the writing published in periodicals
such as the British magazine, BMG, and the New York based Guitar
Review during the 1940s and 1950s. BMG, as observed in Chapters 4
and 6 exhibited a broad-minded attitude towards the guitar and its
repertoire and had been running features on Latin American guitarists
since the 1930s. These acted as an important conduit for information
concerning Latin American performers to reach European guitarists
(including the young Julian Bream). In the case of the Guitar Review,
its interest in Latin American guitar music was in part a refection of
the presence in New York City, and elsewhere in the United States,
146
Developments in Latin America 147

of émigrés from the continent, such as Julio Martínez Oyanguren

(Uruguay), Rey de la Torre (Cuba) and Laurindo Almeida (Brazil),
who were able to foster a wider appreciation of the Latin American
guitar through their concerts and recordings. Naturally Segovia’s con-
siderable infuence within the world of the classical guitar at this time
conditioned much of what was discussed in the Guitar Review, engen-
dering the prioritization of fgures who were closely associated with
him, such as Manuel Ponce and Villa-Lobos. However, the periodical
began to range more widely with the publication of its informative
“Argentine Number” (issue 10) in 1949, and two issues (21 and 22)
focused on Brazilian guitar music in 1957 and 1958, which included
articles by guitarists Olga Coelho and Ronoel Simões. With the emer-
gence of the North American publication, Soundboard (GFA), in the
early 1970s, Latin American guitar music began to become a central
focus of discussion within the classical guitar research community, a
development which also coincided with its growing integration with
the mainstream repertoire.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE BRAZILIAN CLASSICAL GUITAR

As discussed in Chapter 4, early developments in guitar performance
and recording in Brazil were shaped in the context of Brazilian popu-
lar music forms such as the choro, rather than European concepts of
the classical guitar that were becoming more frmly established else-
where in Latin America in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1940s and
1950s solo guitar playing in Brazil continued to evolve in relation to
these infuences. At the same time, however, classical perspectives were
now beginning to permeate to varying degrees the repertoire of popu-
lar guitarists, infuencing their recorded programs. The beginnings of
the crossover can be seen in the work of two guitarists of this period,
Anibal Augusto Sardinha, known as “Garôto” (1915–1955) and Dil-
ermando Reis (1916–1977).
Garôto, whose musical roots, like many Brazilian guitarists, lay in
the choro tradition, was a multi-instrumentalist adept on banjo, cava-
quinho and the four-course bandolim, as well as a prolifc composer
and recording artist who moved freely between genres. Like Canhoto
he placed an emphasis on his own original compositions and arrange-
ments and evolved a distinctive style of solo guitar playing blending
the lyrical and rhythmic elements of the choro with sophisticated jazz
harmony. Garôto had also learned classical guitar and was not averse
to including “erudite” repertoire in his programs. Mello (2015), for
example, quotes a concert program in which Garôto combines com-
positions and transcriptions by Tárrega with arrangements of popu-
lar choros by Ernesto Nazareth and his own pieces. Some of his solo
guitar compositions also refect classical leanings, such as Debussyana,
which alludes to the harmonic style of Debussy’s Clair de Lune and
possesses distinctive musical characteristics that are often reminiscent
of Villa-Lobos.
148 The Recording Model Consolidated

Dilermando Reis, like Garôto, also moved freely between musical

perspectives. He was infuenced by the guitar playing of Canhoto,
whose signature piece, Abismo de Rosas, he later became closely as-
sociated with. He was also acquainted with João Pernambuco, and
learned the principles of the Tárrega school from Levino Albano da
Conceição, an infuential guitarist of the era with classical leanings
(Jerome 2005). Reis made his earliest solo guitar recordings on 78
rpm for Odeon, Columbia and Victor in the 1940s,1 before moving to
the LP format with Brazilian Continental. His debut album, Diler-
mando Reis (1956), brings together the diverse material he had been
exploring in his earlier recordings with Side 1 given over to a selection
of valsas and choros, including Abismo de Rosas and Sons de Car-
rilhões, and Side 2 focused on such “erudite” material as Tárrega’s
Adelita and arrangements of Chopin (the well-known Etude Op 10
No. 3, “Tristesse”) and Beethoven (the Adagio of the “Moonlight”
Sonata). Reis also includes one of his own compositions, Ruas de Es-
panha, which pastiches in a somewhat cliched fashion the idioms of
Spanish folk music. His second LP, Sua Majestade O Violão (1958) is
similar – Side 1 is focused on standard classical repertoire (Tárrega,
Debussy, Schumann and Chopin) while Side 2 is more eclectic in its
coverage of popular favorites such as Vicente Gómez’s arrangement
of the ubiquitous Romance de Amor, and Brazilian guitar standards
(Benedito Chaves’ Marcha Triunfal Brasileira). As was typical of
his popular style, Reis is heard playing a steel-strung guitar on both
LPs. The liner notes for Sua Majestade O Violão are worth remark-
ing upon for their interesting tongue-in-cheek musing on the con-
trasts between the popular Brazilian and the classical Spanish guitar
cultures at this time, the former (embodied by Reis) being painted
as essentially the more natural and expressive relative to the studied
technicality of the latter:

In this country, making sonnets and playing the guitar are

things that happen to creatures with the same regularity as mea-
sles to a child …. Since poetry takes more work we are a people
who do the frst, second and third of C major …. There is no
guitar with the sound that Dilermando gives you. Others may
even be more technical, more agile, more whatever they want.
None, however, with the beautiful, powerful, clear and inimi-
table sound of this young man from Guaratinguetá. A guitar
in the hands of Segovia, Robledo, Tárrega and their adherents
remains a guitar, although well played. When our artist however
places those plump hands on it and strums its strings the in-
strument quickly goes through an amazing transformation. The
secret? No, there is no secret. It is in Dilermando himself, as it
was with all those great artists who knew how to fnd, in string
instruments, the exact place and the right way to draw out the
utmost from them.
(Amorim 1958, author’s translation)
Developments in Latin America 149

Reis’ recordings of the 1960s and 1970s maintain the focus on Bra-
zilian popular material with whole albums devoted to the choros
of Pixinguinha and Ernesto Nazareth, for example, and pieces by
Brazilian guitarist-composers such as Canhoto, Pernambuco, Mo-
zart Bicalho and Levino Albano da Conceição appearing frequently.
Reis’ LPs also increasingly showcase his own compositions during
this period, for example the 1967 album Recordações (PPL 12–330),
which is almost entirely devoted to his music. Classical repertoire re-
mains present, but it is in the minority. Tárrega is a particular favor-
ite (miniatures such as Rosita and Adelita), while Villa-Lobos’ music
appears with less frequency than might be imagined for a Brazilian
guitarist (only the Choros No. 1), and Ponce is represented by his
famous song Estrellita rather than the more substantial items from
the Segovian repertoire. There are also re-recordings of the afore-
mentioned Chopin and Beethoven arrangements and even a tran-
scription of Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C from the frst book of The
Well-Tempered Clavier. Only occasionally did Reis court the con-
temporary concert music world, for example in his 1970 recording
(Continental GPLP-70.003) of Radamés Gnattali’s Concerto No.1
for guitar and orchestra, here performed on a nylon strung instru-
ment. The reverse side of the same disc includes a compelling and
energetic rendition of Barrios’ La Catedral, one of the latter’s most
widely performed works at this time.2
While the popular traditions of the Brazilian guitar were beginning
to refect infuences of the classical repertoire, a dedicated classical gui-
tar culture had meanwhile also begun to emerge in Brazil. A key fgure
here was Isaías Sávio (1900–1977), whose efforts as both a teacher and
composer contributed to the formation of a modern Brazilian school
of classical guitar performance. A native of Uruguay, Sávio spent his
formative years immersed in the vibrant guitar culture of the Rio de la
Plata area, where he saw Agustín Barrios perform (in 1912), and came
into contact with Segovia (on his visit to the territory in 1921) and Mi-
guel Llobet (during the period of his residence in Buenos Aires) from
whom he absorbed the Tárrega principles.3 In the 1920s Sávio estab-
lished himself as successful recitalist in the Rio de la Plata area before
relocating to Brazil in 1931 where he began to develop his unique vi-
sion for a Brazilian school of classical guitar playing (Appleby 1949b;
Orosco 2001). During this time he had also begun to develop as a com-
poser, producing a body of music which became the bedrock of the
recitals and recordings of Brazilian classical guitarists in the 1950s.
Among the most well-known of Sávio’s pieces are the 25 Estudos
melódicos, the impressionistic Prelúdios Pitorescos and the Cenas Bra-
sileiras, a set of ten movements from which the often-performed Batu-
cada is taken. Sávio’s music is notable for its strong leanings towards
Brazilian folk music, a factor which has made his pieces attractive to
European and North American guitarists keen to imbue their recorded
programs with a Latin American favor.4 While Sávio did not himself
record commercially (despite being courted by Columbia label to do
150 The Recording Model Consolidated

so), he made a handful of home recordings of his performances in the

late 1940s using a wire recorder (Orosco 2001).
As a teacher Sávio was instrumental in forming a generation of
infuential Brazilian classical guitarists including Antonio Rebello,
Luiz Bonfá, Carlos Barbosa-Lima and Paulo Bellinati, all of whom
later reached global audiences through their recordings. His teaching
was inclusive of the most important developments in classical guitar
playing outside Brazil. For example, he acknowledged the Segovian
repertoire, which during the 1950s had become widely disseminated
in the country via Segovia’s American Decca recordings. At the same
time he was also keen to incorporate indigenous and wider Latin
American perspectives. One of Sávio’s most prominent pupils, Carlos
Barbosa-Lima (b. 1944), recalled the impact of Segovia’s recordings
and Sávio’s advice on how to approach them:

Hearing Segovia and listening to his records was another import-

ant moment, too. It was another side of the guitar that I was not
familiar with. At that moment I think I had kind of a style build-
ing up, and Sávio was telling me not to get away from that, not
imitate Segovia, but listen to the good interpretations; try to de-
velop the taste, rather than try to copy every phrase he did. I was
very impressed by certain pieces Segovia played. Sávio gave me
Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonata “Omaggio a Boccherini” and the
“Tarantella” also.
(Barbosa-Lima 1994: 7)

Barbosa-Lima’s recordings of the late 1950s, whose programs Sávio

helped to construct, provide an illustration of the emerging Brazil-
ian classical repertoire concept at this time. His debut LP, Dez De-
dos Mágicos num Violão de Ouro, released on Chantecler (a Brazilian
subsidiary of RCA Victor) in 19585 refects the Spanish/Segovian per-
spective in its inclusion of works by Tárrega, Castelnuovo-Tedesco
(the Vivo e enérgico from the Sonata “Omaggio a Boccherini”), and
Bach’s Fugue BWV 1000. Of equal importance however are the pieces
by Barrios (Las Abejas), Villa-Lobos (Prelude No. 1) and the selec-
tions from Sávio’s Cenas Brasileiras (Impressões de Rua, Agogô and
Batucada). A similar dualism obtains on Barbosa-Lima’s second al-
bum, O Menino e o Violão (1959). This again balances the Segovian
repertoire – Bach, Sor and Albéniz – with a Latin American perspec-
tive, here represented by Barrios, Sávio and arrangements of music
by Brazilian composers Theodoro Nogueira, Waldemar Henrique and
Oscar Lorenzo Fernández. Nogueira (1913–2002) is of particular im-
portance because he encouraged Barbosa-Lima to develop his skills as
an arranger, a practice which was central to the programming of his
later LPs (Barbosa-Lima 1994). Nogueira’s music itself was also a vital
source of repertoire for Brazilian classical guitarists in the 1960s and
1970s, for whom he constituted a key fgure in the construction of a
national classical guitar identity. As Barbosa-Lima’s recording career
Developments in Latin America 151

with Chantecler progressed, the Brazilian presence became even more

marked. On his third LP, Concerto de Violão (1960), the Segovian infu-
ence (de Visée’s Suite in D minor, the Gavotte from Bach’s Cello Suite
No. 6 BWV 1012 and Albéniz’s Sevilla) is more than counterbalanced
by the Brazilian contingent of Villa-Lobos, Nogueira, M. Camargo
Guarnieri, Guido Santórsola and Sávio. Barbosa-Lima continued to
prioritize his Brazilian nationalistic perspective on his albums of the
1960s and 1970s, both through his own arrangements of well-known
Brazilian popular music and his dedication to the works of contempo-
rary Brazilian composers. On the 1964 LP, Immortal Catullo (Chante-
cler CMG 1022), for example, he arranged a number of songs by the
iconic Brazilian songwriter Catullo da Paixão Cearense (1863–1946).
He also made the premier recording of Nogueira’s Concertino Para Vi-
ola Brasileira e Orquestra de Camara (Chantecler CMGS 9001),6 and
in 1978 recorded Francisco Mignone’s 12 Estudos for Philips Brazil
(6598-312).
The period in which Sávio was developing his modern Brazilian
school of classical guitar performance also saw Villa-Lobos’ music be-
come more frmly established in the recorded canon. While Segovia’s
inaugural recording of the frst and eighth studies for Columbia in
1949 had been an important frst step in the wider circulation of the
composer’s guitar music, he ultimately only committed a handful of
solo pieces to disc during his American Decca period (Preludes 1 and
3 and Estudos 1, 7 and 8). He also chose not to record Villa-Lobos’s
Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra, despite being the work’s
dedicatee and premiering it in 1956 (under Villa-Lobos conducting the
Houston Symphony Orchestra). However, as ever Segovia was typi-
cally prioritizing only those works that cohered most strongly with his
melodically expressive and Romantic musical aesthetic. This meant
that, in comparison to composers such as Ponce and Torroba, many
of whose works were “owned” by Segovia’s recorded interpretations,
a considerable amount of Villa-Lobos’s music remained available as
repertoire for the younger generation of guitarists.
Ironically it was the British guitarist Julian Bream who made the
frst signifcant recording of Villa-Lobos’ music after Segovia – the
Five Preludes, released in 1956 (Westminster XWN 18137) – before
Brazilian guitarists fnally begin to turn their attention to recording
Villa-Lobos in the early 1960s. Of the younger generation, Maria Livia
São Marcos (b. 1942) made the frst recording of the Concerto for Gui-
tar and Small Orchestra in 1962 (Concêrto Brasileiro de Violão, Audio
Fidelity AFLP-1991). This was followed in 1963 by Turibio Santos’s
defning recording of the 12 Estudos (on Caravelle LP-CAR 43001), an
event important enough to merit the inclusion of a quotation of Sego-
via’s original preface to the published score on the sleeve and detailed
analytical notes relating to each piece. Further discs of Villa-Lobos fol-
lowed, including São Marcos’s 1966 interpretation of the Suite Popular
Brasilienne (on Chantecler CMG 1040) released around 1966 (backed
by Ponce’s Variations on “Folia de España” and Fugue) and Milton
152 The Recording Model Consolidated

Nunes’ early (c. 1965) recording of the Five Preludes (Recital: Milton
Nunes interpretando ao Violão on Ricordi Brasileira SRE-3).
Brazilian guitarists were not entirely dominated by Villa-Lobos,
however, whose music by this point constituted one of a number of
possible options for the construction of a Brazilian nationalist reper-
toire. Nunes’s disc of the Preludes, for example, is balanced by a varied
Brazilian program on Side 2 of music of Sávio, Nogueira and Barroso
Neto. São Marcos’s 1971 debut disc for the US market (Everest SDBR
3248),7 variously titled Old Worlds and New Worlds and The Classical
Brazilian Guitar, includes three pieces by Sávio and one by her father
Manuel São Marcos (himself a Sávio pupil), with only one Villa-Lobos
piece featured. Geraldo Ribeiro (b. 1939), like Barbosa-Lima, made
Theodoro Nogueira’s work a particular focus of his album programs,
releasing the Seis Brasilianas de Theodoro Nogueira in 1966 (Chante-
cler P1966) and a landmark recording of the composer’s Concertino
Para Viola Brasileira e Orquestra de Camara together with the 12 im-
provisos for solo guitar in 1971 (Fermata SFB 336).
By the early 1970s, Santos had emerged as the acknowledged
Villa-Lobos specialist, issuing a re-recording of the Estudos, together
with the Preludes and the Concerto on the French Erato label. São
Marcos also released her own defnitive recording of the Estudos in
1974 on the French BAM label (LD 5832), coinciding with the wider
exposure she was beginning to achieve in North America and Europe.8
However, these artists were now receiving strong competition from a
number of guitarists outside Brazil who were staking their own claims
to the major Villa-Lobos works. In 1971, for example, three signifcant
Villa-Lobos LPs by European guitarists reached the marketplace –
Narciso Yepes’ landmark disc of the complete Estudos (DGG 2530
140), Konrad Ragossnig’s recording of the Five Preludes on Guitar Re-
cital (Supraphon 1 11 1040) and Julian Bream’s recording of the Con-
certo for Guitar and Small Orchestra (an LP which also included a
second recording of the Preludes) on RCA SB-6852.

GUITARISTS OF THE RIO DE LA PLATA

During the mid-twentieth century the Rio de la Plata area continued
to remain an important center of classical guitar activity, its musical
culture being well represented in the recorded output of three nota-
ble fgures – Maria Luisa Anido (1907–1996), Maria Angélica Funes
(1916–1998) and Abel Carlevaro (1918–2001). In particular these
guitarists’ recordings illustrate the ongoing process of reconciling
the Spanish perspective (as inherited from Llobet, Pujol and Sego-
via) with Latin American repertoire concerns. Maria Luisa Anido,
as noted in Chapter 4, had been active as a recording artist in Ar-
gentina since the late 1920s, appearing with Victor as a soloist and
on Odeon in duet with Llobet. In the early to mid-1950s she made
further recordings for the Odeon label which appear were issued in
Argentina on 78 rpm, 45 rpm (duración doble) and the 10-inch LP
Developments in Latin America 153

format. Her nationalist inclinations are seen in recordings of pieces

such as Julián Aguirre’s piano piece Triste No. 4 (from the Aires
Nacionales Argentinos), while her expanding European-oriented
repertoire is refected in transcriptions of historical (Sanz’s Pavanas
and Alfonso de Sabio’s Cantiga) and contemporary (Joaquín Rodri-
go’s En Los Trigales) Spanish music.9 Anido’s recording of the latter
work (composed in 1938), which was soon to become a repertoire
standard, is one of the earliest (Yepes, to whom it is dedicated, re-
corded the piece in 1954). The source of the Alfonso de Sabio (i.e.
Alfonso X of Castile) piece is the iconic thirteenth-century man-
uscript, Las Cantigas de Santa Maria, suggesting an infuence of
Pujol whose early music researches had by this time fltered through
into repertoire programming. The 45 rpm disc10 on which the latter
appears (Maria Luisa Anido, Solo de Guitarra BSOA/E4516B) is ac-
companied by an effusive liner note in Spanish, which highlights the
growing recognition of the importance of recordings to the dissemi-
nation of guitarists’ profles. After commenting upon Anido’s earlier
successes as a concert artist, the writer remarks that “her fame goes
beyond those triumphs achieved with her personal presence because
phonography has diffused the other immaterial presence of her no-
ble art” (author’s translation).
By the 1950s Anido’s career had become focused on a busy schedule
of teaching and touring, which enabled her to establish an interna-
tional presence. Relative to these activities her recording career con-
tinued in a sporadic and ad hoc fashion, and in collaboration with
many different labels. Anido’s frst full length LP, made in Buenos
Aires for Capitol (as part of the “Capitol of the World” international
series) in 1955, was important in raising her profle in North Amer-
ica. Entitled A Spanish Guitar Recital (P18104), this is very much a
“by the numbers” recital disc focused on stock Spanish repertoire –
Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Asturias, Danza Española No. 5, some of
which she had also recorded for Odeon. The contemporary perspec-
tive is again represented by Rodrigo’s En Los Trigales together with
Torroba’s Suite Castellana. On the surface the LP’s program appears a
contrivance for the classical guitar marketplace, but it can also be re-
garded as a genuine refection of the core of Anido’s repertoire which
she performed throughout her career. Ray Ericson’s review of the disc
in High Fidelity was focused on the individualism of Anido’s playing
rather than the repertoire:

A native of Argentina and a pupil of Miguel Llobet, one of the

leading teachers of the Spanish guitar, Maria Luisa Anido is per-
haps the most personal guitarist yet to appear on records. Her
playing is compounded of individual phrasing and coloration,
much rubato, arbitrary tempo shifts. Yet in its highly feminine way
it is quite persuasive, and the rubatos seldom degenerate to a point
where the musical line wilts. Even though Miss Anido’s repertoire
here is quite standard, afcionados of the guitar should fnd her
154 The Recording Model Consolidated

interpretations suffciently sensitive, imaginative, and fresh to be

worth investigating.
(R.E. 1956c: 106)

Ericson highlights the connection with Llobet and does not draw di-
rect comparisons with Segovia’s recordings, although the observations
regarding Anido’s relatively constrained rhythmic approach imply the
idiosyncrasies of Segovia’s “Romantic” performance style.
Anido’s recorded programs ultimately explored beyond the Span-
ish favorites, however, encompassing a greater historical scope in her
transcriptions of Bach, Dowland, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Vincenzo
Galilei, Domenico Scarlatti and Mozart. Latin American perspectives
continued to be refected in Barrios’ Danza Paraguaya (one of the
composer’s showpieces) and a number of her own compositions, of
which Aire Norteño appears with particular frequency. Anido’s pieces
are often refective of her Argentinian cultural roots, as indicated by ti-
tles such as Preludio Pampeano and El Misachico (also called Procesión
coya).11 Her work as guitarist-composer has since been acknowledged
in more recent CD recordings made by her pupils, Omar Atreo (Hom-
enaje a Maria Luisa Anido, 2007) and Maria Isabel Siewers (A Mim-
ita, 2009), and, in the light of contemporary concerns with gender, by
curators of guitar music by women, such as Chris Bilobram (Compo-
sition Féminine, 2004) and Clara Campese (Homage to Maria Lusia
Anido, 2012).
Some of Anido’s recordings were made on location in the context
of her touring. For example, she made a 10-inch disc for the Melodiya
label while concertizing in the Soviet Union (around 1965), and full-
length LPs in Japan for the King (Guitar Solo, 1963)12 and Victor labels
(Guitar Recital SMK-7705). In 1967 she briefy returned to the duo
format in a recording made with her Argentinian guitar student Omar
Atreo, Danza Ritual del Fuego, for Angel (LPA-11206). Intended as an
homage to Miguel Llobet, the LP contains re-recordings of the two
duet arrangements she had recorded with Llobet as a young woman in
the late 1920s on the Odeon label – Albéniz’s Evocación and Aguirre’s
Huella.13 One of Anido’s most accomplished later LPs was made for
the French Erato label in 1972, Grande Dame de la Guitare, which rep-
resents a concise summation of the scope of her repertoire, balancing
European historical perspectives with original compositions, as well as
being recorded with superlative attention to detail.
Another important female guitarist of Anido’s generation who
made recordings for Odeon in the 1950s14 was Maria Angélica Funes,
a well-respected fgure on the Argentine classical guitar scene, known
both for her concerts and radio broadcasts.15 Like Anido, Funes
trained in the Tárrega tradition (absorbed via Domingo Prat) and
while her recorded repertoire naturally refects this in its reliance upon
transcriptions of composers such as Chopin and Grieg, there are some
interesting contemporary perspectives – for example, she recorded
Villa-Lobos’s Prelude No 3 (an early instance) on Odeon disc 56580
Developments in Latin America 155

and the Serenata Burlesca of Torroba (who dedicated at least eight

works to Funes during the course of his career) on Odeon disc 65644.
A representative selection of Funes’ repertoire is found on the LP, Un
Recital de Guitarra, released by Odeon on the “Exitos Permanentes”
imprint (DMO-55424) sometime in the early 1960s, which may be a
re-compilation from 78 rpm recordings made in the mid-1950s. On the
whole the repertoire is decidedly Spanish-Rioplatense in its scope and
focus including Pujol’s Homenaje a Chopin (a not entirely predictable
choice), Bach (Prelude from Cello Suite No. 4 BWV 1010), Domenico
Scarlatti (Sonata, L352, also a favorite of Segovia) and Villa-Lobos
(the Choros No. 1). Torroba is represented by Punteado (a short piece
reminiscent of Rodrigo’s En Los Trigales), and the Andante from his
Sonatina in A. All these works are enlivened by Funes’ unique style of
performance which is both spontaneously energetic and rhythmically
highly elastic.
The Segovian infuence on the Rioplatense guitarists is more strongly
refected in the early recordings of Abel Carlevaro (a Uruguayan),
whose early development coincided fortuitously with the period of
Segovia’s residence in Montevideo between 1937 and 1943. Segovia’s
recordings had already made an impact on Carlevaro prior to his ar-
rival in the city:

On listening to Segovia’s interpretations, I was struck by a rare

subtlety in his sound, his use of timbre together with the overall
clarity of the performance in which one could clearly distinguish
all the different voices and lines of the music. Segovia’s playing
made a profound and lasting impression on me.
(Carlevaro 2006: 17)

As a result of an introduction via his uncle, Carlevaro was accepted for

tuition by Segovia and fve years later gave his debut recital in 1942 at
the SODRE, the main concert hall of the Republic of Uruguay (Carle-
varo 2006; Pinnell 1993). After a period of broadcasting and touring
in Latin America (including Argentina and Brazil), in mid-1949 Carle-
varo was able to travel to Europe, including London where he gave re-
citals at various venues to great critical acclaim (these are documented
in BMG magazine at this time). While in London he also made his
frst recording for the Parlophone-Odeon label on 78 rpm (Series PXO
1073). The main feature of this disc is Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Taran-
tella, an obvious infuence of Segovia who had originally selected the
piece for Carlevaro’s debut recital program (Carlevaro 2006). The re-
verse side contains Villa-Lobos’ Estudo No. 1 – a choice likely to have
been informed by Carlevaro’s association with the Villa-Lobos himself
with whom he had undertaken a period of lessons in Brazil the early
1940s. Villa-Lobos, having witnessed Carlevaro perform the Estudo,
suggested that he interpret the work by placing an echo effect on the
repetition of each arpeggiated chord (Carlevaro 2006). The applica-
tion of this detail is clearly audible in Carlevaro’s recording, making
156 The Recording Model Consolidated

it in essence a defnitive rendering of Villa-Lobos’ music derived from

consultation with the composer. Bream (see Chapter 8) was later to
have a similar experience with Villa-Lobos concerning his recording
of the Five Preludes, although in this instance the latter’s advice on the
best way to interpret the pieces was given after the fact. Coincidentally
both the Tarantella and the Villa-Lobos Estudo had been recorded
by Segovia in June of the same year on the occasion of his return to
Abbey Road under contract to Columbia. Carlevaro’s Parlophone disc
also featured an early recording of Agustín Barrios’ virtuoso show-
piece, Las Abejas, which offered a strong counterbalance to the other-
wise Segovian perspective, while also being indicative of the enduring
importance of Barrios’ music to the guitar culture of the Rio de la
Plata during this period.
Carlevaro’s lengthy association with Segovia during the 1940s en-
abled him to deeply immerse himself in the latter’s repertoire as it
stood at this time. Through this he developed a particular apprecia-
tion of the work of Ponce (Carlevaro 2006), and especially his Varia-
tions on “Folia de España” and Fugue, a composition which headlines
Carlevaro’s frst LP for the Uruguayan Antar label, Recital de Guitarra
(ALP 1002), released in 1958.16 For the fipside of the disc Carlev-
aro recorded three miniatures by Segovia’s favorite Spanish composer,
Torroba (Preambulo, Oliveras and Nocturno), and arrangements of
Albéniz (Torre Bermeja and Asturias). Carlevaro’s evident affliation
with the Segovian and Spanish-inclined repertoire on this disc appears
somewhat at odds with Pinnell’s observation in reference to Uruguayan
guitarists’ attitudes towards the maestro:

Segovia coached some area guitarists, including Abel Carlevaro.

However, given their own achievements on the guitar, the Uruguay-
ans were always reluctant to concede any undue glory to Segovia,
despite his long residence in their midst. In Segovia’s mind, Carle-
varo was his protege; in Carlevaro’s, Segovia was only a friendly
advisor and consultant at a time when he was developing his own
rational approach to the guitar and its repertoire.
(Pinnell 1993: 40)

Carlevaro’s growing independence from Segovia is indicated by the

more pronounced Latin American perspective of his second album
for Antar, 2° Recital de Guitarra (ALP 4002, 1960). This features
works by Barrios, Villa-Lobos and Brazilian composer M. Camargo
Guarnieri, as well music by Carlevaro himself – his Dos Preludios –
which are balanced on Side 1 with a selection of “Obras para Laúd”
by Bach (culled from various suites rather than a single work). One
of Carlevaro’s most unique recordings, which illustrates the strength
of his affliation with indigenous “popular” Latin American musical
culture, is La Guitarra de Oro del Folklore (Antar PLP 5055), released
in 1965. Here the repertoire is comprised of folkloric arrangements by
Developments in Latin America 157

guitarists with leanings towards Argentinian popular music traditions,

including Juan Alais, Gaspar Sagreras, Carlos Garcia Tolsa and Abel
Fleury (1903–1958). This LP is also of interest for its production ethos
– as a means of inculcating an authentic folkloric favor the album was
purposefully recorded to convey a “live” feel including several occa-
sions on which Carlevaro can be heard re-tuning his guitar between
the different pieces (Escande 2005). Carlevaro’s decision to release this
album under the pseudonym, Vicente Vallejos, perhaps suggests that
he regarded folkloric perspectives as incompatible with the recording
profle he had already developed as a classical player.17

ALIRIO DÍAZ AND VENEZUELAN MUSIC

The 1950s also saw the emergence of Venezuela as an important center
of classical culture (Bruzual 2005), represented in particular by the
fgure of Alirio Díaz (1923–2016), whose recordings, like those of his
colleagues in the Rio de la Plata, provide illustration of the process by
which the Segovian infuence was consolidated and re-contextualized
in relation to a uniquely Latin American perspective. Díaz recorded
for many labels during his career, gaining his greatest international ex-
posure in the 1960s and early 1970s on the New York based Vanguard
label and EMI in the UK. Díaz claims to have been initially infuenced
by the recordings and arrangements of Barrios and Llobet (Clinton
1978a), while his studies with guitarist-composer Raul Borges (1882–
1967) at the Caracas Conservatory exposed him to Venezuelan per-
spectives on the guitar repertoire (Clinton 1974). Then, in 1950, he
relocated to Europe, where he studied in Madrid with Regino Sainz de
la Maza and also under Segovia in his masterclasses at the Accademia
Musicale Chigiani in Siena. Recalling his experience of learning with
Segovia, Díaz commented that:

For me the greatest experience was in interpretation and expression;

the most important thing at that moment was to imitate Segovia
because to have your own personality you must look for initial in-
spiration. It was important to have such a master and to copy and
imitate everything he did when you were actually with him.
(Clinton 1978a: 59)

Segovia played an important role in progressing Díaz’s early career,

for example, by endorsing him and recommending him to impresarios
and managers, and, by the 1960s Díaz is being mentioned in the con-
text of the new generation of guitarists refecting the Segovia legacy
(Henahan 1968a, 1968b).
Much of Díaz’s recorded repertoire is closely allied to the Spanish
classical guitar tradition, as well as Segovian sponsored repertoire
narrative. This can be seen on the albums Masterpieces of the Span-
ish Guitar (Vanguard VRS 1084) and Four Centuries of Music for the
158 The Recording Model Consolidated

Classic Spanish Guitar (Vanguard VSD 71135/VSL 11010). Four Cen-

turies follows the historical recital approach, foregrounding Spanish
repertoire complemented by Díaz’s own transcriptions of Domenico
Scarlatti and Venezuelan traditional music. Masterpieces focuses on
the transcriptions of Albéniz, Granados and Malats and works written
for Segovia by Turina and Torroba as well as music by Segovia himself.
Compositions and transcriptions directly associated with Segovia are a
frequent feature of Díaz’s recordings. For example, on the 1968 Alirio
Díaz Plays Bach album (HMV HQS 1145), he recorded Segovia’s ar-
rangement of the Chaconne and John Duarte’s transcription of the
Cello Suite No. 3 BWV 1009 which had been given the seal of approval
by Segovia in his 1961 recording (DL710043). A 1971 album for EMI
(HQS 1250) pairs three major works written for and recorded by Sego-
via – Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Guitar Quintet Op. 143 and the Ponce
Sonata Romántica and Suite Antique (the famous hoax Weiss suite in
A major).18 The liner notes for Díaz’s albums also frequently situate
him within the Segovia narrative. S.W. Bennett’s remarks for Master-
pieces of the Spanish Guitar, for example, emphasize Díaz’s work with
Segovia in Siena and quote the latter’s endorsement, “I am pleased to
present to the public the magnifcent Venezuelan guitarist Alirio Díaz
… now converted into a true artist, free from any infuence extrane-
ous to his own rich personality” (Bennett 1963). Christopher Nupen’s
notes for the Alirio Díaz Plays Bach album situate Díaz’s all-Bach fo-
cus in relation to Segovia’s efforts to overcome the critics’ disapproval
of Bach performance on the guitar, in particular resurrecting the de-
bates concerning the effectiveness of his Chaconne transcription.
While much of Díaz’s recorded output for the mainstream classical
guitar marketplace is characterized by deference to the Segovian tra-
dition and Spanish repertoire in general, Latin American nationalist
inclinations – particularly Venezuelan music – constituted a key ele-
ment in his recorded programs from the very beginning. On the early
album Récital de Guitare No. 1, recorded for the French Éditions de
la Boite a Musique (BAM LD 032) in 1956, works associated with
Segovia are present such as Frescobaldi’s Aria con Variazioni detta
“La Frescobalda” and Crespo’s Norteña (both arranged by Sego-
via), but these sit alongside the Danza Paraguaya by Barrios and a
Valse by Díaz’s teacher Raul Borges. Similarly on Guitarra de Vene-
zuela, recorded in Caracas19 and issued in the US on High Fidelity
Recordings Inc20 around 1959/60, Spanish repertoire by Sor, Tárrega,
Albéniz and Sanz features alongside three pieces by Vicente Emilio
Sojo (1887–1974). Panorama de la Guitare Classique No. 1, a 10-inch
disc released by the French Teppaz label (based in Lyon) in 1958,21 as
well as covering Segovian repertoire, most notably the Bach Chaconne,
also includes two Valses by the Venezuelan composer, Antonio Lauro
(1917–1986). Lauro was a composer with whom Díaz formed a partic-
ularly close association during the course of his career, both in terms
of his recordings and his editorial and arranging contributions to pub-
lished editions of Lauro’s music. As early as 1959 Díaz had recorded
Developments in Latin America 159

Lauro’s Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra in Venezuela for the Socie-
dad de Amigos de la Música. It was with Díaz’s EMI album, Guitar
Music of Spain and Latin America (HMV HGS1175) released in 1970,
which featured six of Lauro’s Valses, that his music fnally began to en-
ter the international recorded classical guitar canon (see Chapter 12).
Critics recognized Díaz’s unique abilities as an interpreter of Ven-
ezuelan music. Reviewing Díaz’s Guitar Music of Spain and Latin
America LP, a Gramophone critic wrote that, “in particular Lauro’s
Venezuelan Waltzes exploit a rhythm unusual to the guitar, and one
especially well expounded by Díaz” (M.M. 1970: 1617). Also noted
was the individuality of Díaz’s performance style relative to Segovia’s,
as illustrated by the following comments in a review of Díaz’s inter-
pretations of Domenico Scarlatti on Four Centuries of Music for the
Classic Spanish Guitar (1965):

Listening to this immediately after the Segovia reissue [the refer-

ence is the UK version of Segovia’s Maestro album, MUCS 105
(DL710039)], I could not help being struck by the extra range of
tone-colour that Alirio Díaz produces from his instrument. Sego-
via playing a Scarlatti transcription may win one in the frst bar by
some utterly magical rhythmic point, but it is Díaz who gives one
the more lasting satisfaction, with his more restrained rhythmic
pointing and unmatched shading of tone-colour.
(E.G. 1968: 260)

In addition to his contributions to Venezuelan music, Díaz was also

infuential in generating new works for the guitar including Rodrigo’s
Invocación y Danza, a piece dedicated to him and which he recorded
for RCA on for the second of its three-volume Masters of the Guitar
series LPs (1964). Critics hailed this as an important addition to the
repertoire (“more of this kind and there will be hope for guitar solo
recitals yet” (M.M. 1965c: 387)).

THE CLASSICAL GUITAR IN MEXICO

As discussed in Chapter 4, Octaviano Yáñez was the frst Mexican
classical guitarist to make solo guitar recordings in Mexico. While
not directly espousing the Spanish position per se, his recordings sug-
gest an inclination towards the latter in their emphasis upon tran-
scriptions of European light classical music. They also indicate the
beginnings of an indigenous Mexican guitarist-composer tradition.
The arrival of Guillermo Gómez in 1900 brought specifc knowledge
of the Tárrega school, which was quickly transmitted to the younger
generation, whose most important representative was Salinas. As
discussed in Chapter 4, Gómez’s and Salinas’ recordings of the late
1920s illustrate the Mexican position on the repertoire at this time –
essentially a compromise between indigenous “popular” musical per-
spectives and the Spanish classical guitar canon. In contrast to the
160 The Recording Model Consolidated

situation in the Rio de la Plata, Mexican classical guitar culture was

not, however, supported by outside Spanish infuences during this pe-
riod. For example, neither Miguel Llobet, Domingo Prat nor Josefna
Robledo concertized in Mexico, while Regino Sainz de la Maza, who
was enthusiastically received when he played in the country in 1931,
did not return again until 1959 (Otero 1980). Barrios is also known to
have performed in Mexico in 1934, introducing some European clas-
sical repertoire and illustrating, as he had done in Brazil, the instru-
ment’s virtuosic potential (Stover 1992), while Segovia, as noted in
Chapter 3, frst visited the country in 1923, an event which launched
his important collaboration with Ponce, the fruits of which are re-
fected in his HMV recordings of the 1930s. Arguably it was native
Mexican composers, rather than guitarists, who played the more sig-
nifcant role in the development of Mexican classical guitar culture
at this time. Ponce’s works in particular formed the bedrock of the
early Mexican classical guitar repertoire, and were for some time re-
garded as the most representative “Mexican” guitar music primarily
due to the persuasive power of Segovia’s recitals and recordings. An-
other pioneer Mexican composer of classical guitar music was Car-
los Chávez (1899–1978), whose Three Pieces for Guitar (composed in
1923) were of comparable signifcance to Ponce’s early guitar works,
but unfortunately received little attention from guitarists until the
1970s.22 An early guitar concerto by Rafael Adame (composed in
1933) also failed to enter the repertoire.
The frst important indigenous Mexican classical guitar recordings
of the post-war period were undertaken by Musart, a Mexican label
established by Eduardo C. Baptista in 1948, which played a signif-
cant role in documenting and promoting Mexican classical music in
the 1950s and 1960s. One of the label’s frst guitar-oriented releases,
Las Mejores Guitarras (Musart DC745) was a unique three-LP set
featuring four guitarists playing a broad selection of popular pieces
from Spain and Mexico. Among the contributing guitarists was Gus-
tavo López (1920–1979), a pioneer classical guitar recording artist in
Mexico who became a signifcant presence on the international scene.
López’s recordings, which were made for a number of labels (Dimse,
Cook and Musart), refect his multifaceted musical inclinations, from
the Spanish classical guitar canon to traditional Mexican music. An
early LP, Concert Guitar (1953), released on the US-based Cook label
under the name Zepoll (his surname spelled backwards),23 provides a
unique synthesis of Mexican and Spanish perspectives. Side 1 show-
cases “Mexican Music of Today” – by Ramon Noble (including his
well-known Zapateado Criollo), Miguel Prado and Ponce, while Side
2, “The Classical Guitar”, treads a more familiar historical path from
the vihuelists to Albéniz, via Bach and Daniel Fortea’s arrangement
of the Romance de Amor.24 The disc is also of interest for its “au-
diophile” character, having been engineered on location at Zepoll’s
home in Monterrey by experimental feld recordist, Emory Cook
(1913–2002). The informally written liner notes for this LP recount
Developments in Latin America 161

the (apparently true) expedition25 to track Zepoll down for the pur-
poses of recording him:

For weeks had come rumours of a classical guitarist “somewhere

in Monterrey,” whose skill and artistry were prodigious, and about
whom there was a strange aura of both anonymity and fame. Seek-
ing him, we wandered through the narrow one-way streets of the
old part of Monterrey; we were told “direchio para va!” then, “Pa-
dre Mier,” his street; fnally, in English “four doors down.” And so,
on a night in February, a cool and beautiful time of year in Mon-
terrey, we found ourselves recording Gustavo Zepoll.
(Anon 1953)

López also recorded an important all-Ponce LP for Musart (MCD

3006), Obras para guitarra de Ponce in 1957, which includes the Tres
Canciones Mexicanas, Sonatina Meridional and Sonata Clásica, the
latter recording predating Segovia’s American Decca version by a de-
cade. The LP’s liner note indicates that the project was overseen by
the Spanish–Mexican musicologist Otto Mayer-Serra, indicating a cer-
tain seriousness of scholarly intent rather than an overtly commercial
purpose.26
By the mid-twentieth century the Mexican classical guitar scene was
beginning to be nourished by a greater commitment to teaching and
concertizing in the country on the part of outsiders. Alirio Díaz, for
example visited on a number of occasions, offering “ideas and guid-
ance” which “helped the cause of the guitar in Mexico” (Otero 1980:
16). The most important infuence, however, was Manuel López Ra-
mos (1929–2006), a Rioplatense guitarist (from Argentina) who, like
Sávio, founded (in 1960) an educational institution, the Estudio de
Arte Guitarristico, based in Mexico City. This raised the level of clas-
sical guitar playing in Mexico during the 1960s, and enabled the emer-
gence of a new generation of Mexican classical guitarists, including
Alfonso Moreno, Enrique Velasco and Mario Beltrán del Río, all of
whom developed recording careers, in some cases on an international
level (Ford 1999). López Ramos also made several recordings during
the course of his career, which, due to their inclusion of a number of
works by Ponce, can be seen to advocate for the Mexican repertoire. For
example, his debut disc for the US-based Boston label (1961) and early
recordings for RCA France (Anthologie de la Guitare series, 1961/2)
feature music from Ponce’s hoax Suite No. 2 in the style of Scarlatti
(Sarabande and Gavotte), the Valse (from Cuatro Piezas) and his well-
known arrangement of the Scherzino Mexicano (originally written
for piano). López Ramos also recorded the complete Weiss Suite in
A on Antologia de la Guitarra Clásica Vol. 2 (Angel SAM-35024) in
1973. One of his most signifcant Ponce recordings is of the Sonata for
Guitar and Harpsichord, made with Robert Veyron-Lacroix in Mex-
ico (Anthology of the Guitar Vol. 3 RCA VICS 1541 1971).27 Unusual
in its combination of timbres, Ponce had composed the piece in 1926
162 The Recording Model Consolidated

in the zeitgeist of the early music revival that had also given rise to an
interest in Bach’s works. However, it had received few performances
and had not previously been recorded. In addition to its signifcance
as a premier recording, López Ramos’s disc can be understood in the
context of the trend during this period to expand the guitar’s remit
beyond the solo repertoire (see Chapter 9’s discussion of John Wil-
liams). The LP is also notable for its liner note which reproduces an
endorsement by Ponce’s widow, Mme Clema, of López Ramos as an
interpreter of Ponce’s music:

Of the works of my late husband, who loved the guitar and its
literature, and those by other composers as played Manuel López
Ramos, let me frst say this: one of the miracles of music is its
spiritual essence as conceived by the composer and realized by the
artist. This requires a creative instinct by which we judge an artist
and through which the composer’s inspiration reaches us. In Man-
uel López Ramos, creator and interpreter are one.

The growing reputation of Mexican classical guitarists on the interna-

tional scene in the 1960s naturally led to a corresponding rise in record-
ing opportunities with the major labels. Of the older Salinas-trained
generation, Jesús Silva (1914–1996) made a one-off recital disc in 1965 –
Virtuoso de la Guitarra – for RCA Victor Mexico (MKL 1642). Silva
later fell under the spell of Segovia, who acted as a mentor and invited
him to assist in his classes at Siena in 1956. The LP’s liner note repro-
duces an endorsement from Segovia (in Spanish): “He is completely
fulflling the hope I placed in him years ago. It will not take long for
his reputation as a serious and well-prepared artist to cross the bor-
ders of his homeland and spread throughout the musical life of other
countries” (Anon 1965b, author’s translation). Refecting Segovia’s
infuence, the disc is of the historical survey type, moving through a
selection of short pieces from the vihuelistas (Milan, Fuenllana) via
“light” Bach (Prelude No. 1 in C from the frst book of The Well-
Tempered Clavier) and Sor (Study in B minor) to Tárrega (Lágrima
and Marieta). Not all the selections are as predictable, however: an
accomplished composer in his own right, having trained with Ponce at
the National Mexican Conservatory of Music, Silva also included two
miniatures of his own – Salmo de David and Interludio de Esperanza –
which are of a weightier musical character. Silva’s debt to Ponce is also
refected in the inclusion of his arrangement of Estrellita.28 The small-
scale ambitions of Silva’s repertoire are encapsulated in Carl Miller’s
critique of the disc in Guitar Review:

Silva is an intimate performer more at home in a salon than on

a concert platform. And with his careful control and limited dy-
namic range one hears little of the fair and bravado usually asso-
ciated with a virtuoso de la guitare.
(1966: 25)
Developments in Latin America 163

CUBAN PERSPECTIVES ON THE CLASSICAL GUITAR

By the 1930s an indigenous classical guitar culture had also begun to
develop within Cuba which eventually had far reaching consequences
for the direction of the global classical guitar scene. Pivotal to this
was the Guitar Department of the Municipal Conservatory of Ha-
vana founded by Clara Romero in 1934 (1888–1951), and developed
under Isaac Nicola (1916–1997). From this emerged the modern Mod-
ern Cuban Guitar School of the 1950s, which included such names
as Leo Brouwer (b. 1939), Jesús Ortega (b. 1935), Carlos Molina, Ro-
lando Moreno and Flores Chaviano (Molina 1988a, 1988b). Of these,
Brouwer achieved the greatest international presence both through his
outstanding performance skills and his innovative experimental com-
positional work, which later transformed the mainstream classical gui-
tar repertoire (see Chapter 11). In the 1960s and 1970s the outlook of
this new generation of guitarists began to be refected in a series of
important Cuban classical guitar recordings, which, while acknowl-
edging the Segovian position, were notable for their prioritization of a
Cuban repertoire perspective. These were made at EGREM (Empresa
de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales) in Havana, the state-sponsored
studio complex and record label that had been established in 1964 in
the light of the Cuban Revolution (1959). EGREM took over the well-
known Areito imprint, under which many of its classical guitar record-
ings were issued in the 1970s and 1980s.29
Among the frst signifcant guitar LPs to appear during this period
was Leo Brouwer’s 1965 album, Musica para Guitarra (Areito LPA
5001), which was notable for the inclusion of three works by major
Cuban composers, the Sonata para Guitarra of José Ardévol (com-
posed for José Rey de la Torre in 1948) a short Preludio by Carlos
Fariñas and Brouwer’s own Elogio de la Danza. These were pro-
grammed in relation to works of the “established” Latin Ameri-
can guitar canon, namely Manuel Ponce’s Sonatina Meridional and
Villa-Lobos’ Estudo No. 7. Ardévol’s Sonata is of particular interest
for its use of Cuban popular music forms such as the guajira and the
son, although the piece eschews obvious “folkloric” clichés in favor
of a more abstract but nonetheless accessible idiom (Ardévol was a
founder of the forward-thinking Cuban Grupo de Renovación Musi-
cal concerned with developing a contemporary Cuban compositional
idiom). The piece is described in the album’s liner notes as “impreg-
nated with Cuban feeling, without stooping to concessions, exotic or
otherwise” (Anon 1965a). Another important Cuban recording of this
period is Jesús Ortega’s De Nuestra Guitarra (Areito LD-3553, 1972),
whose content refects a decidedly pro-nationalist stance in its survey
of Cuban music from the late-nineteenth century to the present. The
disc begins with transcriptions of lighthearted danzas and contradan-
zas (originally composed for piano) by Manuel Saumell (1817–1870)
and Ignacio Cervantes (1847–1905), both composers associated with
the nationalist movement in Cuba in the mid-late nineteenth century
164 The Recording Model Consolidated

(Béhague 1979). The remainder of the disc features guitar music by

twentieth-century Cuban composers including Héctor Angulo, Jorge
Ankermann, Carlos Fariñas, Brouwer and Ortega himself. Production
of the LP is credited to another major Cuban composer of guitar mu-
sic, Harold Gramatges (1918–2008), whose multi-sectioned Fantasía
para guitarra (composed in 1971) appears on Ortega’s30 Recital al-
bum (Areito LDA-3403) in an “old” vs “new” world themed program
juxtaposing the latter and Brouwer’s Tres Apuntes with early Spanish
works for vihuela (Milan, Seis Pavanas) and Baroque guitar (a suite by
Sanz which includes dances associated with Rodrigo’s Fantasía para un
Gentilhombre).

NOTES
1. See Medeiros (2007) for a comprehensive discography of Reis’ recordings.
2. After appearing in occasional recordings such as Raphael Rebello’s Re-
lendo Dilermando (RGE 1994), the music of Dilermando Reis has since
the 1990s become well established in the classical guitar repertoire. Nota-
ble defning recordings are Marco Pereira’s Dois Destinos (Borandá 2016)
and Xuefei Yang’s Colours of Brazil (2016), the latter offering a compre-
hensive survey of Brazilian popular guitar standards.
3. For further discussion of Sávio’s relationship with Llobet, see
Barbosa-Lima (1992).
4. Among those guitarists outside Brazil who have recorded Sávio’s music
since the 1960s are Luise Walker, Jorge Oraison, Narciso Yepes, Sharon
Isbin, Eduardo Fernandez, Gerald Garcia and Milos Karadaglić.
5. Chantecler was founded in Brazil in 1957. Barbosa-Lima was only 13
when he recorded this album.
6. Barbosa-Lima appears to have made his recording of Noguiera’s Concer-
tino using a metal strung guitar.
7. The variable sonic character of this LP and range of repertoire covered
suggests that this release may have been compiled from São Marcos’s ear-
lier Brazilian LPs.
8. São Marcos’ international profle by the mid-1970s was such that she was
deemed worthy of a feature in the popular American magazine Guitar
Player (see Mari 1976).
9. The Aguirre piece appears on Odeon 57026 while the Rodrigo is on
Odeon 57046.
10. Also available on a 10-inch LP, Rectial Anido (LDC 521).
11. Useful context for Anido’s pieces is provided by Siewers in the liner notes
for her 2007 disc, A Mimita.
12. The King disc (SKJ-4, later on CD, KKC4062) is a “live” recording, made
in Bunkyo Public Hall, Tokyo on 10 January 1963.
13. Anido made one further duet recording in Cuba during the period of her
residence in the country, Concierto Magistral (1989). This was a live re-
cording with the Cuban guitarist Aldo Rodriguez and includes examples
of Anido’s own music.
14. This dating is according to Silver in his liner notes for Andrés Segovia and
his Contemporaries Vol. 11 (Doremi 2009).
15. Details of Funes’ career are not widely available and have here been
pieced together from a useful surviving concert program (Anon 1959).
Developments in Latin America 165

16. See Escande (2005) for a comprehensive Carlevaro discography, as well as

an engaging account of his life and work.
17. An Argentinian nationalist perspective on the classical repertoire was cul-
tivated with somewhat greater commitment in the LPs made by Roberto
Lara (1927–1988) for the Argentine Qualiton label, including Música
Argentina and Compositores Argentino.
18. Díaz had in fact already recorded the Sonata Romántica a decade previ-
ously on the Mexican Musart label (MCD 3025), Obras de Manuel M.
Ponce Vol. IV (1960). Duarte’s notes for HQS 1250 for the frst time reveal
the true authorship of the Suite Antique.
19. The Venezuelan version was released by the Sociedad Amigos de la
Música SAM EP-3, as Recital de Guitarra.
20. High Fidelity Recordings Inc. was based in California.
21. This was an early incarnation of Robert J. Vidal’s “Panorama de la Gui-
tare” series (see Chapter 10) which was to emerge more systematically on
the Erato label from the late 1960s (Vidal was also closely associated with
Segovia’s circle).
22. The frst recording was made by Turibio Santos in 1972.
23. The reasons were apparently contractual. The disc was also re-released as
The Voice of Mexico (Cook 10248).
24. Another disc which refects the dualism of Lopez’s traditional and classi-
cal perspectives is Recuerdos de Mexico (Musart MCD 3013).
25. An account of this event is given in Sensier (1959).
26. Musart released a second Ponce-focused guitar recording in 1960 (MCD
3025) featuring Alirio Díaz performing the Variations on “Folia de
España” and Fugue and the Sonata Romántica.
27. López Ramos later re-recorded the Sonata in 1978 with Luisa Durón.
28. The liner notes also quote Ponce’s glowing endorsement of Silva’s abilities.
29. See Bieger (2014) for further discussion of EGREM/Areito.
30. Ortega is the work’s dedicatee.
Part Three

The Recording
Model Interrogated
8
Nationalism and Modernism in the
Recordings of Julian Bream

INTRODUCTION
The prime exponents of the classical guitar in Britain during the 1950s
and 1960s were Julian Bream (1933–2020) and his younger Australian
born contemporary, John Williams (b. 1941). In their innovative ap-
proaches to album programming and recording both contributed to
paradigm shifts in classical guitar recording practice in the 1960s and
1970s, from which new models were to emerge. This chapter begins
with a consideration of the development of Bream’s recording career
from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, focusing on the ways in which
his recorded output both assimilated and questioned the dominant
Segovian aesthetic. Here the focus is on his re-thinking of the nature
of the album program and his gravitation towards British and North-
ern European “modernist” musical perspectives. This is followed by
a discussion of Bream’s contribution to the development of classical
guitar recording aesthetics in the 1960s and 1970s, and the reception of
his LPs, particularly with regard to the challenge they offered to pre-
vailing orthodoxies concerning ideal recorded classical guitar sound.1

EARLY RECORDINGS FOR DECCA AND WESTMINSTER

Julian Bream’s emergence in the late 1940s marked the beginning of
a re-birth of the classical guitar in Britain after a signifcant hiatus in
which the instrument had largely fallen into decline. A brief historical
overview of the guitar’s fortunes in Britain since the beginning of the
nineteenth century is useful in order to appreciate the signifcance of
this. As Button (1989, 2006), an authority on the early history of the
classical guitar in England, has shown, the six-string instrument was
present in the country from at least the early 1800s. At this time it
owed much of its early popularity to Italian and Spanish musicians,
including Fernando Sor, who had introduced concepts of solo gui-
tar performance, challenging the more typical accompaniment con-
text in which the instrument was commonly used. This deference to
foreign émigrés, which lasted until the 1850s, at frst made it diffcult

169
170 The Recording Model Interrogated

for English guitarists to develop a distinctly English tradition of

guitar performance2 and it was not until the emergence of Ernest
Shand (1868–1924) in the latter part of the nineteenth century that a
recognizably indigenous form of classical guitar playing began to be
established. Shand composed around 220 pieces for the guitar and was
well respected in his day as a performer of his own music. He was not
strictly a “classical” musician, however, rather he was a music hall art-
ist whose style was strongly infuenced by the Victorian popular song.
He knew the work of the early nineteenth-century classical guitarists –
for example, Aguado and Giuliani – but appears to have been unaware
of contemporary developments in Spain (Button 1989). As far as is
known, Shand did not commit any of his guitar performances to disc,
despite living well into the early era of recording.3
After Shand’s death in 1924 interest in the classical guitar in Britain
waned, being sustained principally by the activity of the Philharmonic
Society of Guitarists (established in 1929), which later played an im-
portant role in launching Bream’s career. While the guitar enjoyed a
considerable vogue in jazz and Hawaiian ensembles at this time, as well
as the then ubiquitous banjo, mandolin and guitar groups, the classical
(or “Spanish” guitar as it was more commonly known) attracted little
interest from critics. Any recordings of guitar music that were reviewed
in the Gramophone, for example, were typically of the Hawaiian va-
riety, or of plectrum guitar soloists such as Nick Lucas, and it was
only with the appearance of Segovia’s frst HMV discs in 1927 that
British critics began to become aware of guitar’s potential as a vehicle
for classical music performance. While Segovia undoubtedly played a
vital role in changing the perception of the classical guitar in Britain
with his visits during the 1920s and 1930s (as documented by the BMG
and Gramophone), even in the 1940s the classical guitar’s standing in
British musical culture remained low. Writing in BMG in May 1943,
J. L. White observed that not even Segovia’s performances or record-
ings had been capable of arousing enthusiasm in England, where
“there is very little interest in the Spanish guitar except as a novelty in-
troduced occasionally in musical programmes of widely varying types”
(1943: 142). He also noted that “over a number of years less than a
dozen Spanish guitar records have been issued, and any inquiry after
further possible issues brings the reply that sales hardly justify what
has already been done”. White also criticized the BBC for its lack of
interest in broadcasting guitar recitals, or offering “gramophone talks
on the Spanish guitar”, and for the “monotonous regularity” with
which “for the last sixteen years they have broadcast the three or four
Segovia records in their possession” (1943: 142).
Given the general paucity of a classical guitar playing tradition in
Britain during this period, it is unsurprising that Bream’s development
as a guitarist occurred in a mostly ad hoc and autodidactic fashion,
supplemented by tuition at various points by his father (Henry Bream),
Boris Perott (a Russian guitarist whose teaching methods were some-
what old-fashioned) and the lutenist Desmond Dupré. Nonetheless,
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 171

by the time of his early public recitals of the mid to late 1940s, Bream
had mastered a substantial repertoire of advanced works by compos-
ers such as Bach, Sor, Tárrega, Albéniz, Granados, Malats, Turina and
Ponce4 (Button 2006). Much of this repertoire was clearly indebted
to Segovia, which is unsurprising given the latter’s considerable infu-
ence on the classical guitar scene in Britain during the post-war period.
Indeed Bream had even met and given an audition for Segovia in 1947,
although, in contrast to John Williams’ experiences a few years later,
this did not yield any long term professional benefts. However, Sego-
via was not the only musical infuence on Bream’s concert repertoire at
this time. As Button (2006) has shown, there was also a deliberate strat-
egy on the part of Bream’s circle (the Philharmonic Society of Guitar-
ists) to promote him as a home-grown British response to Segovia. A
key aspect of this strategy was to prioritize music by native composers,
hence the inclusion of Shand’s pieces in Bream’s early programs, as
well as more recent works by contemporaries such as Reginald Smith
Brindle and Terry Usher. This had important consequences for the
evolution of Bream’s performing repertoire, and by implication his re-
cording profle thereafter. For example, it undoubtedly helped to set
a context for his growing interest (from the late 1940s) in English Re-
naissance composers such as John Dowland, and subsequent adoption
of the lute. It also explains Bream’s increasing gravitation, following
the inception of his RCA contract in the early 1960s, towards British
and Northern European composers in his recordings of contemporary
music.
Bream’s professional recording career began in the late 1940s with
his frst radio broadcasts, including a recital of Spanish music for the
BBC Spanish Service in August 1947, and an appearance on the BBC’s
short-lived Nocturne program in 1948 (Wade 2008). Around this time
Bream also contributed to a flm music soundtrack (Saraband for Dead
Lovers, 1948) and played incidental music for drama on the BBC Third
Programme. He recorded his frst LPs for the Westminster Recording
Co. and (British) Decca in 1954 and 1955, respectively. The Westmin-
ster disc featured him as an accompanist on the lute to the Golden Age
Singers, a vocal ensemble directed by soprano Margaret Field Hyde
(1905–1995). This was the frst of a four-volume series of albums en-
titled Ayres for Four Voices (XWN 18711), focused on songs by the
English lutenist composer John Dowland. Bream also appeared as an
accompanist on Volumes 3 and 4 of this series (both recorded in 1956).
His association with Decca had begun several years previously when
in 1945 his father taken him to audition for Victor Olof, then a nota-
ble producer of classical music for the label. Olof had not considered
Bream ready to record at this point but had advised him “to play as
much purely classical as possible”, suggesting that the label had be-
gun to see the potential for marketing the guitar in these terms, prob-
ably as a result of Segovia’s re-emergence as a recording artist (Button
2006: 21). Bream’s frst recording for Decca, Elizabethan Lute Songs
(LW 5243), also featured him as a lutenist, here in accompaniment to
172 The Recording Model Interrogated

the tenor Peter Pears (1910–86),5 which led to further recordings of

Elizabethan songs – Dowland, Morley, Rosseter and Campion – in
1958 (Recital of Lute Songs, LXT 5567). These LPs marked the com-
mencement of a long-term recording partnership between Bream and
Pears that was maintained well into the former’s RCA period. In 1956
Bream returned to Westminster to record a landmark single-composer
focused LP of works by John Dowland – Julian Bream Plays Dowland
(XWN 18429) – whose music he was now becoming deeply involved
with. He also played the lute part in a recording on the American
Vanguard (Amadeo AVRS 6069) label of Monteverdi’s ballet, Il ballo
delle ingrate, conducted by Neville Marriner and featuring the counter-
tenor Alfred Deller.
The fact that Bream made his earliest recordings as a lutenist, rather
than as a guitarist,6 is signifcant. His gravitation towards the instru-
ment, which can be dated to around 1949/50, can be understood in the
broader context of the early music revival which had begun to gather
pace in Britain at this time, which had also begun to spark the interest
of record labels.7 Bream’s interest in early music was, like many of the
individuals involved this feld, characterized by a concern with authen-
tic performance informed by musicological research centered on orig-
inal textual sources. In particular Bream wished to improve upon the
inferior quality of performances of early music commonly undertaken
on contemporary instruments (Wager-Schneider 1980b: 10), leading
him to commission luthier Thomas Goff to build him a lute modeled
on a Wendelin Tieffenbrucker instrument held in the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London (Thomson 1975). While not the principal
focus of this book, Bream’s parallel activities as a lutenist undoubtedly
informed his development as a classical guitarist, in particular shap-
ing his sense of historical perspective on the plucked string repertoire.
This duality of outlook links him with Emilio Pujol, whose activities
as a classical guitarist were undertaken alongside period performance
on the vihuela, and later Karl Scheit and Konrad Ragossnig in Austria
who, like Bream, specialized in the lute and its Northern European
repertoire.
Bream recorded his frst classical guitar albums for Westminster
in 1955 and 1956, at a time when the classical guitar LP was still
in the process of becoming an established format. The key mod-
els for the choice and organization of classical guitar repertoire
on LPs at this time were being provided by Segovia’s American
Decca discs (appearing on Brunswick in the UK) and certainly
this is refected in Bream’s choices of music, as well as the recit-
al-like structuring of his albums. Spanish Guitar Music (XWN
18135), for example, devoted the whole of Side 1 to music by Sor,
including three well-known studies and selected movements from
larger works such as the Sonata Op. 22. Side 2 adopted a contrast-
ing contemporary stance, focusing mainly on works by Turina,
including Homenaje a Tárrega Op. 69, the Fandanguillo and the An-
dante movement from his “Sonatina” (i.e. the Sonata in D Op. 61).
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 173

Bream’s second Westminster album, Guitar Music of Villa-Lobos

and Torroba (XWN 18137) was a more adventurous combination
of Latin American and Spanish repertoire, with Side 1 devoted to
Villa-Lobos’s Five Preludes and Side 2 surveying several popular
Torroba pieces, including the Sonatina in A. In an interview with
Paul Balmer several decades later Bream recounted that shortly af-
ter making this recording he had the opportunity to perform the
Preludes to Villa-Lobos, during the course of which the latter crit-
icized his interpretations, in particular fnding them to be at odds
with what Bream described as his more “primitive” conception of
the music (Balmer 2003). Discussing the event with Thérèse Was-
sily Saba (2014b), Bream remarked “I got the feeling that I played
his [Villa-Lobos’] music in a very European way but that’s not
Brazilian. His musical background and what he wanted from mu-
sic was something quite different and not necessarily European”
(2014b: 16). Ironically however, when Bream’s recordings appeared
in the marketplace Villa-Lobos appeared to retract his opinion of
Bream’s approach and enthusiastically endorsed the LP despite it
containing all the “faws” he had originally identifed in Bream’s
performances (Balmer 2003).
Unsurprisingly given the ubiquity of his recordings in the market-
place, Segovia was the main reference point for critiquing Bream’s
Westminster albums at this time. High Fidelity’s reviewer (Ray
Ericson), for example, was impressed with Bream’s playing of the con-
temporary Spanish repertoire on XWN 18135 (the Turina in particu-
lar), which he suggested placed him in the same class as Segovia and
his younger compatriot, Narciso Yepes:

Mr. Bream plays the Sor works in a cool, careful style that is ap-
propriately classical but could do with more subtlety. The rich,
heady music of Turina on the reverse side, highlighted by the rhap-
sodic Fandanguillo, fnds Mr. Bream on more congenial ground;
he brings to this exotic idiom all the poetry and color it deserves.
Given time, Mr. Bream could easily become the equal of his
teacher, Segovia, and of Narciso Yepes, whose playing penetrates
further into the music and at the same time has the surface glitter
of quicksilver.
(R.E. 1956b: 106)

Carl Miller echoed this view in his assessment of the recording in the
Guitar Review (1959: 32) but went further in suggesting that Bream’s
interpretation possessed a depth that went beyond mere emulation
of the Spanish style “Bream’s playing of Turina has as much verve
and enthusiasm as a native Spaniard. Moreover, in his innately artistic
way he brings out musical values often veiled by other guitarists who
seem preoccupied merely with re-creating the Iberian atmosphere of
Turina”. The same recording was also criticized, however, for its essen-
tially Segovian approach to excerpting from larger works (the Rondo
174 The Recording Model Interrogated

and Minuet from Sor’s Sonata Op.22) rather than offering the full
versions. J.A. Burtnieks (in an earlier Guitar Review article) remarked:

But why this antiquated “homeopathic” approach begotten of the

amateur conception of music? Why not the whole Sonata or the
whole Fantasia? We have surely arrived at a time when the prestige
of the guitar demands that the language of musical form, revelling
in a multiplicity of themes and/or movements, be not denied it.
(1957: 35)

After further expounding on this issue – “unless an instrument or an

instrumentalist is at home in the temples and cathedrals of music …
the affatus of greatness is grievously missed” – Burtnieks concluded
his review by imploring younger guitarists to “seriously ponder these
propositions”. Bream’s capacity to produce, like Segovia, a range
of tone color on the guitar also began to be remarked upon by crit-
ics at this time. In his aforementioned review, J.A. Burtnieks noted
Bream’s “clean attack and well modulated tone (earmarks of the Sego-
via school)” while Ericson, in reference to Bream’s performances of
Villa-Lobos and Torroba commented upon Bream’s “fastidiously col-
ored style of performance” and his “handling of exotic colors and tex-
tures” (R.E. 1956a: 98).
Bream’s fnal guitar album for Westminster, A Bach Recital for the
Guitar (XWN 18428), recorded in 1956, was inspired by the success of
Glenn Gould’s celebrated 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations
(Potter 2008). The LP’s signifcance lies in its being devoted entirely to
the music of one composer, including the substantial Chaconne (up to
this point only associated with Segovia) and the Prelude, Fugue and
Allegro BWV 998. This in effect built upon the trend in Bach-focused
recording projects that had been established with Segovia’s two Musi-
craft discs of the 1940s and his 1954 Bach: Chaconne album (DL 9751).
In relation to the latter, however, it also represented a contrasting per-
spective on the interpretation of Bach on the guitar, which had up to
this point been defned by Segovia. In his review of A Bach Recital
for Guitar in 1957, Ray Ericson made some interesting observations
regarding the cultural differences of approach of Bream and Segovia
in their renditions of Bach’s music,

With his Bach program Julian Bream, the gifted young English
guitarist, invites comparison with his quondam teacher, Andrés
Segovia, and comes off very well. The Chaconne, the C minor
Prelude for Lute, the Sarabande and Bourrée, are all on Segovia’s
Bach recital recorded for M.G.M [a reference to the Musicraft re-
cording]. Whether or not the fact stems from contrasting cultural
backgrounds, Mr. Segovia’s temperament and interpretative pow-
ers are the more passionate, intense and mercurial; Mr. Bream’s
are the more thoughtful, poetic, reserved.
(R.E. 1957a: 51)
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 175

Ericson also suggested that Bream’s “use of color is not so varied

or delicate or individual, and there is little of Mr. Segovia’s special,
if debatable, use of rubato”, from which it can be inferred that the
critic in essence approved Bream’s more timbrally constrained and
rhythmically controlled approach to interpreting Bach’s music. Carl
Miller (1959: 32) was equally impressed, praising both the “excite-
ment, variety and depth Julian Bream uncovers in the polyphony
of Bach”, and the faithfulness of his transcriptions to the origi-
nal pieces. He also underlined the importance of the album in fur-
thering the argument for Bach performance on the guitar: “If any
minds still the question the possibility of playing Bach effectively
on the guitar, let Julian Bream’s achievement prove positively that it
can be done” (1959: 32). In the Gramophone Malcolm MacDonald
drew attention to the disc’s all-Bach program, which he described
as “a welcome departure from the thirty-seven short pieces chosen
from fve centuries that so often seem to make up the guitar’s LP”
(M.M. 1960: 74).

RECORDING AESTHETICS: WESTMINSTER’S

“NATURAL BALANCE”
Bream’s career with Westminster during the mid-late 1950s also en-
abled him to appreciate, at a relatively early stage of his career, the
importance of well-specifed acoustic environments to recorded gui-
tar sound. Bream’s Westminster recordings were undertaken in the
renowned 704-seater Mozartsaal concert hall in the Vienna Konzer-
thaus, a key location for label’s pioneering recording activity in Europe
during the 1940s and 1950s, and supervised by a team of engineers
and producers operating at the cutting edge of recording practice
in Europe and America – James Grayson (Westminster’s president),
musicologist and composer Kurt List, credited as producer, and en-
gineer Herbert Zeithammer. Bream’s recordings also beneftted from
Westminster’s key recording innovation, referred to as “Natural Bal-
ance”, which according to Gray (n.d.) typically involved using a single
Altec 21b condenser microphone suspended above the performers.
This approach was comparable to emerging trends in high fdelity re-
cording that had been pioneered in the United States, most notably
by the Mercury label under engineer Bob Fine and producer Wilma
Cozart. A short paragraph referring to the “Natural Balance” con-
cept was included on Westminster album covers at this time (including
Bream’s) and epitomizes the dominant philosophy of classical music
recording during this era:

True high fdelity creates “the illusion that the listener’s chair is
in the most favored seat, acoustically, in the concert hall”. This
demands clarity, range and most vital of all, balance, the natural
balance of the original music, faithfully recreated.
176 The Recording Model Interrogated

It is not clear precisely how Bream’s Westminster recordings were

undertaken – for example, whether Westminster’s typical single micro-
phone approach was employed, or alternatively multiple microphone
perspectives were blended. However, they possess remarkable pres-
ence, engendering an unusual level of intimacy with the guitar’s sound
(and accompanying extraneous noises) that was immediately apparent
to critics. Of Bream’s Spanish Guitar Music album, High Fidelity re-
viewer Ray Ericson wrote “the recording is ultra-realistic; you hear
all the squeaks, clicks, and bumps made by the player’s hands as an
accompaniment to a larger-than-life tone” (R.E. 1956b: 106, 108) and
similarly in reference to the Villa-Lobos/Torroba LP, that “the disk
is faultlessly engineered to the last squeak and twang” (1956a: 98).
For some commentators, however, the level of detail engendered by
the recording set-up was disconcerting, as Arthur Cohn observed in
reference to the same album:

Both disks were recorded extremely close. Accordingly annoying

fnger swishes, hand shifts in making position changes, and glide
noises mar both releases. Is this aural jarring necessary to guitar
microphoning?
(Cohn 1961: 235)

Bream’s Westminster recordings were made towards the end of the pe-
riod of monaural recording and later re-compilations from these discs
preserved this format. The reasons for this are provided in an amusing
comment from an “Unrepentant Recording Engineer” which appears
on the sleeve of a later Westminster compilation, Julian Bream’s Great-
est Hits (WGM-8106, c. 1970):

You may have noticed that this record is not in stereo. It was re-
corded in England8 prior to the invention of the stereophonic
record. Now we could have faked it, re-mastering the original
tapes (which are pretty good, even by today’s standards) and de-
ceptively labeling the whole schmear as “electronically re-recorded
for stereo” […] It wouldn’t help the sound one bit, unless you are a
bass-boom lover who doesn’t know that the lowest note on the gui-
tar is E just an octave and one-half below middle C on the piano.
Instead we decided to foat this record on the market without any
gimmickry; maybe the public is ready for honesty. Besides, how do
you divide one guitar into two speakers?

At face value this in an obviously tongue-in-cheek dig at the practice

of artifcially enhancing monoaural recordings in the post-stereo pe-
riod. However, the comment also alludes to the continuing preoccu-
pation of engineers with “purist” recording principles, particularly as
they became reimagined in the context of audiophile recording in the
1970s (see Chapter 12).
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 177

RE-THINKING THE CLASSICAL GUITAR ALBUM

PROGRAM: BREAM AT RCA
As discussed, the programming of Bream’s albums during his Westmin-
ster period refected the Segovian recital paradigm, showcasing short,
self-contained works, many of which were familiar from Segovia con-
certs and recordings. The Bach album was an exception to this with its
focus on the larger Chaconne, although on the whole the LP can still be
regarded as an essentially Segovia-inspired assembly of Bach’s works.
While the Segovia infuence also remains apparent in Bream’s earliest
RCA discs (dating from 1960), it is also clear that he was now beginning
to individualize his recorded programs through the inclusion of his own
transcriptions (both of established repertoire and works not yet trialed
on the guitar) as well as original material by British contemporary com-
posers. In essence, Bream’s recording career from the 1960s onwards
charts a process of reconciliation with the Segovian position, accom-
panied by self-assertion through the means of a “nationalist” stance
on the repertoire which owed something to his British outlook. This is
apparent from his frst RCA album, The Art of Julian Bream, in 1960,
which exhibits an attitude of exploration in its forays into new repertoire
territory that was not exclusively Segovian in its remit. Side 1, while ac-
knowledging Segovia in the inclusion of the latter’s transcription of the
Frescobaldi Aria detta “La Frescobalda” (con variazioni) and Scarlatti’s
Sonata in E minor, also includes Bream’s own transcriptions of music by
Domenico Cimarosa, Domenico Scarlatti and Maurice Ravel (a unique
arrangement of his Pavane pour une infante défunte).9 This is contrasted
with Side 2’s collection of modern works specially written for the gui-
tar. Here the Segovian-Spanish perspective is acknowledged in Bream’s
inclusion of Albert Roussel’s Segovia Op. 29, and Rodrigo’s En Los
Trigales, the latter by this time a mainstay of repertoire programs. The
work that gives the LP its particular distinctiveness, however, is Lennox
Berkeley’s Sonatina Op. 51, which had been written for Bream in 1958.
In his advocacy of this work in recorded form, Bream laid an important
foundation stone for the development of a distinctly British narrative of
classical guitar composition, which he was to build upon in his later al-
bum programs.10 The Gramophone reviewer for The Art of Julian Bream
LP described Berkeley’s piece as “the plum of the reverse” of the disc,
“a fresh inventive work of individuality” which was “entirely idiomatic
for the guitar, exploiting all the instrument’s effects (and Bream’s own
virtuosity)” (L.S. 1961: 593).
Bream’s second RCA release, Guitar Concertos (recorded in 1959,
issued 1961), maintained this nationalistic stance in its programming
of Malcolm Arnold’s recently composed Guitar Concerto Op. 67
(1959).11 Arnold’s concerto was one of the earliest works to be actively
sourced by Bream to build his repertoire and the frst important post-
war British concerto for the instrument. Bream approached Arnold to
write the work because,
178 The Recording Model Interrogated

I thought his musical style was in many ways the most suitable of
any composer at that time for the guitar. Not only because he was
harmonically a romantic composer, and the guitar is pre-eminently
a romantic instrument, but because he also had an original quality
of wit and the great gift for writing good tunes.
(Palmer 1983: 81)

Bream also commented upon the successful balance Arnold had man-
aged to achieve between the guitar and orchestra in his scoring,12 and
his capacity to write effectively for an instrument whose potential in
a “classical” context was still was not widely understood by English
composers:

It’s miraculous, because the guitar dominates throughout the

whole concerto, without amplifcation. The writing is also very id-
iomatic for the instrument, which for most English composers can
set something of a problem.
(Palmer 1983: 81)

Compared to other contemporary guitar concertos, Arnold’s work

was also unique in its incorporation of modal and popular music el-
ements, such as blues and jazz, whose characteristics are particularly
apparent in the slow movement (written in memory of Django Re-
inhardt). Bream’s liner notes for the LP make a point of drawing a
distinction between this musical ethos and the more familiar Spanish
connotations of the guitar:

Fully aware that Spain is traditionally the “spiritual” home of the

guitar, Arnold has deliberately decided to give the instrument a
more universal character. He has successfully the circumvented the
Spanish “overtones” of the instrument by a subtle use of modal
melodic material.
(Bream 1961)

The eclecticism of Arnold’s music offered a particular challenge to re-

viewers more accustomed to the Romanticism of the Segovian litera-
ture, highlighting the progressive nature of Bream’s musical choices
relative to the standing of the repertoire at this time. Carl Miller, a
critic for the pro-Segovia Guitar Review wrote:

Mr Arnold’s Concerto is a salade of certain modern rhythmic

twists, sentimental melodies, blues, modal harmonies and other
unrelated elements. Its diversity may appeal to some. I fnd it a
curious recipe of indigestible ingredients …. However Bream play-
ing “blues” in the overlong second movement is a treat for those
of us who know only his serious musical side … Bream serves
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 179

the composer well. He throws himself into the music as if it were

Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto for guitar. Too bad it is not.
(1962: 22)

On the LPs that followed, Bream continued to acknowledge the Sego-

vian/Spanish position in his programs. Popular Classics for Spanish
Guitar (recorded in 1962 and issued in 1964) was, in the words of
BMG’s Discus, “frankly ‘pop’ in the best sense, containing all the best
box offce items by Villa-Lobos, Torroba, Turina, Albéniz, Falla and
Trad. All your old favourites, played with great panache” (1966: 261).
Malcolm MacDonald, a frequent critic of the Segovian miscellany pro-
gram remarked more soberly that the disc was “a most useful assem-
blage of some of the best-known pieces from the guitar repertory with
a few not quite so well known” (M.M. 1965b: 339). Bream’s handling
of the tonal resources of guitar also continued to attract comment,
the critics’ remarks often being couched in terms reminiscent of the
reception of Segovia’s recordings in the 1930s. Jay S. Harrison’s liner
notes, for example, invoke the familiar Segovian “orchestra” metaphor
in their description of Bream’s sound: “the plump sounds of the harp,
the pings of the harpsichord, the thump of the drum, the tinkle of the
lyre – all these he is able to produce and place at the disposal of any
score at hand”. Similarly, in her High Fidelity review, Shirley Fleming
wrote that “In Bream’s hands the guitar manages to sound like ev-
erything from a harpsichord to a Hammond organ, with some of the
effects diffcult to analyze even as you listen to them” (S.F. 1964a: 94).
Bream’s 1966 Baroque Guitar album also refected certain corner-
stones of the Segovia repertoire including the complete de Visée Suite
in D minor and a pairing of Bach’s Prelude in C minor BWV999/
Fugue in G minor BWV1000, the latter two pieces having appeared
together on Segovia’s 1928 HMV recording (D. 1256). However, Ba-
roque Guitar was also the frst of a series of releases in which Bream
attempted to escape the miscellany program, choosing to organize al-
bum content by historical era, followed in quick succession by the LPs
20th Century Guitar (1967), Classic Guitar (1969) and Romantic Guitar
(1970). These provided a vehicle for immersion in the work of par-
ticular composers and repertoire as well as showcasing Bream’s own
period transcriptions. Classic Guitar, for example, combined more
substantial early nineteenth-century guitar works – Giuliani’s Sonata
in C major Op. 15 and Sor’s Grand Solo – with an edited Sonata in
A by Anton Diabelli and arrangements of two pieces by Mozart. The
Diabelli piece was essentially a hybrid work, assembled by Bream from
the best movements of two different Diabelli guitar sonatas, one in
A major and one in F major, the movements in the latter key being
transposed and edited where necessary to ft with the former. Romantic
Guitar (1970) gave a nod to the transcribing tradition of the Span-
ish school in its revisiting of arrangements closely associated with
180 The Recording Model Interrogated

Tárrega – namely, Mendelssohn’s popular Canzonetta and Schubert’s

Menuetto and Trio from Piano Sonata No. 18. The centerpiece is the
Paganini Grand Sonata in A major, another re-worked composition,
originally conceived for guitar and violin, whose parts Bream had
amalgamated and arranged for a single guitar. These various pieces are
tempered by the inclusion of a handful of favorite Tárrega character
miniatures (Lágrima, Adelita, Mazurka in G and Marieta) which form
a coda to the LP.
During the 1960s and 1970s Bream also explored single-composer
focused programs. As discussed in Chapter 6, this model had been
employed by the Spanish Music Center (on albums of music by com-
posers such as Sor, Tárrega, Coste, Carulli) and began to gain further
currency in the 1960s with the issue of LPs such as Renata Tarragó’s
The Music of Francisco Tárrega (Columbia 1960) and John Williams’
Fernando Sor: Twenty Studies (Westminster/EMI 1963). As discussed
in Chapter 5, Segovia’s later albums for American Decca were also by
this time beginning to prioritize larger extended works, or a group of
works, by one composer. Bream, who had made an important earlier
contribution to the single-composer format with his all-Bach recital
disc for Westminster, in 1966 released J.S. Bach Lute Suites, which
paired the complete Lute Suites No. 1 and 2 in new transcriptions. This
approach met with the immediate approval of Gramophone’s Malcom
MacDonald, an outspoken critic of Segovia’s miscellany programs:

Complete performances of full-length works, where guitar records

are concerned, are rather hard to fnd (where other instruments are
concerned they sometimes seem rather hard to escape!); these are
quite certainly among the best of them.
(1966: 268)

The programming of Bach’s music in this more concentrated fash-

ion provided a model for future endeavors, such as the 1971 and 1974
Bach-focused albums of Narciso Yepes and John Williams’ landmark
1975 recording of Bach’s lute works. Bream also released two Villa-
Lobos focused albums in 1971 and 1978, adding a British perspective
to the growing body of all-Villa-Lobos recordings that had begun to
accrue during this period by Turibio Santos, Maria Livia São Mar-
cos, Narciso Yepes and Eric Hill. By the late 1970s and early 1980s,
solo-composer projects were becoming a well-established alternative
to the miscellany program, providing guitarists with a vehicle for a
deeper repertoire specialization, including John Williams’ albums of
Barrios (1977) and Ponce (1978) and Alice Artzt’s albums for the Me-
ridian label of works by Sor (1978), Tárrega (1979) and Ponce (1982).

MODERNIZING THE REPERTOIRE: 20TH CENTURY GUITAR,

’70S AND DEDICATION
Bream’s 20th Century Guitar album, released in late 1967, marked
a decisive move into new repertoire territory and posed a radical
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 181

challenge to the received musical identity of the classical guitar.

This was a recital disc comprised largely of works by contempo-
rary composers (billed on the cover as “Bream’s favorite modern
guitar music”), whose individual and often progressive musical lan-
guages contrasted strongly with the “Romanticism” of the Segovian
aesthetic.13 In particular the favor of the program was distinctly
Northern European drawing on British, German and Swiss compos-
ers: Benjamin Britten (the frst recording of his Nocturnal), Reginald
Smith Brindle (El Polifemo de Oro), Hans Werner Henze (Drei Ten-
tos), and Frank Martin (Quatre Pièces Brèves). The music’s evident
departure from the Spanish nationalistic norms of the guitar reper-
toire was highlighted by John Warrack in his liner notes: “none of
these works draws upon the superfcial Spanish coloring long associ-
ated with the guitar – the bolero rhythms and the strumming chords
of tourist music”. Reginald Smith Brindle’s El Polifemo de Oro
(1956), for example, while inspired by a poem of Federico García
Lorca, was composed in an abstract serial language, constituting in
Warrack’s words “a poetic tribute to Spain by a foreign composer
and interpreter”. The inclusion of Frank Martin’s much earlier Qua-
tre Pièces Brèves (1933) was also a symbolic gesture, having been
rejected by Segovia due to its more progressive14 serial language.
Only the two Villa-Lobos Estudos (the ffth and seventh) that con-
clude the disc appear stylistically anomalous relative to the whole,
although their inclusion here might be best understood as a conces-
sion to the more traditionally minded listener, the new and diffcult
material being tempered with the more familiar and accessible. The
signifcance of the album’s musical departures relative to the guitar’s
traditions was immediately recognized by critics. Malcolm Mac-
Donald, for example, commented in his Gramophone review that,
“it is not the illusions or allegiances that are of primary importance
at all: it is the quality and independence from guitar traditions of
the resulting music” (M.M. 1967a: 267). Shirley Fleming’s opening
remarks in her full-page review of the disc in High Fidelity magazine
underlined the importance of the music’s overtly “contemporary”
character:

With this recording, Julian Bream does what no other contem-

porary guitar virtuoso has quite done before: he brings the solo
guitar abreast of contemporary developments – introduces it, so
to speak, to the best and most adventurous of today’s composers,
with no apologies, no provisos. This is not to belittle in any way
the attractive works written over the years for Segovia (the two
Villa-Lobos Etudes, incidentally, sit comfortably enough in the
present surroundings), but the statement still holds: the Britten,
Brindle, Martin, and Henze works belong outright to our time:
there is no tipping of the hat to Spain, very little homage to the
past at all except as a point of departure for territory into which
the solo guitar is now fnding its way for the frst time
(Fleming 1967: 89)
182 The Recording Model Interrogated

Of particular importance was the album’s centerpiece, Britten’s

Nocturnal, composed for Bream in 1963, which constituted the most
substantial and sophisticated contemporary work to have been written
for the instrument to date. It represented a distinctly British outlook
on the guitar as a vehicle for the expression of more abstract musical
ideas, while at the same time foregrounding (in its use of Dowland’s
music) the instrument’s historical traditions in relation to the lute.
Now in its defnitive recorded form, the Nocturnal offered a strong ri-
poste to critics who had previously pronounced on the superfcial and
lightweight character of the repertoire, or had regarded the Segovian
perspective as the only legitimate one.
Bream continued his exploration of contemporary repertoire on
two further albums – Julian Bream ’70s (1973) and Dedication (1982) –
both of which conveyed a more overtly British nationalistic outlook.
Julian Bream ’70s focused solely on British music – Richard Rodney
Bennett’s Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Ensemble, Alan Rawst-
horne’s Elegy, William Walton’s Five Bagatelles and Lennox Berkeley’s
Theme and Variations – which, with the exception of the Berkeley, had
all been written for Bream.15 Composer Tom Eastwood’s liner notes
also served to contextualize the music in these terms while at the same
time drawing attention to the infuences of international compositional
trends on British composers. As with 20th Century Guitar, the variety
of musical styles on ’70s constituted a powerful counter-argument to
the entrenched Segovian canon. The most accessible pieces – those by
Walton and Berkeley – were quickly adopted into the repertoire and
soon became the focus of guitarist’s recordings. Elegy, a somewhat
more abstract piece left unfnished on Rawsthorne’s death in 1971, was
an interesting anomaly appearing in a completed version by Bream
“using only Rawsthorne’s own ideas taken from sketches and from
material the composer had already deployed” (Eastwood 1973). Here
Bream was echoing the Segovian strategy (as observed in the case of
Ponce’s music in particular) of assisting in the birth of new repertoire
through direct collaborative contribution. The most challenging work
was Bennett’s Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Ensemble, written in
a twelve-tone idiom, which suggested new possibilities for the use of
the classical guitar in an ensemble context. While a signifcant work,
this has fared less well in the repertoire than the other Bream commis-
sioned concertos by Malcolm Arnold and Lennox Berkeley (recorded
by Bream in 1975).
Dedication, Bream’s third and fnal RCA album devoted to con-
temporary repertoire, again contained a number of works by British
composers dedicated to him – Richard Rodney Bennett’s Impromp-
tus, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Hill Runes and a second recording of Wal-
ton’s Five Bagatelles. In an interview with John Duarte in 1982 Bream
stated that the record had originated with Bennett’s pieces (written in
1968) but took many years to crystallize as an idea mainly because it
was not immediately apparent how he could combine these pieces with
other works:
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 183

This record started off many years ago, when I realized that
Richard Rodney Bennett had written the Impromptus …. They’re
very brief but because of their brevity they have great charm, and
they make quite subtle musical points. So I’ve always wanted to
record them but I’ve never been able to fnd a record I could put
them on.
(Duarte 1982a: 1356)

It then occurred to Bream that the solution would be to include the

Impromptus alongside a new recording of Walton’s Bagatelles, thereby
enabling the latter pieces to be re-introduced to the marketplace:

Because of the re-distribution of my recordings it [William Wal-

ton’s Bagatelles] somehow got left out. This often happens in an
artist’s recording life when companies decide to refurbish the cover
and reorganize the material. I thought it was a great shame because
they’re good pieces – what one would term in an old-fashioned
sense “repertoire pieces” …. It’s important that guitarists should
be able to get records of them (especially one played by the dedica-
tee, who worked together with the composer).
(Duarte 1982a: 1356)

Bream’s comments illustrate his sense of the importance of recordings

as a means of proselytizing on behalf of particular repertoire, as well
as highlighting the fact that in the case of Walton’s Bagatelles, their
unavailability in recorded form in a sense rendered them absent from
the repertoire. The most unique British work on Dedication is Maxwell
Davies’ Hill Runes (composed for Bream in 1981) whose interest lies in
Davies having set out specifcally to try to countermand the “natural”
Spanishness of the guitar’s sound, and to supplant it with an alterna-
tive geographical allusion focused on Orkney (off the Scottish coast)
which was the focus of much of his musical work. Davies’ program
note (reproduced on the album’s sleeve) states that

I set myself the problem of writing a guitar solo quietly evocative

in my mind of the almost ‘lunar’ Scottish landscape in which I live,
without the overtones of Spain so often evoked by the guitar, while
at the same time writing idiomatically for the instrument.
(Duarte 1982b)

While Davies does not entirely avoid reverting to Spanish-associated

guitar techniques, such as the tremolando passage of the frst move-
ment and the rasgueado passages heard towards the end, in context of
the work’s highly abstract language, these are gestures without stylistic
connotation. Ultimately however, Hill Runes and the other works on
the album are dwarfed by German composer Hans Werner Henze’s
substantial Royal Winter Music First Sonata, a 27 minute work which
occupies the whole of the LP’s B-side.16 At the time this was one of
184 The Recording Model Interrogated

the most radical attempts to push the boundaries of the guitar, both
musically and technically, as well as in terms of its exploitation of the
sonic resources of the instrument. Its appearance in recorded form
constituted a strong statement of advocacy for the European modern-
ist aesthetic in guitar music that held a particular signifcance for the
younger generation of European and North American guitarists that
emerged in the early 1980s who wished to move beyond the Segovian
repertoire norms.

BREAM’S QUEST FOR AN ACOUSTIC AESTHETIC

As previously discussed, the re-situation of classical guitar perfor-
mance in concert halls led guitarists to develop their playing styles in
relation to the acoustic properties of such environments. It is therefore
unsurprising to fnd both guitarists and producers expressing a pref-
erence for replicating such characteristics in their recordings from the
1960s onwards as improvements in recording techniques (particularly
the ability to record in stereo) began to make this a realistic proposi-
tion. For guitarists, recording in an acoustic comparable to the concert
hall enabled them to perform in a way that was familiar from their live
concertizing and harness the refective resources of the environment in
the manner they were accustomed to in performance. In addition the
consistent use of a preferred acoustic environment for recording (such
as the Pythian in Segovia’s case), meant that guitarists could attune
themselves to one particular acoustic and learn to thoroughly exploit
it in their recorded performances. Where producers were concerned,
in addition to recognizing that such resonant environments allowed
their artists to perform at their best, concert hall acoustics could now
become a key part of the aesthetic presentation of the recording,
enabling the evocation of concert hall ambience. Furthermore, the
increasing fexibility of the recording situation, which now afforded
endless pre-production options for microphone placement as well as
the possibility of manipulating the sound after the recording had taken
place via mixing and effects, offered considerable scope for achieving
these ambitions. The development of Bream’s recording career during
the 1960s offers insight into the process by which a major label guitar-
ist achieved and refned an ideal classical guitar recording aesthetic in
relation to these possibilities. In Bream’s case this was engendered by
his increasing autonomy as a recording artist during the 1960s which
enabled him to move from a position of subservience to record label
imperatives dictated by practicality, to a situation in which he was able
to select his own recording venue and cultivate, at his convenience, an
idealized sonic setting for his recorded performances.
Key to the evolution of Bream’s ideas on recording during the 1960s
were the personnel he engaged with in the studio. In the frst decade of
his new contract with RCA, Bream’s recording sessions were overseen
by a number of different producers and engineers active on the Brit-
ish scene, including Peter Dellheim, Michael Bremner, Ray Minshull,
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 185

Christopher Raeburn and James Burnett. These individuals hailed

from a range of musical contexts and, with the exception of Burnett,
had little experience of recording solo classical guitar music (unsur-
prising given the guitar’s status in Britain at this time). Of these, Dell-
heim (d. 1979) and Burnett (d. 1990) were of particular importance in
shaping Bream’s ideas on classical recording aesthetics. Dellheim, who
produced four Bream LPs in the 1960s (including his debut album),
was a renowned producer active from the 1950s who was appreciative
of both the musical and technical aspects of the recording process.
In 1953 he published an article entitled “The Fine Art of Recording”
in which he discussed a number of issues in contemporary record
production practice in a manner that anticipated Glenn Gould’s pro-
nouncements in his famous 1964 essay, “The Prospects of Recording”.
For example, he was interested in the ways in which the microphone
engendered a different approach to performance in comparison to the
concert hall and defended the ethics of the musical splice. Like Gould,
Dellheim’s conviction was that “in recording the artist has his best
opportunity of assembling his musical achievement” on account of
the “extreme compatibility of the artist’s modus operandi and modern
recording methods” (1953: 35). Bream’s association with Dellheim is
likely to have been of particular importance in reconciling him to the
constraints of the recording process as well as alerting him to its cre-
ative possibilities. Bream had frst worked with James Burnett in 1949,
around the time of his broadcasts for the BBC Third Programme, and
made his frst RCA disc with him in 1962 (Popular Classics for Span-
ish Guitar). He later became Bream’s long-term collaborator (together
with engineer John Bower) on his recordings at Wardour Chapel from
1966 to the early 1980s. Regarding Burnett’s importance to his record-
ing career Bream later remarked:

Jimmy has an extraordinary ear for music, and he knows my play-

ing backwards, all manner of sideways and forwards. He has also
got immense tact with artists, and no less with me. He knows how
to get the very best out of you, in the nicest possible way. For years
he was with the BBC, as a sound balancer, so he knows instinc-
tively about the acoustical properties of a given place; where to
place the microphones, for instance.
(Palmer 1983: 161)

The variety of personnel with whom Bream worked was also mir-
rored in the range of different recording venues he used, including
purpose-built studios and specially selected halls. The Art of Julian
Bream was undertaken in New York in RCA Studio B (a recording
found by the Gramophone’s reviewer to possess a “fresh tone and just
enough reverberation to give it warmth” (L.S. 1961: 592)), while his
1966 Baroque Guitar album was recorded in RCA’s New York Studio
A. In the UK three Bream albums were recorded at (British) Decca
Studios in London – Guitar Concertos (1961), The Golden Age of
186 The Recording Model Interrogated

English Lute Music (1961) and An Evening of Elizabethan Music (1963).

He also made his frst recording of the Rodrigo Concierto de Aran-
juez at Walthamstow Town Hall (London) in 1963, a session which
was temporarily halted due to a bomb scare (Palmer 1983). Bream’s
experiences in these various environments played an important role
in shaping his ideas concerning recorded guitar sound, leading him
to conclude in particular that studio environments were anathema
to his ideal approach to making recordings. This is a position he has
expressed on a number of occasions and in no uncertain terms. For ex-
ample, in the 1982 BBC television feature, Walton at 80, he remarked:

I found many years ago that I used to get very tired, in fact,
very uninspired is the word, with most studios. I mean they are
so hideous to look at and generally the lighting is very cold
and there’s something very clinical about a studio…Most of the
music that one is recording is music that needs, sort of refec-
tion, it needs, sort of warmth, and it needs in a sense, romance.
And I fnd, for example, most studios are hardly romantic. In
fact they’re very anti-musical visually to me, and also one other
thing is, that the sound of a lot of studios, are very dry and for
the guitar you need a lovely reverberating sound just to help
phrase the music.
(Bartlett 1982)17

Bream’s growing interest in utilizing the reverberant characteristics

of particular venues in his recordings can be charted in four albums
made between 1964–67 – Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar (1964),
Music for Voice and Guitar (1965), J.S. Bach Lute Suites Nos 1 and
2 (1966) and Lute Music from the Royal Courts of Europe (1967) –
which were all recorded at Kenwood House in Hampstead, London.
Marcia Drennen’s liner notes for Music for Voice and Guitar (Bream
accompanying tenor Peter Pears), include a revealing quotation from
Bream concerning the signifcance of Kenwood House for recording
purposes:

We chose the Adam Library at Kenwood House because it is a

very beautiful room with a sympathetic atmosphere for intimate
music. Its acoustics are wonderful. The room is full of Sheraton
and Chippendale, and the old woods refect the sound with clarity
and luster. Peter Pears and I have often given concerts in the Adam
Library. Its grace and charm were ideally suited to our mood and
our intention.
(Drennen 1965)

Drennen’s own comments emphasize the character of the location and

its importance to the album’s mood:

As imposing as the artists and composers who make up this

remarkable album is the setting where it was recorded – the mellow
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 187

Adam Library at Kenwood House, one of the great London

mansions, which was bequeathed – along with priceless art master-
pieces and furniture – to the National Trust in 1927 on the death
of its owner, the Earl of Iveagh, heir to the Guinness Brewery For-
tune. Even the recording time was special – late night when the big
house was closed to sight-seers and when only silence and shad-
ows, Rembrandt’s “Portrait of the Painter in Old Age,” Vermeer’s
“The Guitar Player”, Watteau and Romney’s kept the artists and
technicians company.
(Drennen 1965)

The practice of drawing attention to the recording location in album

liner notes to enhance the listener’s appreciation of the recorded sound
later became commonplace in the “audiophile” releases of labels such
as BIS in the 1970s (see Chapter 12). Another interesting example,
contemporary with Bream’s LP, is Juan Mercadal at Vizcaya, recorded
in 1963 by Cuban guitarist, Juan Mercadal (1925–1998). This album,
produced by Robert Archibald for the Florida-based Artrec com-
pany, was taped at Villa Vizcaya, an early twentieth century Renais-
sance style building in Miami, whose importance to the ambience of
the performance is explicitly drawn attention to in Doris Reno’s liner
notes:

A magnifcent 70-room mansion, fabulous replica of an Italian

palace of the 16th–18th Century, containing art treasures, tapes-
tries and sculpture from all over the world, surrounded by acres
of formal gardens. Experts acclaim it an architectural marvel …
Vizcaya is a most appropriate setting for the romantic mood and
music of Juan Mercadal.
(Reno 1963)

To further cement the listener’s relationship with the location’s ambi-

ence the back cover of the album is adorned with external and internal
photographs of the house and estate. In an echo of the “realist” posi-
tion on recording, Reno also comments that:

Juan Mercadal is a person-to-person artist on the classical guitar.

When he performs in a “live” recital his audience always responds
eagerly and completely to the warm humanness of his handling
of both the pure classical and the vivid Spanish repertoires. So it
follows naturally that in this, his debut recording, Mr Mercadal ap-
pears to be sitting in the same room with his listeners, working his
own magic through the medium of beautifully controlled sound.
(Reno 1963)

Of the four Bream albums recorded at Kenwood House, Popular

Classics for Spanish Guitar, a disc released in the RCA “Living Stereo”
series, possesses a particularly distinctive reverberant sound, utilizing
what appears to be a medium-to-distant microphone perspective with
188 The Recording Model Interrogated

the admission of a signifcant amount of acoustic ambience. Critics

immediately picked up on these characteristics, BMG’s Discus (1966:
261) remarking wryly that the album was “to judge by the recorded
sound, performed in someone’s bathroom”, and Shirley Fleming
(High Fidelity) opining that she preferred “a closer, drier, more natural
setting’ to the disc’s “very lush” stereo (S.F. 1964a: 94). The respon-
sibility for this album’s unusual sonic character lay with Burnett and
acclaimed engineer Robert Auger (1928–1998), the latter an apprentice
of high fdelity recordist Bob Fine (of Mercury) and a later pioneer of
multi-microphoning techniques in classical recording (Foreman 1999).
Burnett was also involved in recording J.S. Bach Lute Suites Nos 1
and 2, although here he is credited as engineer with Peter Dellheim
referenced as producer. This LP also makes good use of the venue’s
acoustic properties but the guitar’s sound is more immediately present
and somewhat less informed by the acoustic.
By late 1966 Bream had fnally discovered a location that most suited
his recording aesthetic – Wardour Chapel at Wardour Castle in Wilt-
shire. This building was a working Jesuit house of worship, designed
by architect James Paine and operational from 1776, to which Bream
was granted fexible access. In his book A Life on the Road Bream re-
calls his frst experience of the chapel’s acoustic:

On entering the chapel, I was bowled over by its beauty and pro-
portions …. It seemed a profane act to open the guitar case and
strike a chord in this wondrous space, but that I did, and in doing
so I knew instinctively that you could bung up a microphone any-
where in that building and produce a magical sound.
(Palmer 1983: 158)

Wardour became Bream’s main location for recording thereafter, en-

abling him to cultivate a consistency of sonic character on his records
– in essence a signature sound. It was also from this point onwards that
Bream also began to use a particular producer-engineer team on his re-
cordings – James Burnett, with whom he was already on close profes-
sional terms, and recording engineer John W. Bower. In collaboration
with Burnett and Bower, Bream evolved a recording set-up based on
the use of “just one microphone, with two heads”, which produced a
“well-focused” sound and a “tight” stereo picture (Palmer 1983: 161).
Bream has offered the following comments regarding his approach to
microphoning, which coheres with ideas already discussed in relation
to Segovia in Chapter 5:

When you are recording a guitar, you have got to get the presence
of the instrument, that is the nearness of the instrument, but at the
same time you need the ring, the magic of the instrument, that is
the sense of the perspective and distance. It’s a tricky balance. The
sound has somehow got to be in proportion to what the instru-
ment might sound like in a good concert hall.
(Palmer 1983: 161)
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 189

For Bream the proximity of the microphone’s position to the guitar de-
pended upon the style of music being recorded, a strategy that became
standard practice during this period. Hence with contemporary music
“I might have the microphone a little nearer because of the higher dy-
namic contrasts in the piece” while in classical or nineteenth-century
music “I might withdraw the microphone a little. Six inches can make
a world of difference” (Palmer 1983: 161). The range of variation in
Bream’s microphone perspectives can be appreciated by comparing
albums recorded during this period. 20th Century Guitar, for exam-
ple, the frst disc to be recorded at Wardour Chapel in 1966, admits a
considerable amount of detail of the guitar sound without forfeiting
the resonance of the surrounding acoustic. On Romantic Guitar (1970)
there is a more “clouded” distant feel (on tracks such as Tárrega’s Ma-
rieta) which admits of a greater amount of the Chapel’s ambience.

RE-ORIENTING RECORDED GUITAR PERSPECTIVE

AFTER BREAM
As evolving technology increasingly placed Bream and other guitarists’
performances “under the microscope”, critics gradually re-oriented
themselves to an aural perspective on the instrument’s sound that had
been much less apparent in the concert hall. This new paradigm was
astutely drawn attention to by William Somervell Mann in his review
of the Art of Julian Bream box set compilation in 1972:

A record of a guitarist tells you more about his artistry than a

back seat in a live recital: John Williams has declared that beyond
row 5 or so in a concert hall the audience misses the guitar’s nic-
est overtones, and also the exquisite refnements of phrasing and
coloration, I think, which are a recognizable trait of Bream’s play-
ing. On record, and in concert-hall close-up, one does also notice
extra-musical hazards such as sticky fngers in position-changing
(Bream calls this “string whistle”) and nail-scraping; and one is
even more sharply aware of breaks in legato especially before a
change of chord.
(W.S.M. 1972: 1209)

In these terms Bream’s early Wardour Chapel discs drew a range of

responses from reviewers as they adjusted to the “realism” of his re-
cordings. Shirley Fleming, for example, described Bream’s sound on
his 1972 Julian Bream Plays Villa-Lobos LP as “closely miked” with
a “naturally vibrant tang” that revealed “a good deal of musically ex-
traneous snapping noise”. Referring to the tendency of “guitar af-
cionados” to “conveniently flter” such sounds “out of their minds
if not their ears”, she concluded that this was “a minor nuisance to
everyone captivated by Bream’s skill and lyric artistry” (S.F. 1973:
138). Similarly the Gramophone critic D.A. remarked of the Bream’s
lute disc, The Woods so Wild, that “the recording is realistic, which
is to say that there are various noises-off; but these soon recede in
190 The Recording Model Interrogated

the consciousness” (1973: 1534). For some critics the elevation of the
classical guitar’s “noise foor” in this manner was more problematic.
Malcolm MacDonald, reviewing the Bream and Williams Together
(1972) album, remarked that, “it is time (indeed the time is rather dis-
tinctly overdue) that a remedy for this was invented; the better record-
ing becomes the more clearly it discloses those fngers scraping their
way up and down the wirewound strings” (M.M. 1972: 512). In the
case of Musical Times critic Hugh Ottaway, the level of detail revealed
by the microphone in Bream’s Julian Bream’70s LP provoked a tirade
against “realism”:

I have never heard a record with anything approaching the amount

of fngerboard noise that is audible here. In the three solo items,
and especially the Rawsthorne, this is so obtrusive that it is almost
bound to mar one’s listening. Presumably the cause is extremely
close recording in the pursuit of an arresting, realistic presence. In
practice, however, such “realism” belies itself, for this is not what
we would hear in the recital room. It is like the current craze for
putting our heads inside a concert grand, where all the impurities
are heard in a concentrated form. I do wish producers of this per-
suasion would think again.
(Ottaway 1974: 43)

Inevitably reviewers also began to make comparisons between different

record labels’ approaches to recording, with their approval often being
commensurate with the extent to which the recordist had successfully
managed to purge unwanted noises. Comparing Bream’s RCA record-
ing of the Villa-Lobos Preludes with the same pieces issued by Konrad
Ragossnig on Supraphon, the Gramophone’s reviewer, M.H., remarked
that,

his Villa-Lobos Preludes must be compared with the recent set

from Julian Bream (RCA SB6852, 2/72). The latter’s conception
of these pieces is most beautiful, yet is marred by the microphones
having picked up a variety of extraneous noises, such as the strings
clicking on the fngerboard, which Supraphon have avoided.
(M.H. 1972b: 1914)

Similarly, Michael Oliver, reviewing Artzt’s Twentieth Century Guitar

Music (recorded in 1973) commented that: “she is recorded cleanly,
with none of those squeaks and twangs that come from excessively
close microphoning” (M.E.O. 1981: 970). Ironically, however, earlier
recordings were also found wanting because they lacked the height-
ened level of detail! Reviewing Alirio Díaz’s reissued Four Centuries of
Music for the Classical Spanish Guitar (Vanguard VSD-71135) in 1972,
M.H. wrote that, “the recorded sound, though very adequate, dates
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 191

from 1965, and lacks the sheer presence of several guitar LPs made in
the present decade” (M.H. 1972a: 759).
The capacity to hear the sound of the classical guitar at close range
also had a marked infuence upon guitarists themselves as performing
for the microphone encouraged them to shift their focus from directing
sound outwards to the audience and instead give more attention to
scrutinizing the sound they were producing at the site of the instru-
ment. The difference in approach when recording is summarized by
Juan Mercadal who observed that:

When you are performing for a live audience, you should not be
“recording” yourself. That is, when you play for a live audience,
you try to reach the last row of seats – of course, because you are
playing with more power, you might produce a few buzzes, a few
voices, but the object is to give the audience their money’s worth,
even the fellow in the last seat. On the other hand when you are
recording and not performing for that last person, you can concen-
trate more, using less volume, on fnesse in your playing, tone etc.
(Switzer 1981:50)18

Similarly, the American guitarist, Christopher Parkening, when asked

whether he varied his playing when making recordings, commented:

As Segovia once advised me, you have to play according to the size
of the audience and a more intimate audience, or, say a recording
studio where the mics are placed very close, would demand a com-
pletely different approach in playing than a performance in a big
concert hall.
(Partridge 1974: 24)

Indeed Parkening’s sensitivity to the sound of his guitar when placed

under the close scrutiny of the microphone caused him to signifcantly
modify his approach to playing. In his autobiography (Parkening and
Tyers 2006), Parkening recounts that the experience of hearing his own
recordings (he cut his frst LPs for Angel in the late 1960s) in particular
made him keenly aware of the noise he produced when sliding his left-
hand fngers along the strings. While such noise had not been notice-
able to him as a concert performer, playing back his own recordings
had placed him in the more objective position of an audience member
for whom (he assumed) such noises would be quite obvious. This mo-
tivated Parkening to spend a period of time trying to eliminate these
sounds by sanding the bass strings of his guitar, which eventually en-
abled him to reduce them signifcantly. In effect the self-consciousness
and capacity for self-scrutiny engendered by the recording situation
had led Parkening to re-think his mode of physical engagement with
the instrument.
192 The Recording Model Interrogated

BREAM AND THE RECORDING PROCESS

During the course of his career Bream gave much thought to the nature
of the recording process and its objectives relative to his live perform-
ing activities. Despite the huge quantity of recordings he made during
the course of his career, he appears, like Segovia, to have maintained
an attitude of ambivalence towards the practice, at one point even
describing himself as “a guy who hates microphones” (Palmer 1983:
154). In a 1974 Guitar interview, Bream offered particular reasons for
his dislike of the recording process, highlighting what he perceived to
be a fundamental distinction between the recording situation and the
concert performance:

I try to create an ambience between myself and an audience, you

can imagine that the artifciality of recording does not relate in any
way to my normal work which is concert performing.
(Brown and Clinton 1974: 25)

This notion of the “artifciality” of the recording process and its dis-
connection from the concert situation for Bream also had to do with
an idealized notion he possessed of the ephemerality of the musical
experience:

It is artifcial in the sense that you are trying to grab and hoard
something which ideally should be left alone. A musical sound,
indeed a performance, is something which happens and then dis-
appears into thin air, literally. To try and capture it abuses the very
nature of that phenomenon, it seems to me.
(Palmer 1983: 154)

Another problem for Bream was that the recording situation mediated
against taking the risks that were required “in order to attain expres-
sive possibilities that cannot be attained when one has constraints of
care and technique manifesting themselves at the same time”. What
had to be overcome in particular was the “mechanization” present in
the recording process:

if one does achieve a worthwhile artistic on record, I think one

has overcome an obstacle, by which I mean mechanization, which
is prevalent in everyday life and which destroys sensitivity. I think
that if one uses mechanized principles of recording and transcends
that, then that achievement lends great satisfaction –at least to me.
(Brown and Clinton 1974: 25)

For Bream, making a record in the studio involved a process of adjust-

ment to the environment and available technology,

It […] takes me time to relax and settle down at a recording session

and it may take an hour or longer sometimes before I can really
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 193

begin to make music. Once I’ve got the measure of the microphone
and the studio I’m on my way.
(Palmer 1983: 154)

The decentralization of Bream’s recording set-up to Wardour Chapel

in close proximity to his home in Semley undoubtedly served to tem-
per his reservations about recording during the 1970s. In this situation
he was able to gain greater control over the process as a whole and
work in conditions that were not subject to the pressure of daily stu-
dio routine.19 In addition, recording in an environment with consis-
tently inspiring acoustics undoubtedly enabled Bream to perform at
his best in the recording situation. He also benefted from working for
many years with same producer and engineer team – James Burnett
and John Bower – who in effect became close collaborators. Bream’s
approach to recording at Wardour was documented in the 1976 BBC
flm, A Life in the Country. This contains an extended sequence show-
ing Bream recording takes for the album Lute Music of John Dowland
(1976), including a clip of him overdubbing himself in a duet for lute
(“My Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home”), something he rarely did
in his recordings.20 Bream is also observed visiting the control room
(situated in the vestry of the chapel) to listen to playback for problems
and to discuss any issues that have arisen. Here he works directly with
James Burnett to evaluate his recordings, while John Bower is on hand
with a tape machine to quickly locate previous takes for comparison.
Editing takes place the following day at Bream’s house and involves lo-
cating what he refers to as “blemishes”, that is errors to be either fxed
by re-recording or via a splice.
Regarding what specifcally is edited, in interviews of this period
Bream has indicated that he was happy to let tiny faws remain in his
recordings provided that the result satisfed him musically and also
provided that his producer agreed (Brown and Clinton 1974: 25). He
was aware of the problem of fnger-squeaks but as long as “they are
not too distracting from the music or distressing for the listener” these
were less important than preserving “the musical line” (Palmer 1983:
163). Splicing in Bream’s recordings therefore served a broader mu-
sical purpose, namely to obtain the ideal composite performance via
the amalgamation of the most satisfactory renderings of particular
passages of music into a convincing whole. In practice this ranges from
splicing at the micro level of individual bars or groups of notes,21 to
the connecting together of longer sections recorded in different sit-
tings. Bream explained his position on editing to John Amis in a 1972
interview for Records and Recording (reproduced in the liner notes for
the Art of Julian Bream box set RCA SER 5638–42):

With editing I think one can get a perfect performance. What is

important is to get on to the record the very best that you can
do. A lot of people are critical of the editing and tape-joining
that goes on and I am myself too, if it’s not done with skill, and
194 The Recording Model Interrogated

also with the artist who has recorded present. However it’s almost
impossible to get everything inspired in one performance, so I think
that artistically there is something to be said for modern recording
conditions whereby you can get the whole piece to come off in an
inspired way. Now this may not necessarily mean more than two or
three edits in a 10-minute piece, but I would prefer to edit and get
a total inspired performance than one which is unedited and very
good perhaps but has moments where things are a little slack or
lacking in heightened emotional tension for example.
(Amis 1972)

It is in this respect that Bream’s approach contrasts strongly with the

Segovian one-take position and clearly the un-pressured recording sit-
uation engendered the freedom to experiment in this regard. Bream’s
approach is also in accordance with Gould’s notion of the recording
process as a means of being able to defer fnal decisions regarding an in-
terpretation. In a conversation with Alan Blyth in 1968 he remarked that:

A recorded performance can suddenly change halfway through a

session when you are invigorated by a new idea, which you can
then try out and get on to tape. Don’t mistake me – I love audi-
ences and they often bring the best out of me, but there is some-
thing specially intriguing about making a record.
(Blyth 1968)

By way of an extension of this idea Bream has also indicated that his
practice of re-recording particular pieces over a number of years (such
as the Villa-Lobos Preludes, the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez and
the Walton Bagatelles) is part of the process of honing an interpreta-
tion of a piece. This suggests that individual recordings of a work were
in a sense also being regarded as takes, here being subject to review
over an extended time period:

I’ve noticed in certain pieces that I’ve recorded twice, or even three
times over the last thirty years, that there are differences. On the
frst recording, there is the basis of the concept, which is inherent
in one’s personality. Working from that, I know what I feel and I
know what I did or didn’t achieve and I can copy myself.
(Snitzler 1987: 30)

NOTES
1. This chapter acknowledges two prior academic studies of Bream’s record-
ings – Molina Júnior (2006) and Greene (2011) – which have been con-
sulted during the writing of this book. The former offers a broad survey
of Bream’s recorded output which is situated relative to Segovia, while the
Julian Bream: Nationalism and Modernism 195

latter focuses on the 20th Century Guitar LP in particular. This chapter

inevitably re-considers a number of the recordings surveyed in these stud-
ies and in certain cases draws upon the same reception literature.
2. In some ways this refected the more general situation of British musical
life in the nineteenth century, which persisted until the so-called English
Musical Renaissance following the First World War when native compos-
ers such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams began to make their presence
more strongly felt.
3. Bream adopted some of Shand’s music into his early repertoire in the
1940s, including his Concerto for Guitar, but did not ultimately record
any of it. In the 1960s his music made occasional appearances on records
by non-British guitarists including Manuel Gayol and René Bartoli. Brit-
ish guitarist Stanley Yates contributed to Shand’s revival in the 2000s with
his edition, Ernest Shand: 23 Guitar Solos from Victorian England (Pacifc,
MO: Mel Bay 2000).
4. As Bream avoided performing or recording the work of Ponce through-
out much of his career it is interesting to fnd (as documented in Button
2006) works such as the Sonata Romántica and the Sonata Clásica in his
repertoire at this time.
5. Best known for his work with Benjamin Britten.
6. Bream based his somewhat “inauthentic” approach to playing the lute on
his existing classical guitar technique. For further discussion of Bream’s
approach and attitude towards the lute, see Thomson (1975).
7. As illustrated by the plethora of discs that were being produced by EMI’s
Education Department (such as History of Music in Sound collection be-
gun in the late 1950s).
8. This is incorrect – the venue was the Mozartsaal.
9. Like Segovia, Bream later published a number of his transcriptions in
sheet music form in his series The Julian Bream Guitar Library (Faber).
10. Berkeley had previously attempted to interest Segovia in performing his
music, but without great success (Scotland 2010).
11. Arnold’s work appeared alongside Mauro Giuliani’s then equally unfa-
miliar Concerto in A major, Op. 30.
12. Arnold also conducted the concerto for the recording.
13. In an interview with Thérèse Wassily Saba (2014b), Bream recalled that
RCA had initially been against the idea of him recording such a program
of music due to its unmarketability. However, Peter Dellheim was able
to persuade the label to allow it on the grounds that it would cost very
little to make the record (Bream had by this point re-located his recording
activity to Wardour Chapel near his home in Wiltshire). The label later
professed surprise at the LP’s commercial success!
14. See Wade and Garno (1997b: 304–307) and Postlewate (1981) for further
discussion.
15. Berkeley’s piece was dedicated to the Italian guitarist Angelo Gilardino.
16. This was a piece that Bream had been waiting for an opportune moment
to record since he had premiered it on 20 September 1976.
17. Bream has made similar comments in Palmer (1983).
18. This beneft of the recording process has also been discussed by pianist
Glenn Gould, who like Mercadal, was conscious of the requirement
to project oneself during live performances in order to reach audience.
In “The Prospects of Recording” Gould speaks of employing “interpre
196 The Recording Model Interrogated

tative ‘niceties’ intended to woo the upper balcony” (1966: 50). See also
Gould’s comments on the subject in the 1968 CBS spoken word record-
ing, Glenn Gould Concert Dropout (Columbia Masterworks BS 15).
19. Bream’s recordings were typically made in the evenings after the bird
chorus had died down and lasted until around midnight (Palmer 1983).
20. The liner note for this recording (RCA ARL1-1491) refers to Bream play-
ing “a double role, with of course, technological assistance!”. Bream also
employed overdubbing techniques on his recording of the Boccherini
Fandango on the 1985 Guitarra album.
21. Such splices can sometimes appear quite obvious in Bream’s recordings,
especially when listening on high quality speaker systems.
9
Non-conformity in the Recordings
of John Williams

INTRODUCTION
John Williams’ recording career charts an ongoing process of explora-
tion at the boundaries of the classical guitar’s musical identity and a
re-thinking of the conventions concerning the instrument’s represen-
tation in recorded form. In essence, Williams’ perspectives on these is-
sues, which were mutually dependent, can be understood as a response
to the Segovian repertoire paradigm that had played a pivotal role in
his early development as a classical guitarist. The chapter begins with
a survey of Williams’ early recording career from the late 1950s to the
end of the 1960s, covering his early work with the Delysé and West-
minster labels and the frst decade of his recordings for Columbia.
It then moves to a consideration of Williams’ departures from the
typical classical guitar idioms in the 1970s, including his controversial
crossover projects with popular musicians, at which point the com-
mentary surveys both repertoire programming and recording strategy
in closer relation.

EARLY RECORDINGS: DELYSÉ, WESTMINSTER AND CBS

John Williams has been typically been viewed as an iconoclast where
the classical guitar repertoire is concerned, particularly in regard to
his attitude towards the Segovian musical aesthetic. However, the frst
decade of his recording career, from the late 1950s to the late 1960s,
indicates, at least initially, a close alignment with the Segovian posi-
tion. Like Bream, this is tempered by an essentially British-European
outlook on the instrument, as well as a growing musical eclecticism.
Williams, whose background is Australian,1 undertook the bulk of his
musical education in Britain, where he had relocated with his family
in 1952. He was initially taught by his father Len Williams who ex-
posed him to the Spanish traditions of the classical guitar (in terms of
the Tárrega school) and the Segovian repertoire. Important in setting
a context for this was the Spanish Guitar Centre, established by Len
Williams in London in 1952, which played a key role in developing

197
198 The Recording Model Interrogated

the culture of the classical guitar in Britain during this period. After
being introduced to Segovia in the same year, Williams became closely
associated with maestro’s circle and attended his summer schools at
the Accademia Musicale Chigiani di Siena in Italy in the mid-1950s.
In addition to receiving tuition from Segovia and Emilio Pujol at these
events, Williams also developed a friendship with Alirio Díaz, who
encouraged his interest in Latin American guitar music. This later be-
came an important facet of his recorded repertoire, refected in par-
ticular in his advocacy of the music of Barrios and his programming
of music by Venezuelan composers. During the 1950s Williams also
received tuition in music theory from two British composers with a
professed interest in writing for the guitar – Stephen Dodgson (at the
Royal College of Music) and John Duarte – both of whom infuenced
the scope and content of Williams’ early recordings.2
Williams’ frst recording – a two volume LP set entitled Guitar
Recital – was undertaken in late 1958 for Delysé, an independent Brit-
ish classical label owned by producer Isabella Wallich. These adopt
a relatively un-typical programming structure, which was perhaps an
infuence of Duarte who loathed what he called “rent-a-programme”
recitals. Each LP begins with a Bach suite (transcriptions of the 1st
and 3rd Cello Suites), establishing a certain musical gravitas, which is
counterbalanced with Side 2’s more commonplace mixed program ap-
proach. Both Bach suites were newly arranged for Williams by Duarte
and represented an important advance in Bach transcription for the
classical guitar at this time, the Cello Suite No. 3 later being recorded
by both Segovia and Díaz. The mixed program element favors the Sego-
vian repertoire, including the latter’s transcription of Scarlatti’s Sonata
L352, Albéniz (Torre Bermeja), Llobet’s arrangement of Granados’
La Maja de Goya, Villa-Lobos (Estudo No. 1), Ponce (Tres Canciones
Populares Mexicanas) and Crespo (Norteña). Williams even includes
two miniatures by Segovia – Oración and Estudio – on the second
album. However, there are also deviations into less typical contempo-
rary repertoire – namely, John Duarte’s refreshingly un-Spanish Varia-
tions on a Catalan Folk Song Op. 25 (whose theme is Canço del lladre,
made famous by Llobet) at the end of Volume 1 and Antonio Lauro’s
Vals Criollo which concludes Volume 2, constituting a notable early
recording of the composer’s music.
The critical reception of Williams’ Delysé discs was unanimously
favorable. Malcolm MacDonald, who reviewed both volumes, noted
in regard to the frst disc that the

very good programme arrangement avoids the monotony always

waiting round the corner to catch the 12-inch LP of solo guitar
music off its guard. For one side of this disc is actually devoted to
one classical major work, the other to several Spanish-style minor
pieces, leading up by way of climax to a rather more substantial
fnal one.
(M.M. 1959: 463)
John Williams: Non-conformity 199

As with Bream’s early recordings, comparisons to Segovia were also

predictably made, but Williams’ interpretations were even at this time
regarded as independent of this infuence. Terry Usher, who devoted a
full page to discussing the frst volume in his BMG review, commented
that while Williams’ choice of Albéniz’s Torre Bermeja was not origi-
nal, he “makes no attempt to copy the Segovia interpretation and if we
cannot have fresh felds and pastures new from our young recording
artists of the guitar, at least it is good to hear so fne an interpretation
that is not a copy of anyone else’s” (Usher 1959: 34).
Williams’ recording sessions with Delysé also revealed his evident
comfort and facility with the recording situation, as illustrated by
Wallich’s account in her autobiography:

I asked him if he needed a more suitable seat than my piano chair,

and he endeared himself to me immediately by answering that any
old seat would do. In fact, he said that he wouldn’t mind perching
on the arm of the settee. […] He played with the complete dedi-
cation and confdence of many great artists, and when he had fn-
ished I said that I would be happy to record him as soon as he
wished. […] Once we had achieved the sound that we all wanted,
the sessions couldn’t have been easier, for John played with the
command and assurance of someone with great talent.
(Wallich 2001: 161–2)3

In the early 1960s Williams moved briefy to the Westminster label,

which by this point had a proven track record in classical guitar re-
cording on account of its prior association with Bream. The repertoire
of the two discs he recorded for the company is again strongly Sego-
vian in orientation. A Spanish Guitar (1961) focuses on major guitar
works by Torroba (the Sonatina in A and the Suite Castellana) and
Ponce (the Thème Varié et Finale) while the program for Fernando Sor:
20 Studies for Guitar (1963), based on the published Segovia edition
of Sor’s pieces, is notable for its single composer focus, which was un-
typical for the period. Critical responses to the 20 Studies disc (see
for example S.F. 1964) suggest that Williams’ recording did much to
improve the reputation of Sor’s guitar music, which had generally been
regarded by critics as lacking in substance. Both the Delysé and the
Westminster LPs are also notable for including the famous “Prince of
the Guitar” endorsement by Segovia on their covers:

A prince of the guitar has arrived in the musical world: John Wil-
liams, born in Australia seventeen years ago…. God has laid a fn-
ger on his brow, and it will not be long before his name becomes a
byword in England and abroad, thus contributing to the spiritual
domain of his race.

This famous passage, which was culled from the program of a recital
given by Williams at the Wigmore Hall in November 1958, in effect
200 The Recording Model Interrogated

legitimized a British presence within the culture of the classical guitar.4

The use of Segovia endorsements in this manner became a common-
place strategy in the marketing of recordings of other associated art-
ists during the 1960s and 1970s, including Alirio Díaz, Oscar Ghiglia,
Christopher Parkening and Eliot Fisk, acting as a seal of approval for
the quality of the musical performance there-in.
The “Prince of the Guitar” quotation continued to be reproduced on
Williams’ early recordings with Columbia (CBS) Records, the frst of
which appeared in 1964. Williams’ long-term contract with Columbia,
like Bream’s with RCA, functioned to stabilize his recording career
and also marked the beginning of a fruitful relationship with producer
Paul Myers who oversaw all Williams’ recordings for the label until the
late 1970s. Although a producer very much in the classical mold, My-
ers exhibited a certain open-mindedness towards the repertoire, as well
as the recording process itself (he had previously worked with Glenn
Gould). While Williams recorded much of the expected classical gui-
tar repertoire with the label, under Myers’ supervision he also had the
freedom to explore a range of concepts, musical styles and compos-
ers. Particular programming strategies can be observed on Williams’
1960s albums which suggest a desire to move beyond the established
patterns. For example, the notion of the “virtuoso” is explored across
three albums during this period – Virtuoso Music for Guitar (1965),
More Virtuoso Music for Guitar (1967) and Virtuoso Variations for
Guitar (1969). These titles served to foreground Williams’ then un-
common technical facility which was often foremost in critics’ minds
when experiencing Williams’ playing either in concert or on recording.
In the frst paragraph of his liner notes for Virtuoso Music for Guitar
Williams makes a point of clarifying precisely what is meant by “vir-
tuosity” in this context, namely the capacity to overcome the guitar’s
unique technical challenges in the service of fuent, rhythmically co-
herent and expressive performance. In a sense this is another example
of the rhetoric arguing for the guitar’s place within serious musical
performance, the implication being that in Williams we have a guitar-
ist who is able to successfully surmount these diffculties and thereby
prove beyond doubt the instrument’s musical capabilities. The “virtu-
oso” idea also permitted a means of repertoire assembly that enabled
Williams to break away from the standardized format. On Virtuoso
Variations for Guitar, for example, Williams built a program from fa-
mous showpiece works utilizing theme and variation form, providing
a vehicle for combining the Bach Chaconne (in his own transcription
rather than Segovia’s), with a range of pieces of different periods by
composers such as Dowland (two Galliards), Paganini (a transcription
of the well-known Caprice No. 24 in A minor which anticipates Eliot
Fisk’s later recording), Giuliani (Variations on a Theme by Handel)
and Sor (the familiar Op. 9).
Throughout the 1960s Williams’ recordings for Columbia chart a pro-
cess of expansion beyond the restrictions of the established guitar canon
through his own transcriptions of established repertoire, including the
John Williams: Non-conformity 201

works of Bach, music by Albéniz and Granados, and new pieces by

contemporary composers. This is immediately apparent in his debut,
Columbia Records Presents John Williams (1964), whose main focus
(on Side 1) is Williams’ own transcription of Bach’s Fourth Lute Suite
in E major BWV 1006a, counterbalanced by a potpourri of familiar
Spanish and Latin American material – Tárrega, Albéniz, Turina,
Ponce, Sagreras on Side 2 (hence following a similar pattern of orga-
nization of Williams’ earlier Delysé discs). Virtuoso Music for Guitar
(1965) also takes the same approach, but this time Side 1’s focus is
Williams’ transcription of Paganini’s Sonata in A Op. 39 (pre-empting
Bream’s later arrangement), while Side 2 concerns itself with twentieth-
century works, of which the most substantial is Dodgson’s Partita
No. 1. The conventional historical survey structure of More Virtuoso
Music for Guitar is distinguished by Williams’ transcriptions of mu-
sic by Michael Praetorius and German lutenist Esaias Reusner, which
rub shoulders with a range of pieces including Giuliani’s Sonata Op.
15 (frst movement), two Villa-Lobos Preludes and a unique recording
of Torroba’s Aires de la Mancha, a work not widely performed at this
time. One of Williams’ most popular albums of this period, John Wil-
liams Plays Spanish Music (1970) constitutes a highly individualized
statement on the mainstream Spanish repertoire tradition with all-new
transcriptions by Williams of a number of nineteenth-century Span-
ish piano works. Its liner notes make a point of mentioning that the
album’s concern is with expanding the repertoire, drawing attention in
particular to the new transcriptions of Granados’ Valses Poéticos and
Albéniz’s Córdoba, which are described as “signifcant additions to the
guitar repertory, recorded here for the frst time” (Jaffee 1970).
One of the highlights of the twentieth-century program on Side 2 of
Virtuoso Music for Guitar is Stephen Dodgson’s four movement Par-
tita No. 1 for solo guitar, which was the frst of a number of Dodgson
pieces that Williams was to promote in his recordings over the years.
Interestingly it was Bream who had frst encouraged Dodgson to write
for the guitar and who had performed his earliest pieces. However, in
the likely recognition that Williams had become the prime exponent
(and stimulus for) Dodgson’s work, he did not record any of the com-
poser’s music himself.5 As MacKenzie (2006) has observed, Dodgson
did not play the guitar and therefore could write for the instrument in
a way that was not conditioned by its common cliches. He was also
largely un-infuenced by the prevailing Spanish traditions surround-
ing the repertoire, instead working within a musical language that was
somewhat abstract and “intellectual” in character. While he observed
certain aspects of conventional tonality, he did not employ harmony
in a Romantically expressive manner, nor did his music attempt to ap-
peal to its audience through conventional melodic devices. Dodgson’s
music was, in other words, very much at odds with the Segovian aes-
thetic, thereby offering a means for Williams to demonstrate a strongly
contrasting musical, and uniquely English, perspective in his record-
ings. The Partita, which had been composed in 1963 with Williams
202 The Recording Model Interrogated

in mind (MacKenzie 2006), was favorably reviewed by Gramophone

whose critic described the work as,

a four movement exploration of a wide range of guitar sonori-

ties in an idiom more closely related to that of straightforward ap-
proachable contemporary writing than to that of any traditional
Spanishry … to hear in it the unfamiliar juxtaposition of the par-
ticular textures and sonorities is an unusual pleasure.
(M.M. 1965a: 156)

In an interview with Alan Blyth in Gramophone, July 1970, Williams

refected on his attitude towards contemporary guitar music at this
time and the appeal of Dodgson’s style relative to the cliches of the
repertoire:

I’ve been through the whole guitar repertory about twice and so
I’m constantly searching for different things, but I won’t play new
music just because it’s contemporary. So much of what is written is
just rubbish. The sort of piece I like is Dodgson’s Partita because
he exploits a sort of gutsy twanginess in the instrument and not
just the delicate sounds or the famenco-type ones which everyone
associates with the instrument. Earthiness suits the guitar but not
many composers seem to realize that.

From the late 1960s Dodgson works began to appear regularly on

Williams’ LPs. In 1968 his Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra
No.1 appeared on the fipside of Williams’s recording of the Rodrigo
Fantasía para un Gentilhombre (on John Williams Plays Two Guitar
Concertos), a disc which, according to MacKenzie (2006) was key in
establishing Dodgson as a recognized composer for guitar.6 Music for
Guitar and Harpsichord (1971), recorded with Rafael Puyana, featured
Dodgson’s 14 minute Duo Concertante. This piece, which was specially
commissioned by Williams and Puyana, attempted to push the bound-
aries of the guitar in an ensemble context as Ponce had done in his
Preludio (also included on the LP) and Sonata for Guitar and Harp-
sichord (recorded by Manuel López Ramos around the same time).
Williams opted to program these works alongside the Three Sonatas
for Guitar with Accompaniments for the Harpsichord or Violoncello
by the little known eighteenth-century German composer, Rudolf
Straube (1717–80). Songs for Voice and Guitar (1970), recorded with
tenor Wilfred Brown, includes a Dodgson work for guitar and voice,
Four Poems of John Clare (written at the request of Williams in 1962),
which constitutes an all-English program of works, including Brit-
ten’s Songs from the Chinese and arrangements for solo guitar of John
Dowland, in effect bringing Williams closer to the Bream aesthetic. As
with Bream, and the later-discussed German guitarists, Behrend and
Stingl (Chapter 10), the combination of guitar and voice provided a
useful means for Williams to step outside the solo classical guitar orbit
John Williams: Non-conformity 203

during the 1960s.7 To this end Dodgson also contributed arrangements

for Williams’ 1971 recording with Maria Farandouri of Theodorakis –
Songs of Freedom, an album devoted to the Greek protest singer,
Mikis Theodorakis. Further important Dodgson works also appeared
on Williams’ 1970s albums, including Fantasy Divisions for solo gui-
tar composed for Williams in 1969 on Music from England, Japan,
Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina & Mexico (1973), and Concerto No. 2 for
Guitar and Chamber Orchestra, appearing alongside Williams’ second
recording of the more familiar Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Concerto
Op. 99 (1977).

WILLIAMS’ EARLY RECORDING AESTHETIC

John Williams’ recording practice in the early stages of his career with
Columbia mirrored Bream’s in that he recorded in a wide range of ven-
ues, as suited the needs of the label and the nature of the music be-
ing recorded. For example, the sessions for the LP Columbia Records
Presents John Williams, and its successors, Virtuoso Music for Guitar,
More Virtuoso Music for Guitar and Virtuoso Variations for Guitar were
all undertaken at Columbia’s renowned East 30th Street Studio, New
York. This was housed in an abandoned Greek Orthodox Church with
a 100-foot high ceiling and possessed natural acoustics (aided by the re-
tained original church furnishings) that had been left largely intact since
its acquisition by Columbia in 1949 (Cogan and Clark 2003). Some of
Williams’ 30th Street recordings (such as those issued on Virtuoso Vari-
ations for Guitar) are credited to Fred Plaut, whose classical music engi-
neering credits included Glenn Gould’s earlier recordings for Columbia
(such as his renowned LP of the Bach “Goldberg” Variations, recorded
in 1955). On the liner notes for the Columbia Records Presents album
Williams remarks of the 1964 sessions that “it was particularly inter-
esting to hear how technical improvements in recording have brought
about more faithful reproduction of the guitar”. In addition to 30th
Street Williams also recorded in a number of different halls during the
1960s, often for concerto works, where the venues would have been se-
lected principally for the purposes of capturing a high-quality rever-
berant orchestral sound. His 1965 recording of Rodrigo’s Concierto de
Aranjuez/Castelnuovo-Tedesco Concerto No. 1 (MS 6834) with Eugene
Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra was undertaken in
Philadelphia Town Hall (because it was one of the orchestra’s principal
concert venues).8 Two LPs of this early period – the 1967 recordings of
Rodrigo Fantasía para un Gentilhombre/Dodgson Concerto for Guitar
and Chamber Orchestra No. 1 and the Giuliani/Vivaldi concertos (MS
7327) – were made in Barking Town Hall, London. The 1969–1971 re-
cordings John Williams Plays Spanish Music and Theodorakis – Songs
of Freedom were made in the Bishopsgate Institute, London, a venue
which imparts a certain distanced concert hall perspective to the solo
guitar. After this time the bulk of Williams’ recording activity took
place in studios in Britain, principally CBS Studios at Whitfeld Street,
204 The Recording Model Interrogated

and only occasionally in specially chosen halls (for example, the duo
recordings made with Julian Bream at Wardour Chapel in 1971 and
1973). This had particular consequences for the evolution of Williams’
recording career thereafter.

RECORDING AND REPERTOIRE EXPERIMENTS AFTER 1970

John Williams’ successes as a soloist during the frst decade of his ca-
reer had, by the early 1970s, afforded him a considerable amount of
freedom to broaden the scope of his artistic ambitions. While solo and
orchestral recordings of the established classical guitar repertoire re-
mained an important element of Williams’ output in the new decade,
these now began to rub shoulders with a series of ensemble focused
discs whose categorization in terms of the stylistic traditions of the
classical guitar was rather more ambiguous. These in essence refected
the beginnings of Williams’ questioning of the Segovian approach to
performance and repertoire, as well as his desire to escape the solo
repertoire context. In an interview for Guitar in 1973, he stated that
“I know that I feel completely differently about music than Segovia.
I mean completely at the other end of the pole” (Clinton 1973: 22).
Williams was also becoming unhappy with the solo classical guitar
recording situation itself because it presented little opportunity to in-
teract with other musicians (Nupen 1971). To Alan Blyth he remarked
that “I don’t care so much for making solo records. This isn’t a phobia
but I do fnd it diffcult to work absolutely on my own in a cold studio.
With others, however few or many, you can work up some sort of rela-
tionship and enjoyment” (Blyth 1970: 151).
In addition, Williams’ growing interest in using the facilities of the
studio to develop his musical artistry away from the concert platform
was beginning to transform his idea of the instrument and its poten-
tial. As he commented to Martin Cullingford in a recent Gramophone
interview, “I’ve always been very interested in the sound, in the editing
and the whole production” (Cullingford 2016: 20). Williams’ enthusi-
asm for exploring the creative possibilities of the recording studio was
unusual amongst classical guitarists in the 1960s and had apparently
frst been sparked when he had observed a demonstration of the use
of tape splicing techniques to remove fnger-squeaks from the attack
of a note9 (Cullingford 2016). As Williams’ familiarity with the studio
improved during the 1970s, and new possibilities for shaping the sound
of his guitar became apparent, it became increasingly fundamental to
the realization of his recordings. Williams’ main recording location for
much of the 1970s was CBS Studios at Whitfeld Street in London, a
state of the art purpose built multi-track recording facility (opened in
June 1972), which included a large main room with variable acoustics
and four natural echo chambers (Ross-Trevor 1980). During this pe-
riod Williams continued to work with producer Paul Myers and the
recently recruited Mike Ross-Trevor who engineered many of his re-
cordings over the next two decades. After the departure of Paul Myers
John Williams: Non-conformity 205

around 1977 Williams worked with Roy Emerson, who produced a

number of his recordings into the early 1980s, a period which also co-
incided with the arrival of engineer Michael Stavrou on the scene and
the beginning of Williams’ use of AIR studios as a recording location.
Among Williams’ most notable recording experiments during the
1970s are those he undertook in collaboration with British composer
Patrick Gowers on the albums Chamber Concerto (1972) and Rhapsody
(1974). The Chamber Concerto was essentially a fusion experiment –
described by the composer as the offspring of a “marriage between two
identifable individuals, jazz and straight music” utilizing Baroque con-
certo grosso instrumental relationships and having “some connection
with the allegro-andante-scherzo-allegro symphonic outline” (Gowers
1972). The classical guitar is employed in an un-typical chamber en-
semble featuring alto sax, fute, violin, viola, cello, bass guitar, drums
together with a specially designed electronic organ. Gowers’ program
note for the album indicates that the piece was also conceived with the
recording medium specifcally in mind:

From the beginning John and I made no attempt to create a nat-

ural balance either between guitar and accompaniment, or within
the accompanying group. This is of course, immaterial in record-
ing, and it has overriding advantages. It allows you to combine
instruments that cannot go together otherwise. And as a result
it frees you from the formal restriction of having to alternate be-
tween passages where the orchestra plays and the guitar rests, and
those where the guitar plays and practically all the orchestra rests.
In addition, the extra power adds greatly to the expressive range
of the guitar, allowing it to become forceful and energetic – even,
if you wish, aggressive.
(Gowers 1972)

In Christopher Nupen’s documentary John Williams at Ronnie

Scott’s (1971), Williams was flmed in the old CBS studio (Theobolds
Road, London) during the making of this album discussing the fnal
mixdown of the recording with Gowers and producer Paul Myers.
Williams’ contributions to this discussion indicate the high level of his
engagement with studio production process and evident conversance
with studio-specifc language to communicate his thoughts concern-
ing his guitar’s position within the mix: “The guitar’s much too loud,
Patrick surely? […] What I was going to ask is, not only drop the vol-
ume, if we could add a bit more echo and take a little bit of the top
off the guitar to make it a much rounder sound, don’t you think?”
(Nupen 1971).
Gowers’ Rhapsody for Guitar, Electric Guitars and Electric Organ,
was a somewhat different piece, composed in response to Williams’
interest in “applying a classical guitar technique to the electric guitar”
and as means of exploring “the possibilities of bringing this and the
standard classical guitar together in the same piece, to exploit their
206 The Recording Model Interrogated

similarities and differences”. In this regard it was closer in ethos to the

territory Williams had been exploring on his 1973 crossover album,
The Height Below (discussed later in this chapter). Again this was an
album that depended upon the possibilities of the studio for its effec-
tive realization10 including the requirement for Williams to engage in
microscopic edits to correct small problems in pre-recorded takes, as
Ron Brown (a writer for Guitar magazine) observed during a recording
session:

There was one moment when it was decided to have Williams re-
cord just two notes to be “dropped in” to an existing passage which
was perfect except for about half a bar to the end. The engineers
are artists in their own right but there’s always a risk at times like
this, when to drop in a fraction of a beat too early (or late!) would
ruin the whole passage. Guitarists know better than to bite their
nails, but there was a defnite nail-biter’s expression on Williams’
face as the surgery was performed, replaced by a big grin when it
proved 100% successful.
(Brown 1974: 5)

As discussed later in this chapter, during this period Williams was be-
coming increasingly involved in projects whose recording approaches
were closer to popular music production in their conception, in which
circumstances such micro-editing approaches were standard practice.
In addition to their unique timbral combinations, both of Gowers’
pieces employed abstract and eclectic musical languages which were
strikingly at odds with conventional repertoire Williams had usually
recorded. To temper the impact of these departures from the norm,
both were programmed with more traditional classical guitar fare –
the Chamber Concerto with six transcriptions for solo guitar of key-
board sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, the Rhapsody with Villa-Lobos’
Five Preludes. CBS’s promotion of the Chamber Concerto album in
its “April Newsletter” (1972), printed in Gramophone, also included
a remarkable lengthy justifcatory note in support of Williams’ new
musical direction:

Artists with a specialized repertoire face a problem in their concert

or recording careers: either to play their own specialized repertoire,
year after year, establishing themselves as undisputed masters (but
in a slightly limited feld), or to expand the repertoire and take
adventurous steps into more varied felds of music. We write this
with music for the guitar in mind. There is a limited repertoire of
“great” guitar concertos (meaning those that we know and hear
constantly) and – at the risk of offending a few guitar devotees,
there is even a slight “sameness” about the familiar solo guitar
repertoire, beautiful though it may be. After all, there is a limit
to the number of Spanish dances, 18th Century miniatures and
Latin-American showpieces that one wants to hear at one sitting,
John Williams: Non-conformity 207

especially from an instrument as colourful and varied, with all

the possibilities that lie within its reach. John Williams is an artist
whose musical life is always on the move. Already established as
one of the world’s greatest guitarists, he is constantly adding new
music to the repertoire of the instrument; new works composed for
him or new transcriptions of other music.
(CBS Records 1972: 1706–7)

Williams pursued his interest in using the recording studio to explore

new timbral combinations on two further classically-oriented albums
during this period – John Williams and Friends (1976) and John Wil-
liams and Peter Hurford Play Bach (1981). John Williams and Friends
was a collaboration with Brian Gascoigne, with whom Williams had
also worked on The Height Below, and aimed to expand the timbral
scope of the conventional classical music ensemble in arrangements
of mostly Baroque music for two classical guitars, double bass and
marimba. Concerning the reasoning behind the particular choice of
timbres, Williams commented that “I’ve always liked tuned percussion
and I’ve always found it very suited to the sound of the guitar. His-
torically and in different cultures, there has always been a correlation
between the plucked sound, which in itself is something of a percus-
sive sound and the struck sound of percussion instruments” (Kozinn
1983a: 288–289). As with the Gowers’ discs, justifcatory comment was
again offered in support of the unusual project concept. In his liner
note Williams explained that he was aiming to address “the scarcity
of music for guitar and small ensemble” and broaden the repertoire
“by using better known music for other instruments” (Williams and
Gascoigne 1976). Anticipating that purists would fnd the use of a ma-
rimba as continuo instrument too provocative, Gascoigne offered an
historical rationale:

No authenticity can be claimed for the idea of playing the continuo

parts in baroque music on marimbas but since the lute, chamber
organ and harpsichord cover a wide range of sounds, and compos-
ers habitually employed whatever was to hand for the purpose, we
have endeavoured to include their very mellow and quite versatile
range.
(Williams and Gascoigne 1976)

Given the nature of the instrumental ensemble this was again a record-
ing situation that necessitated the use of artifcially corrected balance,
which was achieved in this instance by miking each of the instruments
individually so that they could be easily manipulated during the mix-
down stage (Marrington 2019a).
John Williams and Peter Hurford Play Bach, released in 1981, was
another experiment with the “percussive” qualities of the classical
guitar, this time in an unlikely combination with the church organ.
Hurford who had initiated the project, had been inspired by an “old
208 The Recording Model Interrogated

recording of guitar and harpsichord”,11 the modern organ suggesting

a means of providing greater timbral contrast (Crimp 1981). The re-
cording venue was St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, chosen as on
account of its unique acoustic as well its modern organ. Surprisingly,
given the nature of the instruments, the recording set-up was relatively
unsophisticated and “natural”, requiring less balance adjustment than
might have been expected. A stereo pair of microphones was hung in
the middle of the chapel with one further microphone placed near the
guitar in order to allow more control over the instrument’s sound in the
mix. Williams noted however that “it wasn’t necessary to give it more
volume, in fact in one or two places we even thought the guitar out-
weighed the organ!” (Crimp 1981: 860). The project attracted attention
from the critics who applauded the experiment while acknowledging
the importance of the recorded medium to its success. Duarte noted
in his Gramophone review of the album that “the combination works
perfectly well on a record and that good taste dispels any notion of
gimmickery”, pointing out however that the balance, was “less than
‘completely natural’ since the guitar had its own microphone and was
‘focused’ by mixing”, and concluding that “live performance could
well present a different picture” (1981: 895).
Williams’ exposure to the multi-track studio during the 1970s also
led him to reconsider his approach to recording standard classical rep-
ertoire. In 1974 he undertook a new recording of the Rodrigo Con-
cierto de Aranjuez (his second) with Daniel Barenboim and the English
Chamber Orchestra. This was undertaken, in producer Paul Myers’
words in order to “bring the quality of both music and sound up to
date with a new performance and attempt thereby to increase sales
for what was already a very popular piece” (Ross-Trevor 1980: 126).
Williams’ engineer, Mike Ross-Trevor, was asked to listen to the origi-
nal recording (made in 1966 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadel-
phia Orchestra) to see if it was possible to “recapture the atmosphere”
and “if any improvements could be made to its sound quality”. Ross-
Trevor concluded that in the original there was “a lack of detail in the
orchestra; it sounded too far back making the solo guitar too loud by
comparison. We therefore tried to aim for a clearer orchestral sound”.
Ross-Trevor’s account of the recording process highlights the centrality
of the multi-track studio facility to the realization of these objectives:

We decided to use an eight-track recorder. We split each section

of the orchestra on to a separate track and placed John Williams’s
guitar on another. The session took place in number one studio at
CBS. This, although reverberant when all its acoustic panels are re-
moved, does not do as much for the recording as, say, a church hall
or a concert hall. So during the mixing stage, we also added some
echo from the natural echo chambers at CBS London …. We also
positioned John Williams behind the conductor, so that he could
see and hear the orchestra and vice versa.
(Ross-Trevor 1980: 126)
John Williams: Non-conformity 209

Ross-Trevor also gives an account of working with Williams during

the mixing process:

John likes to be around at the mixing session to make sure that

his guitar is sounding correct and that the balance between the
guitar and orchestra is good. He likes to hear plenty of his guitar
in the mix without the orchestra being lost. To achieve this blend,
I had to raise the level on the guitar track during loud orchestral
passages – but very carefully, so that the listener could not hear
the change.
(Ross-Trevor 1980: 127)

Ross-Trevor is here describing a process known as “riding the faders”

which refers to the manual manipulation of the dynamic range of a
recorded element “on the fy” to keep it in perspective relative to the
other parts. This technique enabled the achievement of a more ideal-
ized relationship between guitarist and orchestra that could never have
been obtained in a live performance situation. As Duarte observes, the
possibilities for artifcially correcting the balance between the guitar
and orchestra in this manner effectively became over a time a natural-
ized experience for the listening audience which belied the reality of
the guitar’s dynamic range issues in a live concerto context:

Recordings of guitar concertos and their like represent wholly

artifcial situations in which the soloist can play freely, in the con-
fdence that studio balance “behind the glass” will, if the job is
properly done, elevate him/her to the “volumetric peerage.” Striv-
ing for volume is unnecessary. As listeners we have become used
to this unnatural situation and have come to accept it, perhaps
with the occasional reservation that the soloist is placed a bit too
far back or forward. This is just as well, since, without the in-
volvement of some kind of intervention, it is more than unlikely
that the guitar concert could ever have been taken seriously as a
viable art-form in today’s music-making, either on disc or in the
concert hall.
(Duarte 1983e: 381)

When Williams’ new recording of the Concierto de Aranjuez was re-

viewed in Gramophone in 1975 the critic acknowledged the effect of
this more nuanced recording approach upon the presentation of the
music:

The recording this time still puts the solo instrument well to the
fore (how else can you balance a guitar concerto?) but there is
more light and shade. Compare for example the passage in the frst
movement where the solo cello enters. The Philadelphia playing
under Ormandy is marvellously well drilled, but the ECO under
Barenboim matches the delicacy of Williams more subtly, helped
210 The Recording Model Interrogated

by the recording…. Williams has rarely projected his musical

personality more positively on record. Quite apart from balances,
the recording is sweeter and clearer than last time.
(E.G. 1975: 1354)

It is also worth noting, incidentally, that Williams’ re-recording of the

Concierto de Aranjuez was one of the biggest selling LPs of his career,
reaching No. 20 in the UK album chart in 1976. Its success, in addition
to its contemporary production values, is also likely to have been aided
by the popularity of Geoff Love’s12 light music arrangement, “Ro-
drigo’s Guitar Concerto de Aranjuez (Theme from 2nd Movement)”,
which reached No. 3 in the UK charts earlier in the same year.13 Of
these developments a Gramophone commentator remarked:

Rodrigo’s popular Concierto de Aranjuez has been undergoing an

unexpected wave of interest recently as a result of the chart success
of an arrangement of the second movement by Manuel and the
Music of the Mountains (EMI 45 rpm EMI2383). Prime benef-
ciary seems to have been John Williams, whose CBS recording of
the Concierto with the English Chamber Orchestra under Daniel
Barenboim (76369, 1/75) reached No. 20 early in April in the LP
charts compiled for the trade paper Music Week.
(Anon 1976: 1822)

CONSTRUCTING THE SOLO GUITAR RECORDING

In the studio Williams’ approach to solo classical guitar recording
tended to cohere with one-take strategy advocated by Segovia, but
with some modifcation. As Mike Ross-Trevor recalls of his experi-
ence of working with Williams during the 1970s, he generally pre-
ferred to perform complete takes from start to fnish with very little
cutting or splicing (Marrington 2019a). Interviews with Williams
indicate that he also concurred with the view held by the many clas-
sical musicians that when cutting between takes “musically some
spontaneity is lost” (Kozinn 1983a: 292). Williams’ comments on
the matter nearly two decades later show that he continued to hold
this opinion, unsurprisingly perhaps, given the ever-increasing pro-
pensity (in the digital context) for producers to edit recordings to
the last detail:

The usual classical way of producing is to do a few takes, choose

the best bits of everything and splice them together. Producers
usually take lots of little bits, and I don’t think those pieces always
match well. They may match in terms of accuracy, but I don’t think
classical producers are very good at preserving a performance’s
feel and continuity.
(Levy 2000: 70)
John Williams: Non-conformity 211

In situations where Williams was unhappy with an aspect of his per-

formance to the extent that a re-take was necessary, in order to main-
tain consistency of musical mood he employed a method that was
somewhere between the single vs multiple take positions. He explained
his strategy – which he described as “tightening up gaps” – to Allan
Kozinn, with particular reference to the process of recording the Vari-
ations on “Folia de España” and Fugue for the album, John Williams
Plays Manuel Ponce (1978), a complex multi-sectioned work which
presented a particular challenge for the performer in conveying a unity
of mood across many contrasting short segments:

What I like to do is to take certain sections, which may be one

variation, or three or four, and play along until I hear an inaccu-
racy or a fnger noise that I know I’m not going to approve. Then,
instead of going back and correcting the one or two bars where the
mistake occurred and then splicing, I’ll immediately go back and
do it all again.
(Kozinn 1983a: 292)

Williams explained he would typically play all the previous material of

the current take up to the starting point of the problematic section so
that the feel of a live performance is retained:

Now, let’s say there’s a diffcult part in the fourth variation, and I
know that I’m going to want to start fresh with that one. I’ll play
the frst three, and begin the fourth exactly as I would in a live
performance, with the right amount of time between the two vari-
ations, the right dynamic and everything. That way I can stop there
and begin the fourth variation anew, but I’ll have an edit point
which sounds absolutely continuous musically.
(Kozinn 1983a: 292)

The performance would then continue from the new edit point until
further issues occurred. According to Williams this approach retained
the music’s overall spontaneity because it kept the performer in a par-
ticular unbroken interpretative mindset. He has used this recording
strategy persistently throughout his career, and over time it appears to
have become more micro-focused, perhaps because of the fexibility
that digital tools were now bringing to the process. For example, dis-
cussing his recording approach with Adam Levy in 2000 Williams talks
in terms of re-taking individual phrases rather than whole sections:

I’ll back up just a few bars-in the same way I would if I were prac-
ticing the piece. I’ll roll back to the previous phrase, listen for a
clear punch-in point and then punch in and go. That way, I’m still
in that moment, not in some other mood a half-hour later when
I’m recording another take of the piece.
(Levy 2000: 70–72)
212 The Recording Model Interrogated

CROSSOVER PROJECTS FROM CHANGES TO SKY

While pursuing his various experimental classical recordings during
the 1970s, Williams also undertook a series of “crossover” album proj-
ects which fell so far outside his CBS remit as a classical player that it
was necessary for him to look elsewhere for record label support. Of
these, Changes (1971), The Height Below (1973) and Travelling (1978)
were all released on the popular music-oriented label, Fly (later Cube)
Records,14 while the six albums Williams recorded with the band Sky
between 1979 and 1983 appeared on Ariola. Williams’ crossover re-
cordings can be viewed as the product of an ongoing process of
re-evaluating the classical guitar repertoire relative to musical devel-
opments in the wider musical world. In a sense they can be regarded
as an extension of classical guitar arranging practice through the dis-
ruptive strategy of placing the instrument into more distant stylistic
territory “owned” by recorded popular music. They were partly the
product of his own dissatisfaction with solo concertizing and classical
performance conventions during the 1960s which had manifested itself
in a publicly provocative attitude towards the conventions of the clas-
sical concert ritual. As Wingate (2010) notes: “having initially refused
to wear the traditional white tie and tails for concert performances, by
the end of the 60s Williams usually appeared on stage sporting shirts
that were considerably louder than the music he was playing”. His
performances at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in 1969–70,15 in which he
purposely situated the classical guitar recital in an unlikely and un-
orthodox venue, also highlighted his changing musical outlook.
Williams’ interest in popular music during the 1970s and early 1980s
can also be understood in relation to the cross-genre experimentation
that had characterized much of the activity in the popular music do-
main during this period. In the feld of progressive rock, for example,
bands such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP), Genesis and Yes em-
braced extended classical forms, classical performance techniques, and
often featured arrangements of well-known classical pieces. Guitarists
in these bands also absorbed classical guitar characteristics into their
composing and performing styles.16 For example, Steve Howe’s solo
guitar piece “Mood for a Day” (heard on the 1971 album Fragile by
Yes), played on a nylon strung famenco guitar, moves between Span-
ish folkloric gestures and passages in Baroque style that suggest the
lute works of Bach. Steve Hackett’s short piece, “Horizons” (on Gen-
esis’s 1972 album Foxtrot), owes its thematic material and harmonic
progression to the prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, a long-time
staple of the classical guitar repertoire.17 Classical guitar leanings were
also apparent in Jan Akkerman’s work with the Dutch progressive rock
band Focus in the early 1970s. The 1971 album Moving Waves, for ex-
ample, contains a short piece for solo classical guitar, “Le Clochard”,
accompanied by an orchestral string part played on a Mellotron, while
the band’s third album, Focus III (1972) features the piece, “Elspeth
of Nottingham”, which was played on a lute. In 1978 Jan Akkerman
John Williams: Non-conformity 213

also recorded a jazz-tinged version of the Adagio from the Rodrigo

Concierto on his album Aranjuez, with pianist and conductor Claus
Ogerman, and “Españoleta” by Gaspar Sanz, a piece associated with
Rodrigo’s Fantasía para un Gentilhombre. Elsewhere, one-off classical
guitar-led singles, such as Mason Williams’ 1968 recording of “Classi-
cal Gas”, also did much to cement the image of the instrument in the
popular mainstream. Essentially a classical guitar concerto condensed
into the length of a pop single, “Classical Gas” melded Spanish-
infected melodic ideas within an accessible song-like structure. The re-
cord was awarded three Grammys and generated numerous cover ver-
sions, becoming a showpiece for aspiring classical guitarists. Ironically,
Mason Williams had originally named the piece “Classical Gasoline”
because he had envisioned it as “repertoire or ‘fuel’ for the classical
guitar” (M. Williams 2013).
Changes, John Williams’ frst crossover album for the Fly label, sym-
bolized in his words, “the Spanish guitar reaching out into the wider
world” (Wingate 2010). It embraced an eclectic mix of popular music
and re-imagined classical material, including guitar-led arrangements
of the Beatles’ “Because”, Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” and “House of
Rising Sun” (popularized by the Animals in 1964). The most striking
classical re-imagining was the album’s frst track, “Bach Changes”, an
imaginative orchestra-backed re-working of the Prelude from Bach’s
Fourth lute suite, accompanied by bass guitar and drums. Ironically
this had also been the work that had opened Williams’ frst solo clas-
sical guitar recording for Columbia in 1964, now reprised in a rather
different stylistic context.18 In contrast to Williams’ previous projects,
Changes was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios, a venue closely as-
sociated with pop and rock recording during the 1960s (the Yardbirds,
the Rolling Stones and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had recorded
there) with session musicians comfortable in both popular and classi-
cal felds, including keyboardist Rick Wakeman (later of Yes), percus-
sionist Tristan Fry and bassist Herbie Flowers (both later to work with
Williams in Sky). The album was produced by flm composer Stanley
Myers19 who also contributed original music and arrangements. My-
ers was best known for his instrumental piece, Cavatina (or the theme
from the flm The Deer Hunter), which Williams recorded for the frst
time during the Changes’ sessions.
Williams’ second album for Fly/Cube, The Height Below (1973),20
explored a greater diversity of styles including elements of jazz (on the
title track’s George Van Eps-infuenced chordal stylings) and world
music (the employment of the koto and tabla on Side 1’s “Emperor
Nero” Suite). In addition to featuring the classical guitar on several
tracks the album was also notable for Williams’ adoption of the elec-
tric guitar (in this instance a Gretsch), which he played using his clas-
sical fngerstyle technique rather than a pick. Reviewing the album,
Ivor Mairants was unconvinced by Williams’ reticent treatment of the
instrument, commenting that, “Although the playing on both guitars
is impeccable, the electric guitar tends to sound cold, clear and clinical.
214 The Recording Model Interrogated

Not so for the acoustic guitar, which John plays with warmth, free-
dom and abandon” (Mairants 1973: 36). Williams in his defense stated
that “The point for me was to not to make an electric guitar record.
At all. The point was to write some things which perhaps could ex-
ploit or use the technique that the fngers play, with an electric sound”
(Clinton 1973: 21). The Height Below was produced by George Martin
at AIR Studios, with whom Williams was to work again on a num-
ber of future occasions. His third and fnal crossover recording for
Fly/Cube label, Travelling, reunited Williams with producer Stanley
Myers and again featured some of the latter’s own pieces. In particu-
lar Travelling is populated by Bach re-workings in various styles, in-
cluding disco and funk infuenced arrangements (such as the tracks
“All at Sea Minor”, “From the Top” and “J.S.B”). The album was also
Williams’ frst collaboration with engineer Michael Stavrou whose
detail-oriented approach to recording the guitar was later transplanted
to Williams’ solo classical guitar projects with CBS. Indeed, Williams’
exposure to the techniques of popular music-oriented studio practice
(multi-tracking, editing and mixing processes) across all three albums
had a lasting impact upon his attitude towards recording the classical
guitar.
Williams’ most sustained exploration of the classical guitar in a pop-
ular music context occurred with the band Sky (formed in 1979), which
reunited him with Tristan Fry and Herbie Flowers from the Changes
album and keyboardist Francis Monkman, who had sessioned on
Travelling. Monkman’s interest in both harpsichord and synthesizer
paralleled Williams’ classical/electric preoccupations, as did the mu-
sical outlook of Kevin Peek, whose accomplished electric guitar lead
and classical guitar playing brought a complementary plucked string
perspective. Williams in fact used the electric guitar on relatively few
occasions with the band (see for example “Cannonball” and “Where
opposites meet”), focusing for the most part on the nylon strung instru-
ment. Here, however, he substituted his concert Fleta for an Ovation
and later, a Takamine, electro-acoustic guitar. Williams had initially
used his Fleta guitar in the studio sessions, “thinking that it would
give the recording an extra bit of class and quality”. However, he had
observed that there were diffculties in getting the traditionally built
classical guitar to blend effectively with the other instruments in the
line-up. Williams particularly liked the fact that the Ovation guitar was
“absolutely even and predictable [as a result of the curved fber glass
back to cut out standing waves] on every note – which is more than can
be said for most Spanish guitars” (Kozinn 1983a: 290). The fact that
the Ovation was amplifed also afforded Williams some fexibility for
live manipulation of the instrument’s sound as was more commonly
the case with the electric guitar.
Sky’s selling point was its unique fusion of original material, which
frequently drew upon classical concepts, with imaginative arrange-
ments of classical pieces. A high point was the album Sky 2, which
John Williams: Non-conformity 215

spent two weeks at No. 1 in the UK album charts and spawned the hit
single, “Toccata” (an arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D
minor). Sky also featured material from the classical guitar repertoire,
either played straight or incorporated into larger arrangements.21
Williams’ classical guitar oriented contributions to Sky’s ensemble in-
cluded front-line lead melody work (“Carillon”), interjections of solos
and classical guitar style textures in the context of the larger ensem-
ble (“Sahara”, “Westway”, “Hotta” and “Chiropedie No. 1”), to more
substantial solo guitar parts in pieces such as “Danza” (after a clas-
sical guitar piece by Antonio Ruiz Pipó), “El Cielo” (Sky 2) and “To
Yelasto Pedi” (Sky 4 Forthcoming). He performed classical guitar duet
arrangements with Peek, most notably “Ballet-Volta” (Praetorius) and
“Andante” (Vivaldi) on Sky 2 and Handel “Sarabande” (Sky 3). This
satisfed an audience that had in many cases come to Sky from their
knowledge of Williams’ earlier classical guitar work. Peek also drew on
classical guitar infuences in his own arrangements, such as the track
“Fantasia” on Sky 4 Forthcoming, which “surprisingly sounds more
like a modern pop song than the 16th-century piece that it is” (Peek
1982). This was a particularly unorthodox treatment of a vihuela piece
by Alonso Mudarra, featuring a prominent synthesizer part with occa-
sional references to its plucked string origins on the guitars. Williams
also contributed arrangements of classical pieces to Sky that were not
fundamentally guitar oriented, such as “Gymnopédie No. 1” (Sky),
after Satie.
Underlying the musical seriousness and consummate technical pro-
fciency of Sky was a certain irreverence, which was highlighted in the
band’s informal presentation on stage, and the often tongue-in-cheek
parodying of classical program notes on their album inserts. This did
nothing to appease the critics who were often interpreting the band’s
work in relation to Williams’ solo classical guitar career. While unable
to fault the quality of the performances and production, they were re-
luctant to affrm the musical value. For example, Roger Hughes (1979:
526), reviewing the frst Sky album in Gramophone, asked “what does
an artist, whose performances of the guitar classics set a standard oth-
ers strive for, fnd in music as inconsequential as this?” The spoofng of
the band on the BBC Radio comedy show, Son of Cliché, in December
1984, also offered a gentle skit on the seams that were by this time very
much apparent in rock–classical fusions. In the show, an amusingly
characterized John Williams expounds the band’s aims in the follow-
ing terms:

Well, erm, basically what we was trying to do was get over a blend
of classical music and rock music combined in such a way that if
you’re a fan of classical music…you don’t like it. If you’re a fan of
rock music you won’t like it either…It’s a sound that everyone can
hate, basically.
(Nixon 1984)
216 The Recording Model Interrogated

Williams remained with Sky until 1984 following the release of their
sixth album “cadmium…” (1983), by which point he had begun to feel
that the band had lost sight of the project’s original aims:

Frankly the last record I was on I really was going through hell,
only staying with it out of loyalty. “Three” and “Four” were bad
albums, not terrible, but patchy and the sixth was beyond the pale.
I remember sitting in the studio and thinking, “This is everything
we said we would not do from the very beginning. It sounds like
jingles”.
(Mead 1994: 93)

Williams’ complaint that the band’s material was by this time “not up
to the standard of our stage performances” and “should have been
more critically examined” (Kozinn 1986b: 28), perhaps betrayed a
yearning for a return to the rigors of the classical tradition that had
shaped his earlier career.
Around the same time that Williams was beginning his work with Sky
he also achieved a high profle chart success with his 45 rpm recording
of Stanley Myers’ Cavatina, a piece with which he had been associated
in various incarnations since the early 1970s. Originally conceived by
Myers for the 1970 crime drama, The Walking Stick, Williams had
developed the piece into a solo arrangement (based on the piano origi-
nal) and then recorded it with a string accompaniment on Changes. In
1976 it also appeared on the John Williams and Cleo Laine album Best
Friends (RCA RS 1094), re-worked with lyrics to create the song, “He
was beautiful”. In 1979 the piece then became inextricably associated
with Williams as a result of its use in the flm The Deer Hunter, in a
version he had re-recorded for Capitol Records in duo with Tommy
Tedesco who played the accompaniment (Tedesco 1978: 127). The
original Cube recording was also re-released as a single in March 1979
and featured on a compilation of the best of Williams’ previous work
on the Fly/Cube label, entitled Bridges (Lotus WH5015), the latter
reaching No.5 in the UK album charts. By the early 1980s Cavatina
had become, in John Williams’ defnitive solo arrangement, a classi-
cal guitar standard and has since featured on albums by many major
classical guitarists, including Göran Söllscher, Jason Vieaux, David
Russell and Xuefei Yang. The success of Cavatina and its subsequent
acceptance as repertoire served as an indicator of the extent to which
music from outside the mainstream classical sphere had increasingly
begun to permeate the solo guitar repertoire (see Chapter 11).22 Amer-
ican guitarist Benjamin Verdery has commented on the infuence the
recording had on his own generation of guitarists:

The recording placed the classical guitar front and centre in the
score of one of the world’s most popular and poignant movies of
the time, The Deer Hunter. “The Theme from The Deer Hunter,”
John Williams: Non-conformity 217

as it was commonly called, inspired hundreds of amateur guitar-

ists to study with their local guitar teacher so they could learn to
play it.
(2013: 9)

At the same time the prevalence of Cavatina also illustrated the

ideological divide between post-1960s perspectives on the classical
guitar repertoire and the earlier traditions associated with Segovia.
According to Starling (2012: 192–3), in 1977 Williams performed
Cavatina informally for Segovia, the piece meeting with the latter’s ap-
proval until he discovered that its origins were outside the classical
music feld as he had defned it. As Starling put it, “he liked the piece
but was reluctant to give it credit because it did not have the right
provenance”.

WILLIAMS’ CHANGING ATTITUDE TO RECORDED

CLASSICAL GUITAR SOUND
By the end of the 1970s John Williams’ explorations of the classical
guitar in various recording contexts had brought him to a new posi-
tion concerning his attitude towards his guitar sound which began to
be refected in his solo classical guitar recordings. In particular Wil-
liams began to favor a close microphone technique which brought
the detail of his guitar sound dramatically to the fore while signif-
cantly reducing the presence of ambience. In part this was driven
by Williams’ dissatisfaction with conventional recording practices
concerned with the emulation of concert hall perspective and the
representation of the guitar’s sound in proportion to the acoustics
of a reverberant environment. In an interview with Allan Kozinn,
Williams commented that:

While there are some lovely recordings produced in ambient halls,

however good the sound is, it’s at the expense of the resonance of
the instrument itself. Everyone who plays the guitar knows that
when you feel it vibrating, and you hear the bass resonances and
overall balance, that it’s a very rich sounding instrument. On the
other hand, if it’s played in a large hall – I’m talking about con-
certs now – and it’s not amplifed, it’s a joke. It’s not the guitar’s
sound at all.
(Kozinn 1983a: 291)

For Williams the problem was that the inaudibility of the guitar had
consequences for his ability to communicate the nuances of his sound:

I’m a player who depends very much on what is being done to the
resonance of a note while it’s being played. My vibrato, for in-
stance, is not really a vibrato so much as the disturbing of a note’s
218 The Recording Model Interrogated

resonance. I’m interested in the expression and if you’re too far

away, you’re not going to hear that.
(Kozinn 1983a: 292)

Elaborating further in a later interview on what his “close recorded

sound” was intended to reveal, Williams commented that:

A close recorded sound does not necessarily mean close to the mi-
crophone, but close in the sense that the listener feels the intimacy
of the guitar sound, where the listener experiences the feel of the
fngers on the strings, not just the nail clicks but the pads of your
fngertips as they brush the nylon.
(Stewart 1992: 18)

With such statements, Williams was in effect advocating an outright re-

jection of the Segovian position on classical guitar performance which
held that the instrument’s sound was best appreciated at relative dis-
tance. It was a bold stance that also few in the face of critical opinion
that tended to fnd close recorded guitar sound problematic precisely
because of the excessive level detail it revealed of the guitar’s sound.
Williams had already begun questioning the effcacy of the concert
hall presentation of the solo classical guitar from the early 1970s when
he had begun to experiment with amplifcation. This too was a strat-
egy that directly contradicted Segovia, who felt that amplifcation,

alters the beautiful sound of the guitar, nullifes it, renders it acid
and metallic. From a loudspeaker, you can still appreciate the art-
istry of the performer, the agility of his fngers, but you do not have
the true sound of the instrument.
(McLellan 1980)23

As is well known, at no point in his career did Segovia countenance

any artifcial means of enhancing his sound electronically in live per-
formance. Also, as discussed in Chapter 5, Segovia’s dislike of ampli-
fcation ironically extended into the recording situation where he was
frequently unhappy with the timbre of his recorded guitar sound. Sim-
ilarly Bream was of the view that amplifcation could not substitute for
the guitar’s “magical quality” when heard at a distance:

I like to play solo concerts without amplifcation because the

beauty of the guitar lies in its sound. Although it is a soft instru-
ment, sometimes, in a very good environment the sound is distilled
at a distance. It may have less presence at a distance, but something
can happen to the sound which creates a magical quality, at least to
my ears, that could never happen with loud speakers.
(Snitzler 1987: 29)24

By contrast, the artifcial management of amplitude levels using micro-

phoning and electronic signal boosting would no doubt have become
John Williams: Non-conformity 219

normalized for Williams in the recording studio context, while his

regular participation in the mixing sessions for his records, in which
context he would have been closely scrutinizing the details of his re-
corded sound, is likely to have further convinced him that essential
nuances of the guitar’s timbre were being missed by listeners in a con-
ventional acoustic scenario.
Williams’ frst attempt to “go as close as possible to what I myself
hear” (Kozinn 1983a: 291) took place on the album, John Williams
Plays Manuel Ponce, recorded in April 1978. This was an LP uniquely
devoted to the music of a single composer, whose centerpiece was
Ponce’s substantial Variations on “Folia de España” and Fugue, a
composition comprised of many short movements of diverse musical
character. It may have been the intricacy of this particular work that
suggested an opportunity for Williams to explore the focused use of
microphoning as a means of drawing attention to the compositional
detail. Echoing Bream’s view, Williams has remarked “I like to get a
sound which I feel is particularly suitable for the musical content. I
wouldn’t necessarily have the same sound for a Bach suite as I would
for Barrios, for example” (Yates 2004). This was also Williams’ frst
classical guitar project with recording engineer Michael Stavrou,
with whom he had recently worked on the aforementioned album
of pop-oriented arrangements, Travelling. Stavrou, who later became
an internationally renowned recording engineer, was a pivotal fg-
ure in John Williams’ recording career during the 1980s and 1990s.
His (in Williams’ words) “very real appreciation of sound that most
classical producers do not possess” (Starling 2012: 240) made him
ideally placed to feld Williams’ increasing concern with the nuances
of recording. Williams’ producer at this time, Roy Emerson, while
initially “a little skeptical” (Kozinn 1983a: 291) about Williams’
desire to explore a closely recorded guitar sound, was also open to
experimentation and approved the strategy. The resulting recording
was remarkable in terms of the level of detail it revealed of Williams’
guitar timbre as well as the clarity and defnition it imparted to the
music itself. For Williams it constituted “the best recorded sound on
any record of mine” (Kozinn 1983a: 291) and for critics it marked
a new departure for his recordings. Writing in Gramophone, Robert
Layton, observed that in comparison to previous discs the recording
conveyed a “truthful sound picture”:

The CBS engineers have not always been wholly successful in do-
ing justice to the range of colour and the refned dynamic nuances
this artist commands, so it is a pleasure to record that this offers a
most truthful sound picture. Though the balance is far from dis-
tant, there is no distortion of perspective or the feeling that the
instrument is larger than life and adjustment of the level enables
one to set the image further back should one so desire. The sound
is admirably clean and well detailed, yet at the same time warm.
(Layton 1979: 1844)
220 The Recording Model Interrogated

Williams’ growing fascination with the possibilities of the studio for

the representation of his guitar sound also led him to undertake some
interesting experiments with recorded perspective which were more
usually the province of the popular music recording artist. One of his
most notable deviations from the norm of the solo classical guitar aes-
thetic occurs in his recording of Córdoba (from Cantos de España Op.
232) on the Albéniz-themed album, Echoes of Spain (1981). Williams’
strategy here was to record the introductory section of the work (in his
1978 arrangement) using his established close microphone approach,
again overseen by Stavrou, but then move sharply to a distant rever-
berant acoustic for 23 bars, before fnally reverting again to the close
microphone position which is retained for the remainder of the piece.
Williams made a point of acknowledging this deliberate strategy and
its purposes in his liner notes for the album:

The titles of the pieces speak for themselves, whether it is the sunny
port of Cadiz, the romance of Granada, or wonder and mystery of
Córdoba and its mosque – to enhance the mood of this near the
beginning we could not resist using echo effect in the recording
as if temporarily opening the door to hear a choir singing from
another world.
(Williams 1981)

The use of the technique was met with surprise and delight by
Williams’ critics, Duarte observing (in his Gramophone review of No-
vember 1981) that “the use of echo and distance at the opening of
‘Córdoba’ is no gimmick but a breathtaking stroke of imagination”
(J.D. 1981: 720). Kozinn, writing in New York Times, described the
effect in terms of “cinematic manipulation”, giving an account of the
narrative created by the production:

In “Córdoba,” Mr. Williams begins softly, his guitar closely and

dryly recorded. When he reaches the gorgeous chorale-like pas-
sage, though, the sonic character shifts radically – as if he paused
to listen to a second guitarist, positioned at the far end of a vast re-
verberant cathedral, before continuing with his own performance.
(Kozinn 1982a: 13)

In the same review Kozinn suggests that while such techniques might
“raise the hackles of purists” they indicated that “Mr Williams’ pop
activities have left him more open minded about studio recording
technique”, adding the proviso that such an approach ought not to
be employed regularly on classical guitar discs. Williams’ production
technique bears some relationship with Glenn Gould’s tentative ex-
plorations of “acoustic choreography” in his piano recordings, where
multi-microphone techniques were used to freely alter the sense of
the listener’s proximity to the piano.25 This strategy, which has been
compared (Bazzana 1997) to the use of the camera in flm-making
John Williams: Non-conformity 221

(close-ups, medium shots and long shots), was regarded by Gould as

being as integral to his interpretation of the music as his actual per-
formance. In more recent production musicology, Lacasse (2000) has
also used the term “staging” as a means of accounting for trends in the
use of production techniques and effects to convey additional layers of
meaning in recordings, including extra-musical references.

MULTI-TRACKING THE CLASSICAL GUITAR

During the 1980s Williams’ experiments with the possibilities of the
studio also extended to the employment of overdubbing techniques, a
practice which as discussed earlier had been employed on relatively few
past occasions, most notably on LPs by Rey de la Torre and Laurindo
Almeida. Like these guitarists Williams used the technique to expand
the possibilities for recording multi-part guitar arrangements. On his
1982 miscellany album Portrait of John Williams, for example, Wil-
liams double-tracks lead and accompaniment parts on Cavatina (an
updated recording of the original 1979 version) and on Leo Brouwer’s
two-guitar arrangement of The Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill”. For
the Brouwer recording Williams also experimented with contrasting
guitar combinations, employing two instruments by different makers
– Greg Smallman and Martin Fleeson. The appearance of the Small-
man guitar was particularly notable as it signaled Williams’ move away
from the post-Torres Spanish models (such as his Fleta instrument)
employed on his past recordings. Smallman’s instruments, which used
criss-cross lattice strutting for the guitar’s top, rather than the tradi-
tional fan-based system employed by Spanish makers (Morrish 2002),
introduced a distinctly new sonic identity into classical guitar record-
ings and have since become identifed with numerous guitarists includ-
ing Nicola Hall, Craig Ogden, Xuefei Yang and Miloš Karadaglić.
Portrait of John Williams was also one of the earliest Williams’ record-
ings to use digital technology (the Sony PCM system), the constraints
of which, in this early period of its evolution, effectively returned the
recording process to the one-take recording scenario. In his liner note,
Williams comments that:

The recording itself was made using the Sony Digital stereo sys-
tem, avoiding any post-mixing or multi-tracking, and so special
thanks for the musicians for their co-operation and patience in the
rehearsing and balancing. The exceptions were in the case of the
“The Fool on the Hill” and “Cavatina” where I played both guitar
parts and when an additional Sony machine was used.
(Williams 1982)

The same strategy of employing the Smallman and Fleeson and gui-
tars for timbral variety is repeated on the album Echoes of London
(1986), a more ambitious project whose conception is indebted to the
possibilities of the multi-track studio. Here Williams double-tracks
222 The Recording Model Interrogated

himself in a number of two-guitar arrangements of classical and

popular music by composers associated with the capital (Ralph McTell,
John Clare, Henry Purcell, Handel and Elgar). Both Portrait of John
Williams and Echoes of London are also notable for their crediting of
John Williams as producer, indicating another paradigm shift in Wil-
liams’ relationship with the recording process during this period.

NOTES
1. Williams’ affliation with Australian composers does not, however, begin
to become apparent until the 1990s. See for example, his album From Aus-
tralia (1994), showcasing his work with composers Peter Sculthorpe and
Nigel Westlake.
2. See Starling (2012) for a detailed account of this period of Williams’ mu-
sical development.
3. These recordings were engineered by Allen Stagg of IBC Studios.
4. The beneft of this would also no doubt have accrued to Bream given that
he too was in the early stages of developing his own international profle
at this time.
5. It is worth highlighting that Williams did not record repertoire garnered
by Bream for the instrument by British and European composers. The
latter was in essence exclusively Bream’s territory. By the same token,
Bream did not record repertoire that Williams had popularized, such as
Dodgson, or even Barrios.
6. The Rodrigo recording was itself an important challenge to the suprem-
acy of the Yepes’ and Segovia editions.
7. Williams had frst embraced the voice and guitar format in 1961 in a
recording (also with Wilfred Brown) for French L’Oiseau Lyre (under
Decca) of arrangements of European and American folksongs.
8. Philadelphia Town Hall was also referred to as the Scottish Rite Cathe-
dral. The producer was Thomas Frost (who had also worked with Segovia
at American Decca).
9. The probable context was a recording session at Olympic Studios for
Williams’ 1968 album of Paganini/Haydn chamber works (Columbia MS
7163). The engineer was Ed Michaelski.
10. This was a work that Williams had also played in a live context for a
period, for which he had used the recording of the electric guitar part on
tape.
11. The model here may perhaps have been Segovia’s 1958 recording of
Ponce–Weiss Prelude in E with harpsichordist Rafael Puyana.
12. Recording as Manuel and the Music of the Mountains.
13. Williams had also enjoyed chart success with John Williams Plays Spanish
Music (1970) which entered the UK album chart and reached No. 44.
14. Fly Records, established by David Platz in 1970, was a label known for its
eclectic roster of recording artists. It had particular success in the early
1970s with the frst releases of Marc Bolan (the albums Electric Warrior
and Bolan Boogie, produced by Tony Visconti). The label was re-launched
in 1972 as Cube Records.
15. At his fnal session at Ronnie Scott’s Williams appeared in duet with jazz
guitarist Barney Kessel.
John Williams: Non-conformity 223

16. Coelho (2003) has suggested that it was the rock scene that fuelled a wider
interest in classical guitar music during this period – “it is diffcult to see
how the classical guitar could have maintained its presence without the
many rock-trained students who began focking to guitar programs since
the middle 1970s, successfully transferring some aspects of their self-
taught rock training (particularly lefthand technique) to classical guitar”
(2003: 10).
17. Hackett’s original recording employs a twelve-string guitar. Hackett’s
continued interest in classical guitar style and technique eventually cul-
minated in two highly accomplished albums of original material for solo
guitar, Bay of Kings (1983) and Momentum (1988).
18. Fly also released “Bach Changes” as a 45 rpm B side to a Herbie Flowers
produced bonus track from the Changes sessions, entitled “Pomegranate”
(BUG 13).
19. Williams had frst worked with Myers on the soundtrack for The Raging
Moon (1969).
20. An earlier collaboration with Brian Gascoigne pre-dating John Williams
and Friends.
21. In live performances Williams also played additional classical repertoire
that was not recorded by Sky.
22. For a detailed discussion of Cavatina and its importance to Williams’
career see O’Toole (2019).
23. Segovia is here articulating a common critique of technology (in this case
of microphones and the speaker) in terms of its capacity to compromise
performer agency and mediate in undesirable ways between performer
and audience.
24. In an interview with John Amis (1972), Bream expressed his disapproval
of Williams’ attitude towards the use of amplifcation in the concert hall,
suggesting that the microphone’s tendency to emphasize undesirable fn-
ger noises “can be a disaster”.
25. See for example, Gould’s use of this approach in his 1972 recording
of Scriabin’s Two Preludes (Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album CBS 35914
1980).
10
The Wider European Context

INTRODUCTION
This chapter’s purpose is to situate the narrative of classical guitar
recording in relation to the wider European context, broadly speaking
from the 1950s to the mid-1980s. The focus is on the activities of classi-
cal guitarists in Spain, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and France,
countries which developed distinctive classical guitar cultures during
this time. As with Bream and Williams, the recordings of the various
guitarists discussed here illustrate the assimilation of the Segovian per-
spective and its reconciliation with particular aesthetic concerns stem-
ming from individual cultural outlooks. The latter are bound up with
nationalistic and historical traditions in particular, which frequently
inform repertoire choices. At the same time one can observe to varying
degrees the engagement of guitarists with the “international” modern-
ist compositional aesthetics that had begun to proliferate more widely
in Europe at this time.

SPAIN: THE EARLY RECORDINGS OF NARCISO YEPES

As Segovia’s uniquely cosmopolitan vision of the repertoire began
to achieve a global reach through his American Decca discs in the
1950s, Spanish guitarists who remained based in Spain, at least ini-
tially, continued to defer to the repertoire traditions established earlier
in the century – that is, those stemming from the nineteenth-century
Tárrega–Llobet line. Spain’s indigenous record companies naturally
encouraged this given that such repertoire had already been proven
in the Spanish marketplace by earlier recordings, particularly those
made by the Regal–Columbia partnership in the 1930s. Hispavox, a
label closely associated with recording career of Renata Tarragó at this
time, was typical in this regard. Based in Madrid, Hispavox emerged
in 1953 as an important force in the burgeoning LP marketplace in
Spain, being associated initially with famenco, Spanish classical mu-
sic, zarzuela and later contemporary pop (Maslowski 1954; Arce 2003).
By the 1960s it had become Spain’s most important indigenous record

224
The Wider European Context 225

label and, like Regal, achieved a global presence, issuing its recordings
outside the country under the Columbia name. In the late 1960s His-
pavox was also involved in recording a small number of Segovia LPs
for American Decca at its studios. Other Spanish labels such as Disco-
phon and Belter (associated in particular with recordings by Manuel
Cubedo) also played a signifcant role in supporting classical guitar
recording in Spain in the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time Spanish
guitarists began to look beyond Spain to other European labels during
this period, which in the long term informed their perspective on the
instrument and its repertoire, as illustrated by the lengthy and prolifc
recording career of Narciso Yepes with Deutsche Grammophon.
Narciso Yepes (1927–1997) was one of the most signifcant guitarists
of the second half of the twentieth century and a major representative
of the Spanish repertoire perspective after Segovia. He was initially
taught by guitarists schooled in the Tárrega tradition, including Jesús
Guevara, Joaquín García de la Rosa and Rafael Balaguer (Altamira
2017) and later studied at the Conservatorio de Música de Valencia
with the composers Manuel Palau and Vicente Asencio, some of whose
works appear on Yepes’ later LPs.1 Yepes’ international reputation was
secured early on in his career by two iconic recordings. The frst was
Romance de Amor, Yepes’ own arrangement of the guitar solo that had
been popularized by Vicente Gómez more than a decade earlier in the
flm Blood and Sand. Now re-titled “Jeux Interdits” to cement its asso-
ciation with the 1953 French flm of the same name, the piece quickly
became Yepes’ signature tune and was eventually released on a 45rpm
EP in 1958 (Decca 458.516).2 The second was his landmark recording
of the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez with conductor Ataúlfo Argenta,
which was issued in 1954 on Columbia and the London International
imprint (TW 91019). This was the frst recording of the Concierto to
follow Regino Sainz de la Maza’s 1948 version, which had also been re-
corded by Columbia with the same conductor. As Segovia, for various
reasons, did not adopt this concerto into his repertoire, Yepes was here
afforded, via the recorded medium, the possibility of placing an indi-
vidual interpretative stamp on what was to become the most popular
and commercially viable work for classical guitar and orchestra. The
Concierto recording also marked the beginning of Yepes’ advocacy of
Rodrigo’s guitar music in general terms, which was increasingly built
upon by his and other classical guitarists’ LPs during the 1950s and
1960s. Critics who reviewed the Concierto recording were unanimous
in their approval of the work both from a musical perspective and in
terms of its importance in promoting the guitar. A reviewer in High Fi-
delity (June 1955), for example, drew particular attention to the work’s
now iconic slow movement,

that can only be described as exquisitely evocative, a movement

that – for all of its impressionist garb – is essentially and satisfy-
ingly romantic. It is here that the listener becomes aware of the
226 The Recording Model Interrogated

amazing expressive powers of the guitar – at least in the hands of

Narciso Yepes.
(G.S. Jr, 1955: 64)

J. A. Burtnieks also reviewed Yepes’ recording enthusiastically in the

Guitar Review noting, presciently, that the piece was likely to become
a yardstick by which the technical skills of future guitarists would be
measured:

Both technically and musically rich, the Concierto de Aranjuez is

bound to become, not only a classic of the guitar repertoire, but a
sort of obligatory test of what, in guitar circles, is known as técnica
superior, i.e. to occupy the same position in the guitar world as
the Brahms and Tchaikovsky Concertos in D major claim among
violinists.
(Burtnieks 1956: 32)

By the early 1980s, the Concierto de Aranjuez had been both widely re-
corded (in the case of some artists such as Bream and Williams, more
than once) and, as Burtnieks had predicted, become a rite of passage
for artists wishing to cement their credentials as recording artists.
The Concierto’s appearance in recorded form also marked the incep-
tion of a tradition amongst reviewers of evaluating concerto record-
ings in terms of how successful the engineers had been in balancing the
guitar and the orchestra. In the case of the Yepes’ 1954 version, critical
opinion was unanimously of the view that they had been, T.H. (1955:
437), for example noting in his Gramophone review that “the problem
of balance between orchestra and guitar is brilliantly solved”. How-
ever, over the years, such assessments were to be repeatedly re-visited
and re-evaluated as recording technology continued to develop and
new production trends emerged. A 1972 review of a reissue of Yepes’
second (stereo) recording of the concerto (SXL 2091, 1959), for exam-
ple, observed that,

the guitar seems to be in a different acoustic from the orchestra

(which is excessively swimmy), and there are resultant problems of
balance – the cor anglais solo in the slow movement, for example,
is far too distant and the guitar’s accompanying chords are too
prominent.
(L.S. 1972: 919)

During the course of the 1950s and 1960s Yepes issued a steady
stream of solo guitar releases to the global marketplace via Decca,
which continued to prioritize the Spanish repertoire. Música Española
para Guitarra (LXT 2974, 1954), for example, comprised an historical
survey from the vihuela period, via Sor and Tárrega, to the twenti-
eth century, culminating in a foundational recording of Rodrigo’s En
los Trigales. The Gramophone’s review of this LP exhibits the typical
The Wider European Context 227

preoccupations of critics during this period with the shortcomings of

the classical guitar repertoire, such as its derivation from the piano
literature and its prioritization of minor composers. In particular the
reviewer (L.S.) questioned the effcacy of Albéniz and Granados tran-
scriptions, “which do not really come off ”, and the musical caliber of
Sor, who is likened to “the Beethoven of the Minuet in G”. In an echo
of the criticisms of the Segovian “miscellaneous” album program, the
same reviewer also expressed reservations as to “whether a twelve-inch
LP is not altogether the wrong medium for a number of short items”
(1954: 311). The critics’ ambivalence towards Spanish-oriented recital
programs remained apparent 10 years later in their reviewing of Yepes’
three volume series of “Guitar Recital” discs of “pieces by his [Span-
ish] compatriots” issued on London Globe3 in 1964. On these discs,
Yepes more or less repeated this Spanish survey approach, with only a
slight increase in diversity in his inclusion of works by Villa-Lobos. Of
Volume 3 the Gramophone critic wrote,

I confess that on purely musical grounds I found it far less interest-

ing. A piece like Torroba’s Madroños (also recorded by Bream and
Segovia) has its fascination in the range of guitar colour, and the
following Guajiras (otherwise unrecorded like most of these pieces)
has some charming rhythmic ideas, but after a string of modern
Spanish guitar pieces even so beautifully played as here one does
long for something more substantial or at least more varied.
(E.G. 1965b: 21)

The same critic was more approving, however, of Yepes’ discerning

stylistic approach when dealing with earlier pre-Romantic repertoire,
remarking (in reference to Volume 2) upon his “exceptionally frm con-
trol of the rhythm, when either by reason of technical problems or
romantic inclinations most guitarists distort the rhythms of even the
most classical pieces. Not so Yepes, and the enchanting Sor Minuet
similarly maintains this classical poise” (E.G. 1965a: 21). In such re-
marks one can detect the emergence of a more incisive approach to
scrutinizing the interpretative approaches of classical guitarists, which
later formed the basis of the critique of the Segovian “Romantic”
style. On the whole reviews of Yepes’ playing on the recordings issued
during the 1960s and 1970s tend to paint him as a relatively controlled,
and somewhat less expressive player than his contemporaries.4
In 1962 Yepes also recorded Rodrigo’s other major work for gui-
tar and orchestra, the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre, for Decca (re-
leased on London CS 6356).5 This LP was notable for its pairing with
Tres Gráfcos, written for Yepes by Maurice Ohana, a Spanish-born
pianist-composer based in France, whose music, while refecting an
interest in Spanish idioms, was couched within a more progressive
musical language. Ohana’s music appears to have been a particular
draw for Spanish guitarists keen to explore new directions (see also Al-
berto Ponce later in this chapter), perhaps because it offered a means
228 The Recording Model Interrogated

of expressing a contemporary Spanish attitude without alluding to the

cliches of the nineteenth-century repertoire. Its placement on the fip-
side of Yepes’ disc, as a more challenging work relative to the Rodrigo,
was to become a typical strategy for programming new material, here
assisted by an anonymous liner note which situated Ohana’s sound in
relation to cante jondo music:

At frst the suggestion that this concerto is a legitimate descen-

dant of Cante Hondo [sic] may seem absurd but a closer study
will reveal the infuence that this ancient art has had on the com-
poser. Now debased and popularized under the modern name of
Flamenco, Cante Hondo was originally the song of sorrow and
tragedy (Hondo itself means deep or profound) and indeed at the
end of the eighteenth century it had come to mean the music made
in the prisons. In this Concerto Ohana has replaced the singer with
a solo guitar and the guitar’s original role has been taken over by
the orchestra, the private individual grief has been transferred to
a comment on the modern world …. “Tres Grafcos” may come as
a shock to those who are acquainted only with the “traditional”
school of guitar music, but to those who know Andalusia well and
have listened to some of the guitar virtuosi of that province, the
shock will be one of recognition.
(Anon 1962b)

YEPES AT DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

In the fnal phase of his recording career (from 1968 to the late 1980s)
Yepes recorded almost exclusively with the German Deutsche Gram-
mophon Gesellschaft label (DGG). He was one of four major-name
classical guitarists signed to DGG during this period (the others were
Siegfried Behrend and Leo Brouwer, with Göran Söllscher joining in
the late 1970s). At this time the label had little track record with the
classical guitar and its repertoire, although the related Archiv Pro-
duktion imprint had recorded lute (Karl Scheit) and vihuela music
(Renata Tarragó). DGG’s gravitation towards the instrument can be
understood in the context of the wider acceptance by the major la-
bels of the classical guitar recital disc format by the end of the 1960s,
whose viability had been proven through the successes of Segovia at
American Decca, Bream at RCA, and more recently, Williams at CBS.
In addition, DGG had during the 1950s and 1960s begun to expand
beyond its roots in German-centric repertoire and adopt a more inter-
national perspective, which sat comfortably with the Spanish-oriented
classical guitar repertoire remit.6
Like Segovia at American Decca, in joining DGG, Yepes beneftted
from a distinctive house style recording aesthetic, engendered by the
repeated use of well-specifed acoustic environments and adept audio
personnel. Indeed his recording career as a soloist can be divided into
The Wider European Context 229

three periods based on the use of particular recording locations. The

earliest DGG LPs were made at the Hanover Beethoven-Saal in 1967,
then between 1970 and 1978 his main recording locations were two
concert halls in Munich, the Residenz, Plenarsaarl der Akadamie der
Wissenschaften and Residenz Alter Herkulessaal. Finally, from 1982
to 1987 he recorded at the Zentralsaal in Bamberg. For consistent re-
sults, DGG also insisted that its artists worked regularly with the same
team of producers and engineers, as explained by Hans Werner Stein-
hausen, DGG’s managing director in the 1960s:

Deutsche Grammophon has built its reputation on the marriage of

high artistic ideals to a passionate concern for technical excellence.
And this has meant that we have to train and educate a team of
recording engineers with both artistic and technical knowledge ….
We have followed a policy of always giving artists the same record-
ing team so that they get to know each other and an atmosphere of
friendship and cooperation prevails.
(Billboard 1968)

Yepes worked with a number of DGG’s key producers, including Hans

Hirsch and Rudolf Werner, but particularly Heinz Wildhagen who was
a common denominator in a considerable number of Yepes’ record-
ings either in the capacity of producer or engineer. As was common
with DGG’s audio personnel, Wildhagen was a trained musician, hav-
ing initially practiced as an organist and then taken a sound engineer’s
diploma at the Detmold Academy of Music (Rauchhaupt 1973). Wild-
hagen’s general attitude was that, rather than adopting a “simple and
passive use of the technical means of recording”, the sound engineer
could play an interpretative role in the communication of the work
(Wildhagen 1973: 83). In an article discussing innovative techniques of
stereo recording in Mahler’s orchestral music, he wrote:

A sound engineer is naturally happy if, through successful balanc-

ing, he is able to contribute to the understanding of the work be-
ing recorded …. The artistic presentation must be subjected to a
process of technical transformation through which the aesthetic
means are found to realize the requirements of the score in terms
of the potential of the recording medium.
(Wildhagen 1973: 83)

Wildhagen’s recordings typically present Yepes’ guitar at a medium

distance, enabling the detail of the instrument to be perceived clearly,
while at the same time allowing an appreciable amount of the sur-
rounding acoustic to inform the mix. The effect of this prompted the
Guitar Review’s critic Carl Miller to remark in reference to Segovia:
“Would that Decca could give the maestro the royal sound achieved
by Deutsche Grammophon for Yepes” (Miller 1969b: 33).7 A short
sequence flmed for the French documentary Narciso Yepes: Portrait
230 The Recording Model Interrogated

d’un guitariste (Montes-Baquer 1975) in which Yepes is shown work-

ing with Wildhagen on the 1971 Villa-Lobos album, also suggests that
artifcial reverberation was employed when deemed necessary. While
concert hall acoustics are central to the Yepes’ sound, he also on oc-
casion recorded in purpose-built commercial studio environments.
For example, in 1969 DGG utilized the Estudios Phonogram in Ma-
drid8 to make a new recording (DGG 139440) of the Rodrigo Con-
cierto de Aranjuez (together with the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre),
an environment which afforded Wildhagen increased fexibility for ex-
perimentation with the guitar’s presence relative to larger orchestral
forces. In contrast to the extant earlier recordings of Rodrigo’s con-
certos by Segovia, Bream, Williams and Behrend,9 Yepes’ new record-
ing eschewed the typical reverberant hall aesthetic in favor of a more
detailed sound in which the orchestra is signifcantly present and the
guitar captured with very little ambience. In his review of the disc in
Gramophone, Edward Greenfeld, who was present at a session for this
LP (Greenfeld 1969), gives some sense of the recording’s departure
from tradition:

I hope the fact that I was present at one of the sessions in the Ma-
drid studios of DGG’s Spanish subsidiary doesn’t infuence me,
when I say that the orchestral sound is far too dry and close. The
studio was unusually small for an orchestral session – designed in
fact for pop recording – and the engineers have reproduced the
sound all too faithfully without any acoustic glamour added. At
least this is more consistent than the result achieved by Decca in
Yepes’s previous version, where the soloist sounded as though he
was in a small dry-sounding room and the orchestra in a neigh-
bouring conservatory lightly off-stage …. The dry, close acoustic
affects both performances. It would take a far more polished or-
chestra than that of Spanish RTV to remain unaffected by the lack
of glamour. In the last movement of the Concierto de Aranjuez the
boxed-in quality of the sound has a particularly enervating effect,
though even there one might argue that it is more in scale with an
intimate instrument like the guitar.
(E.G. 1970: 1592)

Regarding the content of his recordings during this period, Yepes’

signing to DGG afforded him considerable scope to explore the clas-
sical guitar repertoire with much of his output serving to document
the major works composed or transcribed for the instrument, as well
as showcasing his own new transcriptions, and premiering major
works written for him. An historical “recital disc” approach to com-
piling recordings can be seen in his earliest DGG albums, such as the
two-volume Spanische Gitarrenmusik aus fünf Jahrhunderten (1968)
and Música Española (1971). Yepes also recorded a number of solo-
composer oriented albums including Sor 24 Etuden (1968), an early in-
tegral recording of Villa-Lobos’ Estudos and Preludes (1971) and later
The Wider European Context 231

albums devoted to Tárrega (1983), Domenico Scarlatti (1985) and

Rodrigo (1987). He also, like Bream, released albums which grouped
composers by period and style, such as Guitarra Romantica (1977)
covering Sor, Giuliani and Tárrega. Yepes also explored a signifcant
amount of contemporary repertoire, such as Maurice Ohana’s Tiento
(recorded in 1968) and Tres Gráfcos (re-recorded in 1975) and Leo
Brouwer’s Tarantos (recorded in 1979). Gitarrenmusik des 20. Jahrhun-
derts (1977) was reminiscent of Bream’s 20th Century Guitar in its fo-
cus on contemporary composers – Poulenc, Brouwer (his Parabola),
Antonio Ruiz-Pipó, Bruno Maderna and Leonardo Balada. Two of
these pieces – Maderna’s Y Después and Balada’s Anologías – were
dedicated to Yepes and designed to exploit the increased capabilities of
the latter’s 10-string guitar (discussed below). On the whole, however,
Yepes was not an advocate of “progressive” trends in classical guitar
music10 in the manner of guitarists such as Bream or Siegfried Beh-
rend. Instead, like Segovia, he used his recordings to promote the mu-
sic of mostly “accessible” twentieth-century Spanish composers who
were not themselves guitarists, including the concertos of Rodrigo,
Ernesto Halftter and Salvador Bacarisse.
With the exception of Bach, Northern European perspectives are
less prominent in Yepes’ discography, tending to be given coverage
in the context of historically structured recital discs such as Narciso
Yepes (1979) and Gitarrenmusik aus fünf Jahrhunderten (1982). Bach
is given particular focus in the 1971 recording of the Chaconne (DGG
2530 096) and Yepes’ two discs devoted to the lute works (1974). Like
a number of the guitarists who emerged to prominence during this
period, Yepes revisited Bach’s original scores to develop new transcrip-
tions of his own. For example, in the case of the Chaconne, in addition
to the violin original, Yepes studied the various transcriptions of the
piece that had been made by composers since Bach, including Men-
delssohn and Brahms, to create a version that refected the best of all
perspectives (Schneider 1983a). Yepes’ re-working of Bach on the gui-
tar anticipates a general pattern of revisionism in relation to the Sego-
vian perspective, pursued by younger guitarists wishing to make their
mark with this repertoire in their own recordings. This can be seen,
for example, in Christopher Parkening or Milan Zelenka’s attempts to
expand the range of Bach works transcribed for the instrument in the
early 1970s, or Sharon Isbin’s pursuit of the “urtext” version of the
lute suites in collaboration with Rosalyn Tureck in the 1980s.
Most of Yepes’ recordings made from the mid-1960s onwards fea-
ture his 10-string guitar. This instrument was built by José Ramirez
III in 1964 to a design specifcation by Yepes, motivated by a desire
on the one the hand to improve the guitar’s natural resonance, and,
on the other, to extend the possibilities of the guitar for composition
and arrangement (Kozinn 1981). Where early music was concerned,
such as that written for the lute, the additional strings enabled Yepes
to make “authentic” transcriptions often with very little alteration
to the original music. At the same time, the 10-string guitar’s unique
232 The Recording Model Interrogated

resonant characteristics served to enhance the music’s sonority, as in

the case of the DGG Bach recordings for which the use of the instru-
ment imparts a more pronounced deep bass element. Yepes’ recording
of Bach’s works (on the Archiv Produktion imprint) using a Baroque
lute, would also no doubt have informed the manner of presentation of
these works on the 10-string guitar. While Yepes also performed much
of the six-string repertoire on this instrument without alteration, its
augmented scope came into its own with music specially written for it
(or an instrument like it), such as Ferdinando Carulli’s Divertimento
per il Decacordo (recorded 1979)11 and the works by Maderna and
Balada heard on Gitarrenmusik des 20. Jahrhunderts. While Yepes’ use
of the 10-string guitar lent his recording profle a certain sonic (as well
as visual) distinctiveness in relation to the dominant six-string perspec-
tive, with the exception of a small number of contemporaries, such
as Vincent Macaluso and later Janet Marlow and Anders Miolin,12
the instrument has remained an anomaly in classical guitar recording
practice. It is well documented, incidentally, that Segovia disapproved
of any attempts to augment the six-string guitar (Kozinn 1981; Duarte
1998), a view that would no doubt have continued to hold currency
during the 1970s.

SPANISH CONTEMPORARIES OF YEPES

Yepes’ most important Spanish-based contemporary during the
1950s and 1960s was Renata Tarragó, who began her recording career
around 1950. Tarragó was unique amongst guitarists at this time be-
cause she eschewed the use of fngernails in guitar playing. This was
an approach that by this point was considered unorthodox in relation
to the post-Segovian methods of tone production, refecting the con-
tinuation of an earlier line of Spanish performance technique stem-
ming from Tárrega and his pupil, Emilio Pujol. Interestingly her sound
was not a particular focus of the critics of her recordings however, at
least not to the extent that it was regarded as markedly different to any
other guitarist’s tone at this time. Tarragó’s frst recordings were made
for the HMV label as accompanist to soprano Victoria de Los Angeles
in a collection Traditional Songs of Spain,13 released on 78 rpm. Then
from the late 1950s she began to record for Hispavox, appearing in
the label’s multi-volume series of 45 rpm discs of Spanish music, Mu-
sica Española de Guitarra, performing works for solo guitar by Tárrega
and Torroba (on volumes 1–3). These were both composers in whom
Tarragó specialized and returned to frequently. In 1960, for example,
she released an all-Tárrega disc (The Music of Francisco Tárrega, Co-
lumbia ML5454), which was among the earliest recordings (alongside
Rey de la Torre’s early 1950s SMC disc) to survey a number of the
composer’s works on one LP. By this time her Hispavox records were
being issued globally via Columbia Masterworks, enabling this and
later albums to reach the US marketplace. Reviewing her Tárrega disc
in High Fidelity, Ray Ericson (R.E. 1960: 92) remarked on Tarragó’s
The Wider European Context 233

affnity with Tárrega’s music and compared her playing on the album
favorably to Segovia’s. Of particular importance in Tarragó’s output
for Hispavox was her 1959 recording of the Rodrigo Concierto de
Aranjuez (ML 5345) under conductor Odon Alonso. This was only
the third recording of the piece, which was still relatively unknown,
and served to elevate Tarragó into the class of her most accomplished
Spanish contemporary, Yepes. Naturally her disc was critiqued in ref-
erence to Yepes’ 1954 recording:

Rodrigo’s concerto has already found a delighted audience here

through a recording by Narciso Yepes, recently reissued on a ste-
reo disc. Miss Tarragó, a native of Barcelona and a product of its
conservatory, plays this quite enchanting work virtually as well. In
her hands it has vigor, much color, and only a shade less dynamic
volatility.
(R.E. 1959: 76)

With few recorded versions of the Concierto available, other than

Yepes’, Tarragó had much scope to distinguish herself with this early
recorded interpretation and, indeed, her edition of the work was ap-
proved by Rodrigo at this time. The fipside of the same disc also fea-
tured another unique repertoire choice – Torroba’s Guitarra Española
suite, a collection of short pieces evocative of Spanish locations and
musical styles. This was a work that had received little attention from
guitarists (Segovia did not record it) and Tarragó’s rendition remains a
defnitive recording. She also returned to Torroba’s music in her 1963
disc of his seldom performed work for guitar and orchestra, the Con-
cierto de Castilla (published in 1960), the fipside comprising a short
solo recital whose standout work is Rodrigo’s En Los Trigales. Out-
side her strictly classical activities, in 1968 Tarragó also made a brief
appearance in the British flm Deadfall (directed by Bryan Forbes) in
a staged concert in which she performed the Romance for Guitar and
Orchestra by John Barry, who appears conducting the London Phil-
harmonic Orchestra. Barry’s piece, which at times clearly alludes to the
Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez, was specially composed for the flm
and issued on the flm’s soundtrack album. Bryan Forbes’ liner notes
for the disc explained the rationale for Tarragó’s casting, drawing at-
tention to both her musical and photogenic qualities: “In Señorita
Tarragó we were fortunate to have not only a superb soloist but also
a very attractive woman, and her striking and individual beauty en-
hances the flmed performance” (Forbes 1968).
Segovia’s more direct infuence on Spanish guitarists during the
1960s can be appreciated in the discs made by José Tomás (1934–2001)
and José Manuel Aldana. Tomás, who was one of the closest adher-
ents of the maestro during this period, was taught by Regino Sainz de
la Maza, and later Emilio Pujol, before assisting in Segovia’s master-
classes at Santiago de Compostela (which he later directed). He made
few recordings, one a slight 45 rpm EP, Cuatro Piezas para Guitarra,
234 The Recording Model Interrogated

undertaken for Hispavox in 1964 (HH-16486), the other a full-length

LP, Recital de Guitarra, recorded in 1968 in Tokyo (Dim DGS-174).
The former showcases Segovia-sponsored works by Sor (Minuetto),
Torroba (Madroños) and Crespo’s Norteña, and the relatively recent
Sarabande (1960) by French composer Francis Poulenc (which Segovia
had not recorded), lending the disc some distinctiveness. The LP re-
fects the wider historical spectrum of Tomás’s repertoire ranging from
the English Renaissance (Robert Johnson, Francis Cutting and John
Dowland), via Bach and Sor (the familiar Study in B minor) to Albéniz
(Zambra Granadina). The works of the modern era which occupy Side
2 are drawn almost entirely from Spanish and Latin American compos-
ers endorsed by Segovia – Turina (Fantasía Sevillana), Torroba (three
movements from Piezas Caracteristicas) and Villa-Lobos (Prelude No.
3). Tomás’s compatriot José Manuel Aldana recorded two albums for
the Spanish arm of EMI (under the “La Voz de su Amo” imprint) in
the late 1960s. Guitarra Clásica (ASDL 935, 1967) is almost entirely
nineteenth-century Spanish in outlook, dominated by popular Tárrega
works and transcriptions of Malats and Albéniz while Recital de Gui-
tarra (ASDL 967, c. 1968) takes a more Segovian historical approach
covering Sanz, Scarlatti, Bach and Sor on Side 1 with Side 2 wholly
given over to Villa-Lobos’ music, a strategy in keeping with the increas-
ing fashionability of Villa-Lobos focused recital discs at this time.
During the 1960s Spanish guitarists also continued to be approached
by non-Spanish labels keen to expand their remit to capitalize on the
guitar’s growing popularity in the light of Segovia’s successes. For ex-
ample, Decca, earlier known for its association with Narciso Yepes,
made a one-off recording in 1967 with William Gomez (1939–2000),
entitled A Guitar Recital (London STS 15072). This is for the most-
part a Segovian-style survey of the modern Spanish repertoire (Sor,
Torroba, Tansman, Villa-Lobos favorites), but there are also notable
deviations into more unfamiliar repertoire – Italian guitarist-com-
poser, Miguel Ablóniz, for example, and Spanish composers Antonio
Ruiz-Pipó and Eduardo Sainz de la Maza. Also included is Jeux In-
terdits (here credited to “Anon” rather than Yepes),14 which together
with Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, was one of the most widely
recognized and recorded classical guitar works at this time. In her re-
view Shirley Fleming described Gomez’s recording as

a thoroughly attractive recital by a guitarist who takes naturally

to the free-fowing rhapsodic style of Villa-Lobos and who, at the
same time, can tick off the neat, clockwork accompaniments in
works by Sor, Pipó, or the anonymous composer of a piece titled
Jeux interdits.
(S.F. 1969: 120)

Manuel Díaz Cano (1926–2007), who was associated with the Italian
Durium label, also made his name with a recording of Jeux Interdits
(translated in this instance as Giochi Proibiti) on 78 rpm in the early
The Wider European Context 235

1950s (Durium AI 10265). Díaz Cano’s repertoire was widely eclectic

and more inclined to crossover combinations as indicated by his 1956
album Popular Guitar Favourites (Durium DLU 96024), which com-
piles a number of earlier 78 rpm recordings onto the early 10-inch disc
format. Included are the flm themes Jeux Interdits and Johnny Guitar
(composed by Victor Young), stock repertoire (Llobet’s El Testament
d’Amèlia) and original pieces by Díaz Cano himself (his Villa-Lobos
infuenced Fantasia Americana) and Miguel Ablóniz (Tanguillo). A
later 1963 LP, Recital di Musica Spagnola (Durium AI 77068) adheres
much more closely to the Spanish repertoire (Tárrega, Llobet, Albéniz,
Granados) but is again given distinction by Díaz Cano’s own compo-
sitions (Preludio “Homenaje a Turina” and Preludio “En El Estilo de
Los Viejos Maestros”) and arrangements.
Recording for non-Spanish companies was undoubtedly important
in enabling Spanish guitarists to take a more objective view of their
repertoire and expand it beyond its overtly nationalistic leanings. In
the case of José Luis Gonzalez (1932–1998), for example, his programs
attempted to broaden the album concept through more adventurous
fusions of repertoire from different musical and cultural perspectives.
Gonzalez, who like José Tomás was taught by Regino Sainz de la Maza,
relocated from Spain to Australia in the 1962, where he signed a contract
with CBS (then under the remit of the Australian Record Company).
His 1964 album Two Worlds of the Classical Guitar (CBS BR-235066)
contrasts historical European musical perspectives (works by Bach and
Scarlatti) on Side 1 with contemporary Spanish and Latin American
music on Side 2. Of particular interest are the two pieces by Barrios
(Preludio Op. 5 No. 1 and Danza Paraguaya), then a composer decidedly
outside the Segovian orbit, and about whom the liner notes, unsurpris-
ingly given Barrios’ status outside Latin America, claim little knowledge.
By contrast, on Contemporary Guitar Music (CBS SBR-23517, 1966)
Gonzalez opts for a synthesis of national perspectives from Poland,
Norway, Italy, Mexico, Spain and South America. Poland, Italy and
Mexico are represented by Segovia-endorsed composers and works –
Alexandre Tansman (his Mazurca), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (the
Tonadilla “on the name of Andrés Segovia”) and Manuel Ponce (6 Pre-
ludes and the Thème Varié et Finale). South America is represented by
Villa-Lobos (the Choros No. 1) and another Barrios piece, Medallón
Antiguo, which the liner notes suggest is the frst recording (although
it should be noted that Alirio Díaz had also released a recording in the
same year as Gonzalez’s album on the Venezuelan Espiral label). By
contrast the inclusion of music by Norwegian composer Sven Erik Li-
baek (Musical Pictures for Guitar Nos 2 and 3), who produced this and
other Gonzalez recordings for CBS, is more original in this context.

GUITARISTS IN AUSTRIA
Austrian guitarists made a signifcant contribution to the recorded clas-
sical guitar canon during the 1960s and 1970s, marking out a position
236 The Recording Model Interrogated

on the repertoire that was often a compromise between the dominant

romanticism and Spanishry of the Segovia perspective and the more
“cerebral” traditions of northern European classical music. Their re-
cordings on the one hand refected the infuences that were already
present in Austrian culture during the early part of the century, such
as the interest in early music stemming from the lute tradition through
to the Baroque, and the prevalent folk music tradition (Hackl 2011).
As with the situation in Great Britain, the Spanish perspective on the
classical guitar, which was disseminated principally via the presence of
Llobet and Segovia in the 1920s and 1930s, was not indigenous to these
territories and hence was self-consciously integrated, with recordings
playing an important role in its consolidation from the 1950s onwards.
The remit of the record labels operative in these territories unsurpris-
ingly also conditioned what was emphasized and prioritized in gui-
tarists’ recordings. The dominant recording company at this time was
Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, one of the longest established
German recording companies focused on classical music recording,
together with its Archiv Produktion imprint. However, smaller record
companies also brought their particular agendas such as the Vienna
based Amadeo label (a Vanguard subsidiary), the nearby Czech Su-
praphon label, and outside interests including the US Vox label (under
its Turnabout series) and Claves (based in Switzerland).
The early recordings of the Austrian guitarist, Luise Walker (1910–
1998), made for the (German) Odeon and Telefunken labels in 1932
and 1934, respectively, mark the inception of Austro-German classical
guitar recording tradition. Walker came to prominence in the 1930s,
having trained at the State Musical Academy in Vienna and studied
guitar with Jacob Ortner and the infuential German guitarist, Hein-
rich Albert. She also received lessons from Miguel Llobet on an ad
hoc basis when he came to Vienna on his concert tours during the
1920s, which had a profound impact upon her attitude to the gui-
tar and its Spanish/Latin American repertoire (Walker 1989; Hackl
2011). Some of the repertoire chosen for her early recordings gestures
towards the Spanish school, such as Tárrega’s showpiece, Gran Jota
(Telefunken A1672). However, this is more than outweighed by other
perspectives, such as the variations on Schubert’s “Die Forelle” by
Austrian composer Karl Friessnegg (1900–1981) and Italian composer
Antonio Dominici’s (1872–1934) Italienische Fantasie. Also signifcant
is the inclusion of transcribed works by Chopin, Schubert, Schumann
and Brahms, and even chamber music by Carl Maria von Weber (his
Minuet for Guitar, Viola and Flute), which point towards a Northern
European (specifcally Austrian and German) musical outlook.15 At
the same time, however, the predilection for making transcriptions of
nineteenth-century Romantic composers can itself be understood to
refect the infuence of Llobet.
Walker’s later recordings indicate the integration of Spanish and
Latin American classical guitar traditions within her Northern Eu-
ropean perspective. In 1952 she returned to the studio to record two
The Wider European Context 237

10-inch LPs, Guitar Recital (N 00640 R) and Concertino for Guitar and
Orchestra (N 00626 R) for the Netherlands-based Philips label. The
former, which was her frst recital disc, balances Austrian and Ger-
man perspectives (Alfred Uhl and Hermann Ambrosius) with Span-
ish (Sor, Llobet and Albéniz). Also included is the Variations on a
Spanish Song by Walker (who had studied composition as well as gui-
tar) and the Bach-inspired Prelude No. 1 (“Suite a la antiga”), by the
Italian-born Brazilian (later Uruguayan) composer Guido Santórsola
(1904–1994). The latter became a favorite piece which Walker recorded
repeatedly on later albums. The Concertino, also by Santórsola, was a
sophisticated but nonetheless accessible work for guitar and orchestra
of a caliber to rival the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez. In his High
Fidelity review of US issue of the recording on Epic LC 3055, Ray
Ericson praised the Concertino commenting that it “shrewdly meshes
the guitar and orchestra tones for some original effects. Formally sim-
ple, pleasantly modern-romantic in harmony, the Concertino is quite
engaging” (R.E. 1954b: 78). The liner notes for both Philips’ albums,
in addition to providing program note-style historical information on
the composers concerned, take the familiar defensive approach of ar-
guing for the importance of the guitar beyond its role as an accompa-
niment for singing (in this context a reference to the Austrian folkloric
traditions of the guitar perhaps). In an echo of the Segovia narrative,
Walker is described on the Santórsola disc as engaged in a mission to
“regain the attention for this instrument which it so justly deserves”
(Anon 1953a) and her background is situated in relation to the Aus-
trian guitar school stemming from Heinrich Albert, and the Spanish,
which is attributed to Llobet, rather than Segovia (“Llobet founded
an excellent school of guitarists, to which Luise Walker also belongs”
(Anon 1952a)). Walker’s Guitar Recital disc is also of interest for its
“informal” recording quality, the guitar appearing to have been cap-
tured in a small resonant room and at a range which is revealing of
the raw detail of Walker’s technique (the sound is not unlike that of
Zepoll’s Concert Guitar LP (on Cook 1953)). This was an aspect of the
recording that was remarked upon by Ericson in his aforementioned
review of the Epic re-issue: “Miss Walker’s performances are expert,
the sound almost too intimate – the tone is occasionally coarse, the
instrument noisy” (1954b: 78).
The most signifcant recordings of Walker’s later career are her two
discs for Czech Supraphon label, recorded in 1963 (Famous Guitar
Compositions) and 1973 (Guitar Recital), respectively. These continue
in the mixed program vein already established on the earlier Philips
recital disc with nods to the Spanish/Segovian repertoire in the inclu-
sion of Sor (the Op. 9 Variations), Domenico Scarlatti (Sonata L352),
Ponce (popular works such as Estrellita and Scherzino Mexicano)
and Torroba (Suite Castellana). Among the more substantial works
in this regard (on Guitar Recital) are Turina’s Sonata Op. 61 and two
movements (Adagio and Bolero) from Rodrigo’s recently completed
Sonata a la Española (1969). Guitar Recital also exhibits a Latin
238 The Recording Model Interrogated

American outlook, refected in the inclusion of Santórsola’s Pre-

lude No. 1, Villa-Lobos’ Estudo No. 11 and Isaías Sávio’s Batucada.
Closer to Walker’s own roots (on Famous Guitar Compositions) are
the two lyrical Ballads by the Dutch guitarist-composer Jan-Anton
van Hoek (b. 1936) and the Spanish and Latin-infected compositions
by Walker herself – Argentinian Folk Song and Small Variations on
a Catalan Folk Song. Walker’s other LPs of this period were made
for the Vox (Turnabout) budget series and adhere to the nineteenth-
century Northern European classical tradition, including Guitar
Music in Vienna (1969), on which she performs a range of chamber
music by Schubert, Weber and Haydn, and a disc (TV 34322S) featur-
ing two works for guitar and strings by Paganini, the Quartet No. 7
in E and the Terzetto Concertante.
The recordings of Karl Scheit (1909–1993) were, like Bream’s, im-
portant in raising awareness of the earlier period of guitar music, as
well as the lute. Scheit was primarily a guitar scholar and pedagogue
who produced a large amount of performing editions of Renaissance,
Baroque and contemporary classical guitar music for the Austrian
publisher, Universal Edition. He made a number of recordings for var-
ious labels as both lutenist and guitarist, including Amadeo, Vox, the
Musical Heritage Society (a label later known for its association with
Eliot Fisk) and the Archiv Produktion imprint of the Deutsche Gram-
mophon label. With Archiv Produktion, he typically appeared as a
lute continuo player in early music repertoire, as can be heard, for ex-
ample, on the Vivaldi-focused disc, The Italian Settecento (ARC 3218).
Archiv had been established by DGG in the late 1940s to document
the historical repertoire from the Renaissance era to the Baroque, and
its recordings were regarded as scholarly endeavors concerned with
accurate period detail. To this end, Fred Hamel, the label’s frst pro-
ducer, spearheaded the establishment of a “research institute” with
specialized departments and ensembles committed to performing the
repertoire (Louis et al. 2009). Scheit, who was recognized as an expert
on the early history of the lute and guitar, was frequently engaged for
his specialist knowledge. A concern with curating the earlier reper-
toire is also apparent in Scheit’s 1968 Vox Turnabout recording (TV
34123S), Music for Guitar by Giuliani, Torelli, Carulli, Paganini, which,
as its liner notes indicate, aimed to address a gap in recorded ensem-
ble music featuring the guitar by Italian composers. Scheit’s work as
a guitar soloist is mainly represented on his albums for the Amadeo
label which date from the 1950s, specifcally Renaissance and Baroque
(AVRS 6108), Meisterwerke der Klassichen Gitarre (AVRS 6372) and
The Virtuoso Guitar (AVRS 6236). These comprise historical repertoire
surveys accompanied by scholarly program notes, and frequently fea-
ture Scheit’s own published editions, effectively functioning as audio
realizations of his scholarly work. On the whole Scheit confned his
recorded repertoire to music from Renaissance to the early nineteenth
century, and as might be expected, German composers are an import-
ant focus, particularly Bach, Handel, Haydn and Weiss.16
The Wider European Context 239

Konrad Ragossnig (1932–2018), a pupil of Karl Scheit, was also an

exponent of both guitar and lute, and like Bream refected this dual-
ism across his prolifc recorded output, including some releases which
incorporated both instruments simultaneously.17 Like Scheit he made
important historical recordings for Archiv, of which the most signif-
icant was the six volume series of lute recordings, Musik Für Laute,
released between 1974 and 1976. As a guitarist he ranged much more
widely, recording for a number of different labels, including Erato,
Claves, Saga Records (Great Britain), Vox and Supraphon. His earliest
recording contract was with RCA France, obtained for winning frst
prize in Robert J. Vidal’s Radio-France competition in 1961, which
enabled him to be featured on the pioneering Anthologie de la Guitare
series showcasing upcoming guitarists.18 Ragossnig’s guitar recordings
cover much of the historical repertoire and the Segovia-sponsored
Spanish works, such as Guitar Recital (Supraphon, 1971), The Span-
ish Guitar (Vox Turnabout, 1973) and Spanisch Gitarremusik (Claves,
1978). Ragossnig’s interpretation of the Five Preludes by Villa-Lobos
on Guitar Recital (Supraphon 111 1040), an important European re-
cording of these pieces, was regarded as worthy competition to the
Julian Bream set issued during the same period (M.H. 1972b: 1914).
Ragossnig also embraced developments in contemporary music, in
1969 issuing a recording (RCA VICS 1367) of Jacques Bondon’s Con-
certo de Mars (conducted by the composer), at this time was one of
the more progressive works to feature the guitar in a concerto context.
This disc was hailed by a Gramophone reviewer as an important step
away from classical guitar repertoire clichés:

With the concerto, however, we have got right away from the come-
to-sunny-Spain posters; and here we have what is incontestably the
most original and stimulating concerto for the guitar which has
yet appeared, and one which, unlike nearly all the others, needs no
special pleading. It was written in March 1966, and its title may
simply imply its date or may have a variety of other interpreta-
tions: its general sinewy, somewhat sinister, energy and compres-
sion support this atmosphere of ambiguity.
(L.S. 1969: 1146, 1151)

Elsewhere Ragossnig’s recorded output is concerned with repertoire

expansion through transcription and arrangement, as can be seen on
the early music focused recordings he made for the Erato Panorama
de la Guitare series, Luth, Guitare et Orgue (1971) and Les Baroques
(1972). The latter, like Bream’s 1966 Baroque Guitar album, presented
a number of new transcriptions of keyboard music by Purcell, Handel,
Rameau and others. Works previously advocated by Segovia are pres-
ent, such as Purcell’s Minuet Z.429, Handel’s Sarabande & Variations
and Rameau’s Minuets 1 and 2 from the Suite in G major, but are jux-
taposed with (then) lesser known pieces by Frescobaldi and Froberger.
Luth, Guitare et Orgue featured Ragossnig performing early music on
240 The Recording Model Interrogated

both lute and guitar in an unusual combination (made practical by

the recording medium) with organ, played by Hanni Widmer, antici-
pating John Williams’ later disc of Bach with organist Peter Hurford.
The album of duets and solos with Walter Feybli, Spanish and South
American Music for Two Guitars (SAGA 5412), is also of interest for
its rare showcasing of several arrangements by Len Williams (John
Williams’ father). Reviews of Ragossnig’s recordings during this pe-
riod indicate that he was considered as an equal to Julian Bream and
John Williams, being highly regarded in particular for the tonal variety
that he brought to his guitar performances (see for example, M.M.
1976: 1215).

THE RECORDINGS OF SIEGFRIED BEHREND AND

ANTON STINGL
The German scene in the 1960s and 1970s was dominated by the larger
than life presence of Siegfried Behrend (1933–1990), whose career can
be compared with Bream’s both in terms of his uniquely nationalist
outlook on the repertoire, and in his open-ness to the avant-garde
compositional aesthetic which held sway in Europe during this period.
Behrend also expanded beyond the solo guitar remit, making many
signifcant recordings of the classical guitar in an ensemble context. In
addition, unlike most classical guitar recordings of the 1960s and 1970s,
Behrend’s discs often featured examples of his own compositions, an-
ticipating by more than a decade the revival of the guitarist-composer
fgure. His innovative recording programs, like Bream’s, can be seen to
have played a signifcant role in expanding the scope of what could be
considered viable classical guitar repertoire at this time.
Like Bream, Behrend was largely self-taught and received the bulk
of his musical training in the wider context of classical music, studying
harpsichord, piano, conducting and musical composition at the pres-
tigious Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin. The breadth
of his musical education in areas unrelated to the guitar played an im-
portant role in forming his uniquely objective and open-minded atti-
tude towards the instrument’s repertoire and his exploratory approach
to its technical resources. While acknowledging the Spanish contribu-
tion, and the stock repertoire in general, Behrend did not defer to the
conservatism of the Segovian musical paradigm, nor did he restrict
his repertoire solely to “art” music. As Behrend remarked to Ivor
Mairants, “I just use the guitar as a vehicle for transmitting music not
from the point of the guitar” (1980: 298). Like a number of guitarists
in the 1960s he also opposed the overtly expressive, rhythmically free,
interpretative approach transmitted by Segovia to other guitarists:

I could mention at least one hundred pieces. I have often heard

them but I can assure that I have never heard them played PROPER
NEVER! Because if you take a metronome and hear Fandanguillo
[the work by Turina] you fnd that it becomes a wonderful piece
The Wider European Context 241

and always enables you to have in your ears the one complete idea
of it. Take any recording of it, set the metronome and play the
record and you will fnd out what I mean. It becomes a completely
different piece from the one you know.
(Mairants 1980: 299)

In this regard Behrend’s interpretations of classical guitar repertoire

on his LPs can be seen as a form of anti-Romantic corrective, man-
ifested in an objectivity which plays down performer personality in
favor of a straightforward and unadulterated rendering of the music.
The unique character of Behrend’s playing is succinctly encapsulated
in Shirley Fleming’s review of his 1971 English Guitar Music album:

The guitarist brings to them all a healthy kind of overtness, a style

that is masculine and sure rather than subtle, with strong contrasts
of tone to mark sectional boundaries and a steady, ongoing rhyth-
mic pulse that never wavers.
(S.F. 1971b: 96)

Behrend’s albums of the early to mid-1960s illustrate different facets

of his musical character. His 1966 album, Guitarra Olé: Spanische
Impressionen (Hörzu SHZE 383), for example, showcases his own
famenco-infuenced compositions19 alongside stock classical gui-
tar repertoire – Granados’ Spanish Dance No. 5, Falla’s The Miller’s
Dance and El Mestre (best known in the Llobet version) and Romance
de Amor (re-named Burgalesa) – which appear in Behrend’s own ar-
rangements or re-workings (Romance de Amor, for example, contains
an unexpected double-tracked re-harmonization in its second section).
In its visual presentation the album appears to take a tongue-in-cheek
attitude towards its Spanish subject matter with its depiction on the
front cover of a señorita kneeling at the feet of a toreador. The reverse
eschews the usual program notes in favor of a collection of informal
photographs of Behrend on tour in various exotic locations, including
one in which he has a snake around his neck, and another relaxing on
the sofa with his guitar and a bottle of wine. To say the least, these
convey a certain casual-ness about the business of solo guitar con-
certizing. The press quotations peppered about the cover also appear
chosen to convey a certain irreverence towards his guitar-playing con-
temporaries, such as the following remarks taken from the Japanese
newspaper, Asahi Shimbun:

Segovia is the king of 19th century guitar, Bream is probably the

best guitarist in England, Yepes is a good guitarist from Spain, but
Siegfried Behrend is the best guitarist in the world.
(Anon 1966b)

At the same time there was a more serious, even scholarly, aspect to
Behrend’s presentation of repertoire on his LPs, whose structures
242 The Recording Model Interrogated

appear to be designed as expositions of the historical evolution of the

repertoire, or as vehicles for the presentation of particular musicolog-
ical fndings (in Behrend’s words, “Musical history led me to the gui-
tar” (Mairants 1980: 301). The roots of this musicological perspective
can be seen in Behrend’s debut album for Columbia, Die Geschichte de
Gitarre (1963), which was recorded in association with a series of TV
programs on the history of the guitar that he had undertaken for Ger-
man television. It combines a spoken scholarly narration (essentially a
lecture) on the guitar’s development with a historical survey recital for-
mat, the various pieces included serving as musical illustrations (the al-
bum came supplied with lengthy text insert summarizing the historical
narrative outlined on the recording). Also included are compositions
by Behrend himself, including a piece incorporating electronics and
metallic percussion (“Studie 23, II”) as well as famenco-style mate-
rial. A particular beneft of the musicological approach was that it en-
abled Behrend to offer a variation on the standard recital disc format,
through the presentation of a range of material for its historical inter-
est, rather than attempting to compete with existing recorded inter-
pretations of the expected warhorses of the classical guitar canon. As
Shirley Fleming remarked of Behrend’s recordings of the early 1970s,
“he cares far less about your listening to him than to the repertoire he
has unearthed” (S.F. 1971b: 90).20
An historical-scholarly approach to programming characterizes a
number of the recordings made by Behrend during his period with
DGG, whose concern to document the Western classical music canon
from the early period to the modern era cohered perfectly with Beh-
rend’s own artistic objectives.21 Behrend’s frst solo guitar album for
DGG, Siegfried Behrend (1966) showcases pieces derived from “the
program of his concert tour through Germany, Asia and the USA be-
tween September 1966 and June 1967”, presumably in order to capital-
ize on the interest of the audience he had accrued during this period.
A historical recital structure is apparent, beginning with quite predict-
able stock fare – de Visée’s Suite in D minor, Bach’s Lute Suite No.
1 in E minor and Sor’s Op. 9 Variations – before deviating into less
obvious territory with Hermann Ambrosius’ neo-classical Suite No.
1 in A major, refecting Behrend’s own national perspective. It is the
two pieces by Behrend himself, representing the contemporary selec-
tion, that provide the most distinctiveness, one refecting Japanese22
infuences, the other Behrend’s Spanish leanings. These provoked one
reviewer – clearly unopposed to the idea of the recital program being
given over to works by the recitalist–- to remark favorably of Behrend’s
music, that “here is a new voice, and a welcome one” (M.M. 1967c:
533). On his next solo album Deutsche Gitarrenmusik (1968), the mu-
sicological approach is more in evidence. Here Behrend ambitiously
surveys, in a chronological fashion, German music over a 500-year pe-
riod, including transcriptions from the lute repertoire. Side 1 contains
music written between 1500 and 1821, while Side 2 focuses entirely
on the twentieth century with new or little performed guitar music by
The Wider European Context 243

contemporary German composers including Paul Hindemith, Hebert

Baumann, Heinz Friedrich Hartig and, once again, Behrend himself.
Of particular importance are Behrend’s rendition of Henze’s Drei Ten-
tos, which is contemporary with Bream’s own recording, and, in the
territory of extended guitar technique, Günther Becker’s Metathesis
für Gitarre allein. Program notes are, as with all Behrend’s DGG re-
cordings, scholarly in approach, drawing attention to musical detail
pertinent to the eras in which the pieces were written, and attempting
to delineate a clear historical trajectory.
A similar historical structure is also apparent on English Guitar Mu-
sic (1971), which moves into Bream-occupied territory of Elizabethan
lute music by Cutting, Batchelar, Robinson and Dowland (here tran-
scribed for guitar). This is contrasted with a Sonatina for 2 Guitars, an
arrangement of a keyboard work by the little known contemporary
of Beethoven, Michael C. Camidge (1785–1844), included by Behrend
presumably for its historical curiosity. Side 2’s contemporary focus
draws on recent British works, but not those performed or recorded
by Bream – John Duarte’s English Suite No 1 (a work popularized by
Segovia on his Segovia on Stage LP in 1967), John McCabe’s Canto
and Thea Musgrave’s little heard Soliloquy for Guitar and Tape, a work
in the electronic music tradition written for Behrend in 1969. Shirley
Fleming was one of the many reviewers to embrace Behrend’s innova-
tive approach to programming on this album, commenting that,

Siegfried Behrend has done it again – produced a guitar recital that

has something special to offer in the way of repertory and proves
that, really, we don’t need any more Giuliani concertos for a while
yet …. Yes, the guitar can lend itself to contemporary idioms, and
Behrend is the man to prove it.
(S.F. 1971b: 96)

Approval of the recording in these terms was also echoed by Gramo-

phone reviewer M.H. (1971b: 474) who commented that Musgrave’s
Soliloquy “ranks with Krenek’s Suite and Thomas Wilson’s Sololiquy
as a valuable addition to the guitar’s limited repertoire of real music”.
Carl Miller, writing in Guitar Review commented that,

Siegfried Behrend can be called “the unafraid guitarist”. He tack-

les all kinds of musical styles without fear, and though he may not
win many converts with these off-beat compositions, he must be
commended for embarking on such adventurous new repertoire.
(Miller 1971: 30)

Also in the same vein is Chitarra Italiana (1975), which presents a suc-
cinct overview of the history of Italian guitar music including works by
the sixteenth-century composer Fabrizio Caroso (Laura soave), Ron-
calli (Suite in G from Capricci Armonici), Giuliani (Grande Ouver-
ture Op. 61) and Paganini (Sonata in C Op. 25). The twentieth century
244 The Recording Model Interrogated

(on Side 2) is represented by Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Tarantella and La

Guarda Cuydadosa), Giovanni Murtula (Tarantella) and Sylvano Bus-
sotti’s “ultima rara” pop song (1969), a substantial 10-minute work for
classical guitar and voice whose avant-garde idiom is hardly “pop”
in ethos. Behrend also programmed the piece on an earlier album of
music for guitar and choir (DGG 2530 037, released 1971), which by
contrast adopted the strategy of bringing together three substantial
works by contemporary composers with strongly contrasting musical
languages – “the world of the romanticist Castelnuovo-Tedesco, the
world of the tradition-conscious innovator Bussotti, and that of the
post-war German Hartig” (Behrend 1971). Reviewers either loved or
hated this diverse selection depending on their musical sympathies,
but nevertheless applauded Behrend’s daring attempt at a synthesis
(M.H. in Gramophone, for example, described it as “a disc out of the
ordinary for those who buy guitar records” (1972d: 352)). Another
seminal Behrend disc, Guitar and Percussion (1970), represents a sub-
stantial departure from the norm of classical guitar recording during
this period, attempting to move the guitar more frmly into a contem-
porary ensemble context. Behrend’s chronological historical structure
is once again employed, beginning with a survey of early music and
concluding with abstract contemporary works employing extended
guitar techniques. The uniqueness of the album is found in Behrend’s
collaboration with percussionist, Siegfried Fink, who also contributes
original material, and on the latter part of the disc, his wife, the singer
Claudia Brodzinska-Behrend. On the rationale for the percussion el-
ement of the project, Behrend comments (in the album’s liner notes),
that this was the best combination because all other instruments “too
greatly cover up the brief sound of the guitar” (Hausemann 1970).
Like Bream, Behrend also issued occasional recordings devoted
to voice and guitar. In the classical sphere he recorded Altspanische
Romanzen und Volkslieder with the Spanish soprano Pilar Lorengar
(DGG 1966). This album took as its theme the Spanish “Romance”
and included a number of arrangements by Behrend of music by the
vihuelists (Milan, Mudarra and Narváez), Handel (his Spanish Can-
tata, “No se emenderá jamás”, here in the unusual combination of
voice, guitar and viola da gamba), and a number of Spanish folksongs.
Outside of the classical music context, Behrend also recorded (for Co-
lumbia) a series of acclaimed “folklore” discs with the highly versa-
tile Polish singer, Belina (see for example, 24 Songs and One Guitar, c.
1963).
Behrend’s dominance of the German classical guitar scene in the
1960s and 1970s has tended to overshadow the more modest contri-
bution of his older German contemporary, Anton Stingl (1908–2000).
Like Behrend, Stingl’s repertoire specialisms ranged widely, encompass-
ing early music through to the more abstract and challenging musical
works that were emerging from the contemporary European avant-
garde scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Stingl is known in particular for his
work with Pierre Boulez, who entrusted him with the diffcult classical
The Wider European Context 245

guitar part for the 1964 Harmonia Mundi recording of his landmark
serial work, Le Marteau sans Maître (1954). He also recorded the gui-
tar part for Der Magische Tänzer by the Swiss composer, Heinz Hol-
liger, for DGG in 1970. Like Behrend, Stingl was a prolifc composer
of works for solo guitar and guitar in ensemble and recorded a number
of his own compositions alongside those of other composers. Some of
these appear on his 1961 45 rpm EP, Gitarrenmusik (Christophorus)
and the 1985 album Werke Fur Gitarre Solo (Harmonia Mundi). Early
music perspectives are refected in Stingl’s recording (with Ilse Breit-
ruck) of his own transcriptions of J. S. Bach’s Two Part Inventions
(released on Wergo, 1984), which was an important contribution to the
scholarly tradition of Bach performance within German guitar circles.
He was also a lutenist, appearing on the Vox Turnabout disc, Vivaldi
Lute and Mandolin Concerti (TV 34153 S) in 1964. A fnal signifcant
facet of Stingl’s output was his accompaniment work in folk-oriented
solo song recitals, not unlike those of the Belina–Behrend duo. In par-
ticular he is known for sustaining a long-term working relationship
with the Ukranian contralto Oksana Sowiak with whom he recorded
a number of albums of Yiddish, Ukranian and German folksongs in
the 1970s.

THE EMERGING CZECHOSLOVAKIAN GUITAR SCENE

During the 1960s and 1970s Czechoslovakia began to emerge as a ma-
jor center of classical guitar activity in Eastern Europe. The dominant
Czech label in the 1960s was Supraphon, whose earliest guitar releases
were focused on Antonín Bartoš (1925–2006) and his younger contem-
porary Milan Zelenka (b. 1939). Both had trained in the guitar class of
the Prague Conservatoire, founded in 1946 by guitarist and composer
Štěpán Urban (1913–1974), and their recitals were instrumental in es-
tablishing an important presence for the classical guitar in Czecho-
slovakia during the 1960s. Their debut discs, which both appeared in
1963, were refective of their concert programs, which indicated on the
one hand the indebtedness of the Czechoslovakian classical guitar rep-
ertoire to nineteenth-century European trends in guitar composition
and, on the other, the Spanish model.23 For example, Bartoš’ album,
Guitar Recital (SUB 10384), focuses on Giuliani, Carulli, Carcassi and
Molino (then the foundation of guitar study at the Prague Conser-
vatoire), giving nods to the “Romantic” Spanish context in works by
José Viñas and Joaquín Malats (the ubiquitous Serenata Española).
Zelenka’s album, also entitled Guitar Recital (SUB 10373), was similar,
although took a broader historical sweep in its inclusion of works by
de Visée and Handel, and its (relatively) up to date Segovia-associated
Spanish perspective (Turina’s Fandanguillo and Torroba’s Suite Castel-
lana). Both guitarists also demonstrated a tentative Czechoslovakian
nationalism in their inclusion of works by Štěpán Urban – in Bartoš’s
case, Goodnight, a set of variations on a Moravian folk song, in Zelen-
ka’s, an Impromptu.
246 The Recording Model Interrogated

The landmark Czechoslovakian recording of this period was Zelen-

ka’s 1971 album, Moderní České Skladby Pro Kytaru (Contemporary
Czech Music for Guitar), released on Supraphon 0110969, which in
its coverage of an all-contemporary program, can be compared with
Bream’s 20th Century Guitar. The LP featured substantial works by
four major Czech composers – Jana Obrovská (1930–1987), Lubor
Bárta, Jan Truhlár (1928–2007) and Jarmil Burghauser – whose mu-
sical languages were in some cases quite remote from the Segovian
Romantic aesthetic (Obrovská’s Six Preludes in particular). Some
were guitarist-composers, such as Truhlár, who was a graduate of the
Prague Conservatoire guitar course, while others were non-guitarists,
such as Obrovská who, like her British counterpart, Stephen Dodgson,
made the instrument a particular focus of her output.24 After this al-
bum Zelenka’s recording activity moved into more traditional musical
territory, with albums such as Kytarový Recitál Ze Skladeb J.S. Bacha
(Guitar Transcriptions of Compositions by J.S. Bach), released in
1978.25 Here Zelenka defers to the well-known Segovia editions of
the Chaconne and the Gavotte en Rondeau in E major. However, as
the album liner notes indicate, the repertoire choices were also untyp-
ical compared to the usual focus of guitarists when compiling Bach
programs, with transcriptions taken from various of volumes of the
composer’s keyboard works (BWV 926, 929, 934 and 940) and the
Well-Tempered Clavier. In this regard Zelenka’s approach mirrors that
of Christopher Parkening in the United States during the same period,
who on Parkening Plays Bach (1972) similarly aimed to augment Bach
repertoire through new transcriptions.

CLASSICAL GUITAR RECORDING IN FRANCE

Classical guitar recording in France can be seen to begin with Ida
Presti (1924–1967) who made a number of 78s between 1937 and 1942
for La Voix de Son Maître (the French branch of the Gramophone
Company), which highlight both her precocious virtuosity and her af-
fliation to the Segovia context.26 These took place in Paris (at Studio
Albert and Studio Pelouze) and cover a range of repertoire, some of
which emulates Segovia’s choices for the company’s British counter-
part.27 Disc K7910, for example, contains four movements from Rob-
ert de Visée’s Suite in D minor backed by the Bach Courante from
Cello Suite BWV 1009, while K8114 features the Allegretto from Tor-
roba’s Sonatina (issued with the Romance from Paganini’s Grand So-
nata). There are also arrangements of popular piano works by Albéniz
(Rumores de la Caleta) and Malats (Serenata Española) and two pieces
from Ponce’s Tres Canciones Populares Mexicanas (on K8597).28 Of
particular interest is Presti’s disc of Daniel Fortea’s folkloric-style
piece, Andaluza (made in 1938 and issued on K8087), one of the earli-
est recordings of the composer’s music by another guitarist.
France began to emerge as an important international center of
classical guitar recording during the 1950s and 1960s, largely due
The Wider European Context 247

to the efforts of producer and TV/radio broadcaster Robert J. Vidal

(1925–2002).29 Vidal began to become involved in producing classical
guitar recordings in the mid-1950s, undertaking his frst projects with
RCA France. Notable among his earliest credits is the eight-disc se-
ries of 45 rpm discs, Anthologie Guitaristique, released between 1955
and 1958, which was focused on solo and duet performances of Al-
exandre Lagoya and Ida Presti. Four of the discs in particular were
focused on duo material (2, 3, 5 and 6 were solo recordings by either
Presti or Lagoya) and comprised existing works for guitar duet (by
Sor and Carulli) and new transcriptions by Lagoya of works by Bach,
Albéniz and de Falla. Contemporary music was also represented in
the Sérénade pour Deux Guitares which had been composed in 1956
for the duo by André Jolivet (1905–1974). These recordings in effect
launched a new marketing strand for the classical guitar outside the
solo recital format which proved to have long-term viability. Vidal also
recorded another pioneer guitar duo during this period, Pomponio/
Martínez-Zárate (hailing from Argentina), who appeared on Anthol-
ogie de la Guitare discs Nos 3 and 5 in 1962. This was a long-run-
ning series of 45 rpm discs, designed as promotional tasters for new
classical guitar talent, which also included Barbara Polášek, Konrad
Ragossnig, Alberto Ponce, Alirio Díaz, Manuel López Ramos and
Turibio Santos, a number of whom had been sourced from the an-
nual guitar competition of Concours International de Guitare. Estab-
lished by Vidal in the late 1950s, this functioned (as such competitions
later did for the Naxos label in the 1990s), as a vital supply line of
new classical guitar talent to the recording industry. The discs were
attractively packaged with a cover photo and liner notes which typi-
cally reproduced enthusiastic endorsements from eminent musicians
of the period including Yehudi Menuhin, Maurice Ohana and Igor
Markevitch. Some of these recordings were also compiled onto the
LPs released in the RCA Masters of the Guitar series (1964), which
again were intended as introductory tasters. Among the guitarists who
achieved wider international exposure through the Masters of the Gui-
tar series were Duo Presti–Lagoya (Vol 1) and on Vols 2 and 3, Duo
Pomponio/Martínez-Zárate (appearing on both discs), Manuel López
Ramos, Konrad Ragossnig and Alirio Díaz. The Anthologie de la Gui-
tare and Masters of the Guitars series can be seen as forerunners to
Vidal’s most important project, Panorama de la Guitare, for which a
number of the artists who were showcased on these earlier recordings
were re-engaged.
Panorama de la Guitare, produced in collaboration with the
French Erato label from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, was a
groundbreaking initiative in classical guitar recording which sign-
ifcantly widened the scope of the classical guitar album. Vidal dealt
with the conceptual and presentational aspects of the series, includ-
ing the extensive liner notes (printed in French only) for each gatefold
release, which provided an important scholarly setting. Production of
the recordings was undertaken by Michel Garcin, a key fgure in the
248 The Recording Model Interrogated

development of Erato’s profle, who with his engineer Guy LaPorte,

cultivated a distinguished location-based recording aesthetic through
the use of a number of Parisian churches. The series eventually totaled
24 LPs (re-named from its sixteenth volume onwards as Florilège de
la Guitare) which were released between 1969 and 1978, showcasing
(in comparison to the single-artist focus of other companies) many
different guitarists and a broad range of repertoire. Latin American
performers are a particularly strong presence within the series, and
were able to promote the music of their respective countries repeatedly
in their recordings. As well as adopting the historical recital model for
many discs, the series also prioritized album concepts with strong iden-
tities which were focused, for example, on a single composer, a single
geographical territory, a single musical period or a particular type of
classical guitar work (such as the étude or variation set).
The emphasis of the series on Latin American repertoire was appar-
ent from the frst volume (released in 1969), which featured Turibio San-
tos, a key exponent of Brazilian guitar music at this time, in a complete
recording of Villa-Lobos’s 12 Estudos. Villa-Lobos was also the focus
of Santos’s contribution to the ffth volume of the series (1970), which
considered works for larger forces – the Concerto for Guitar and Small
Orchestra (the frst recording to follow Laurindo Almeida’s premier for
Capitol in 1966), and the rarely heard small ensemble work, the Sexteto
Mistico.30 His program on the twentieth volume, Musique Brésilienne
(1976), expanded to include the wider panorama of Brazilian music,
balancing popular accessible favorites by Villa-Lobos and João Pernam-
buco with more challenging contemporary guitar works by Almeida
Prado, Edino Krieger and Marlos Nobre. He also covered the Latin
American continent more broadly on volume 9, playing pieces by Leo
Brouwer (Elogio de la Danza), Barrios (La Catedral), Antonio Lauro
and Guido Santórsola. Representing the Rio de la Plata in the series was
the Uruguayan guitarist Óscar Cáceres who also contributed a number
of albums. He gave a broad historical survey of the continent on Trésors
d’Amérique Latine (volume 22) covering composers of Argentina, Para-
guay, Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil and Cuba and recorded an important LP
devoted to Leo Brouwer’s music (volume 13). In addition Santos and
Cáceres each recorded discs focused on European repertoire, embracing
music of Spanish, Italian, French and German origin (including Bach).
They also made recordings as a duo (volumes 14 and 24), complement-
ing the Duo Pomponio/Martínez-Zárate’s performances of Torroba du-
ets on volume 1. Other signifcant Latin American contributions came
from Leo Brouwer, who recorded two discs, one of Scarlatti’s works and
the other of his own music (Les Classiques de Cuba), and Maria Luisa
Anido, who in 1972 recorded a selection of pieces for volume 11 (aptly
entitled Grande Dame de la Guitare). Like Rey de la Torre’s recordings,
Anido’s stands as an important document of the Llobet tradition as
well as providing a rare snapshot of her technically fawless playing in
later life (at age 65). Betho Davezac, a Uruguayan guitarist and Con-
cours International competition winner (1966), in an apparent nod to
The Wider European Context 249

Bream, recorded an album of Elizabethan-era English music (volume

15). His second volume, Variations sur la Guitare (volume 21), focused
on notable guitar works in theme and variation form, including modern
British music by Carey Blyton and Lennox Berkeley. Only two of the
artists who recorded for the Erato series were of European origin them-
selves – Barbara Polášek (Germany) and Konrad Ragossnig (Austria) –
and their discs are concerned, perhaps unsurprisingly given these artists’
musical backgrounds, with early music of the Renaissance and Baroque
periods. Santos also contributed the only recording exclusively devoted
to French music, Musique Française pour Guitare (volume 12) which
brought together several important contemporary guitar works by
Roussel, Poulenc, Sauget (a prolifc composer for guitar), Milhaud and
Jolivet.
Outside the activities of Erato at this time, the most important re-
cord labels involved in recording French (or France-based) classical
guitarists during the 1960s and 1970s were Harmonia Mundi, Arion,
RCA France and Philips. The Harmonia Mundi label is notable for
its four volume series of Guitare recital discs by French guitarist René
Bartoli (1938–2011) released in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bartoli
was another Concours International de Guitare prize winner (1959),
whose success had enabled him to study for a period with Segovia, Ida
Presti and Alexandre Lagoya. Segovia’s infuence is readily apparent in
the repertoire choices for his albums – Sor, Tárrega, Albéniz transcrip-
tions and Baroque-era material including de Visée, Bach, Scarlatti,
Weiss, Rameau and Handel. Guitare 3 (HM 751) departs into less ob-
vious territory with music by Victorian-era British guitarist-composer
Ernest Shand (Chanson, Prélude and Impromptu), whose pieces had
featured in Bream’s early recitals, and Italian guitarist/luthier Luigi
Mozzani (1896–1943). Bartoli’s recordings also included some Latin
American music – Antonio Lauro (an infuence of Díaz perhaps), and
especially Villa-Lobos – and, on the Guitare 2 and Guitare 4 albums,
his own compositions. His Guitare 4 disc was re-issued for distribu-
tion outside France by RCA (LSB 4032) and subsequently reviewed
in Gramophone in September 1971. Here the critic praised Bartoli’s
abilities as a performer but drew attention to the usual issues with the
now over-worked miscellany repertoire program:

A combination of easy musicality and extreme precision marks

almost everything he does here, and, as ever with outstanding gui-
tarists, one regrets that he is condemned largely to a diet of odds
and ends …. The facile charm of Tárrega’s Capricho Arabe, like-
wise, can rarely have been put over more persuasively than this,
but, like Lauro’s Valses Vénézuéliennes, it is merely a piece of light
music. Even Villa-Lobos achieves nothing in Choro, the melody by
Pernambuco from which it derives being too banal. Yet at least one
can end by saying how delightful Villa-Lobos’s Preludes are – full
of atmosphere and invention.
(M.H. 1971a: 474)
250 The Recording Model Interrogated

On the album sleeve itself John Duarte provided an interesting pro-

gram note (derived from an earlier article) in which he noted Bartoli’s
similarity to Segovia in terms of his capacity for comparable tone pro-
duction, but also where he differed in musical terms:

It is no surprise to learn from him that Segovia’s twin tenets, tone

production and subservience of technique to musical truth are his
lodestars. Musically he is a classicist with a warm heart, whose
encapsulated Romantic alter ego is allowed out only on promise
of good behaviour; his playing is poised and tightly controlled but
without feeling of constraint, free from the Romantic excess that
often spoils the interpretations of those who are seduced by the
sound of the guitar.
(Duarte 1971c)

Bartoli’s more measured style can be seen in contrast with his contem-
porary Sebastian Maroto (b. 1930), a Spanish ex-pat of Andalusian
origin (Granada) resident in France, who recorded for a number of
French companies from the late 1950s through to the 1970s, includ-
ing Pathé, Harmonia Mundi, Barclay (affliated to the Arion label)
and Escargot. These typically took the miscellany recital structure
as a model and included discs of Spanish repertoire classics – see La
Guitare Espagnole (Harmonia Mundi, 1963) – and variations on this
such as Musique de France a la Guitare (Barclay, 1963), which focused
on pieces by French composers such as de Visée and Rameau. Like
Bartoli, Maroto also included a number of his own compositions on
his albums, a strategy somewhat at odds with the marketplace model
for classical guitar recordings at this time which tended to play down
performer self-indulgence in favor of the approved canon. Maroto’s
performances were also characterized by a certain rhythmic exagger-
ation and elasticity of tempo, which suggested an affliation with the
nineteenth-century performance aesthetic advocated by Segovia. As
this way of playing was by the 1960s beginning to be regarded as out-
moded (even when practiced by Segovia), Maroto frequently invoked
the ire of his critics. For example, referring to Maroto’s recital disc,
Pathé DT 1028 (1957), Carl Miller (of Guitar Review) wrote, “To my
ears, Maroto plays as if he learned to read notes in an attic, and no
instruction in metrical and rhythmical values. Each performance is a
personal whim which bears no relation to the dictates of style” (1960:
29). A Gramophone reviewer of Maroto’s later LP, Guitar Recital (Poly-
dor 583720), observed the persistence of these traits:

Maroto offers a good command of colour but very little of rhythm,

allowing the more modern music often to sound scrappy and the
classical to be unstylish in an unnerving degree: time immobil-
ises indeed. Perhaps his own pieces come off best; they are quite
attractive.
(M.M. 1969: 1451)
The Wider European Context 251

The Philips label is associated with the career of Alexandre Lagoya

(1929–1999), the most important French guitarist of the mid-twenti-
eth century and a key representative of the Segovian perspective. La-
goya, who was of Egyptian origin, had concertized for a number of
years around the Middle East before moving to Paris in 1950 (Wise-
man 1986). He frst became known to the public through his work
with Ida Presti whose concerts and recordings established the mod-
ern duo format, and his frst discs with Philips in the 1960s were fo-
cused on promoting the Presti–Lagoya repertoire. After Presti’s death
in 1967 Lagoya undertook a large number of solo recordings for the
label during the 1970s. These refect a close adherence to the historical
repertoire traditions associated with Segovia who had been an import-
ant formative infuence on Lagoya. Album program structures are of
the Segovian “recital” character focusing upon short self-contained
pieces and excerpts (see the 1973 album Viva Lagoya!, for example).
Frequently featured are transcriptions (often Lagoya’s own) of music
from the Spanish vihuelists to the Baroque (Bach, Weiss, Domenico
Scarlatti) and nineteenth-century Spanish guitarist composers (Sor,
Tárrega and arrangements of Albéniz). The contemporary composers
that appear occasionally in Lagoya’s output – such as Torroba, Turina
and Ponce – also imply the Segovian context and cohere with the tra-
ditional leanings of Lagoya’s repertoire. Among the more substantial
solo works recorded are Turina’s Sonata Op. 61, which appears on
L’extraordinaire Alexandre Lagoya (1970) and Torroba’s Sonatina in
A, which is included on Oeuvres de… (1974). Lagoya was also drawn
to the music of Villa-Lobos (with whom Lagoya had studied), making
his Five Preludes the focus of Side 2 of Alexandre Lagoya Joue Sor et
Villa-Lobos (1975). Outside the solo context he added new interpreta-
tions of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and Fantasía para un Gentil-
hombre to the recorded canon in 1972 and four Vivaldi Concertos with
the Orchestre Pro Arte de Munich/Kurt Redel in 1977. On the whole
Lagoya’s attitude in his album programming cohered closely with his
public recital strategy, which aimed to prioritize the standard reper-
toire known to audiences:

One has the responsibility to please an audience that has paid to

come and listen. The general audience wants to be pleased, not to
have education forced on them, having to listen to pieces that are
alien to their taste and understanding…One cannot make a living
playing to specialists and critics. Remember that the great names
of the past, people like Heifetz, Rubinstein and Segovia too, made
their name not with contemporary compositions, but with the
standard repertoire. They played Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt and
Chopin, rather than avant-garde.
(Kerstens 1990b: 36)

While such a position on the repertoire was already becoming

outmoded when Lagoya released his frst solo recordings in the early
252 The Recording Model Interrogated

1970s, he continued to resist the trends in progressive repertoire

programming that were beginning to have a marked effect upon the
younger generation of guitarists. One notable deviation into more ad-
venturous musical territory, however, was his recording (for RCA) of
Claude Bolling’s Concerto for Classic Guitar and Jazz Piano (1976).
This work, which was commissioned by Lagoya, parallels the crossover
experiments of artists such as John Williams in its fusing modern jazz
perspectives with classical structures. A later recording for the CBS
label found him reunited with Bolling on the latter’s Picnic Suite, a disc
also featuring fautist Jean-Pierre Rampal. Otherwise Lagoya’s CBS
recordings (dating from 1980) continued to prioritize his traditional
repertoire leanings. For example, his debut disc for CBS, The Spanish
Guitar (1980), further expanded his interest in accessible contempo-
rary Spanish composers, including a premier recording of Rodrigo’s
Triptico, a work written for Lagoya (in 1978) and edited by him for
publication.31
Finally, the Arion label is associated with the recordings made in the
1970s by another ex-pat Spanish guitarist, Alberto Ponce (1935–2019),
who also came to prominence through his success at the Concours Inter-
national de Guitare in 1962. In marked contrast to Lagoya’s recordings,
Ponce’s albums exhibit a certain progressiveness in their programming
and a determination to expand beyond the Segovian aesthetic. The al-
bum Prestige de la Guitare au XX Siècle (ARN 30S150, 1972), for ex-
ample, is a fusion of Northern European, Spanish and Latin American
perspectives, including Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves, Stephen Dodgson’s
Partita No. 1 for Guitar, Maurice Ohana’s Si le Jour Parait (a work whose
frst movement is dedicated to Ponce), Turina’s Sonata Op. 61, works by
Brouwer (an important early recording of Elogio de la Danza) and Sojo’s
Five Pieces from Venezuela. The inclusion of the Martin and Dodgson
pieces acknowledges the British perspective, specifcally Bream’s 20th
Century Guitar and John Williams’ Virtuoso Music for Guitar LPs, while
the presence of the Ohana and Sojo works suggests the infuence of Nar-
ciso Yepes and Alirio Díaz. Ponce’s 1974 album devoted entirely to the
music of Ohana (ARN 31935), including the composer’s work for the
guitar and orchestra, Tres Gráfcos, was also a bold step. As with Yepes,
Ohana’s Spanish-oriented work appears to have provided a vehicle for
Ponce (a Spanish artist resident in Paris), to express a nationalist per-
spective in a modern idiom, without reference to the over-cooked clichés
of the nineteenth-century transcribed canon. A subsequent Ponce LP,
Sourire de la Guitare (Arion, 1976), continued to refect this orientation
in its modern Spanish and Latin American perspectives.

NOTES
1. For example, Asencio’s piece, Collectici intim, appears on Yepes’ 1972 al-
bum, Música Catalana (DGG 2530 273), while Palau’s Concerto Levan-
tino appears on London CM 9270 (c. 1959).
2. Yepes’ 1958 “Jeux Interdits” soundtrack EP was also re-issued on a later
recital disc of mainly Baroque-era music (Decca 115.008).
The Wider European Context 253

3. An imprint of the Decca label.

4. L.S. (1954: 311), for example, described Yepes as “a clean fngered (though
not infallible) player with a rather academic approach”.
5. With the Orchestre National d’Espagne conducted by Rafaël Fruhbeck.
6. For a detailed discussion of the history of DGG, see Louis et al. (2009).
7. It is instructive to compare Yepes’ DGG recordings with those made for
the label by Siegfried Behrend during the same period. These, in com-
parison, often appear to be more closely recorded and possess a “drier”
acoustic character.
8. With the Orquesta Sinfónica R.T.V. Española under Odon Alonso. The
1972 recordings of the Bacarisse/Halffter concertos were also made in
this studio with the same conductor and orchestra.
9. Behrend’s 1966 recording for DGG, engineered by Klaus Scheibe, ap-
pears to be emulating traditional concert hall perspective with a more
distant guitar sound and signifcantly greater reverberation.
10. In a 1983 interview for Soundboard, Yepes remarked that “I am very in-
terested in contemporary music when the music is good! The problem
is now that there are many composers writing bad music, but there are
also composers writing fantastic music, and this music I like very much”
(Schneider 1983a: 67)
11. Written for a relative of the 10-string guitar popular in the early nine-
teenth century. The piece is included on DGG 2531 113.
12. See Janet Marlow, Marlow on Ten (Not on Label 1983) and Anders Mio-
lin, Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Complete Works for Solo Guitar (BIS 1995).
See also Göran Söllscher, who employed an eleven-string “alto” guitar for
his recordings of Bach for DGG in the early 1980s.
13. The Gramophone reviewer (Alec Robertson) of this album in September
1951 was impressed with Tarragó’s playing although, amusingly, mistook
her to be a male guitarist (for which he apologized the following month).
Tarragó also accompanied the singer in duet with her father Graciano on
a later disc, HMV DA 1977.
14. The choice is perhaps unsurprising given that Gomez (a native of Gibral-
tar) was taught by Yepes.
15. Recording sources are Andrés Segovia and his Contemporaries Vol. 3:
Segovia and Walker, DHR 7709 (1998).
16. For detailed coverage of Scheit’s career see Partsch (1994).
17. See, for example, Ragossnig’s 1976 Bach album recorded for Claves.
18. See the 45 rpm disc, Anthologie de la Guitare No. 4 (1962) and the album,
Masters of the Guitar Vol. 3 (RCA LM-2772), released in 1964. On the
latter Ragossnig appears as guitarist in the Schubert-Matiegka Quartet in
G. Other guitarists featured in the RCA series included the Duo Presti–
Lagoya, Manuel López Ramos and Alirio Díaz.
19. Behrend had studied Spanish folk music in Spain in the mid 1950s and
subsequently lectured on the subject at the Universities of Madrid and
Barcelona.
20. Behrend also made a single recording for the Czechoslovakian Supra-
phon label in 1966, entirely focused on Baroque and earlier historical rep-
ertoire, aptly named Treasures for Guitar.
21. Behrend signed an exclusive contract with the label around 1966.
22. Reminiscent in style of the Yuquijiro Yocoh “Sakura” Variations re-
corded by Williams in 1973.
23. Segovia’s infuence dates from around 1927 when he frst concertized in
Czechoslavakia (Poveda 2009).
254 The Recording Model Interrogated

24. Obrovská was also Zelenka’s wife and an editor at Supraphon.

25. Zelenka returned to recording Czech guitar repertoire in the 1990s with
the Three Centuries of Czech Music (Punc 1991) and Baladické Příběhy
(Supraphon 1990), the latter devoted to the works of Milan Tesar.
26. Presti knew Segovia’s HMV recordings at this time. See Marillia (2005)
for a detailed account of Presti’s life and work.
27. See The Art of Ida Presti (IDIS 6642) for a digitized survey of these early
recordings. A number of Presti’s recordings for La Voix de Son Maître
during these sessions remain unissued and were probably abandoned
takes. See the CHARM website for specifc discographical information:
https://charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/search/disco_search.html
28. Ponce’s pieces had been arranged by Segovia from the original piano ver-
sion in 1928 (they were published that year by Schott) and the frst two
Canciones from the set had already been recorded by Llobet around 1929.
Segovia recorded the third song of the set, known as “La Valentina”, in
1954 on DL 9734.
29. In particular Vidal’s TV programme “Renaissance de la Guitare” and
Radio programme “Notes sur la Guitare” (France-Musique) were highly
infuential in the 1960s. See Guitar News (1965).
30. Santos is the author of Heitor Villa-Lobos and the Guitar (1985).
31. This album was engineered by Mike Ross-Trevor and produced by Roy
Emerson, both of whom were closely associated with John Williams’ re-
cordings during this period.
Part Four

The Recording Model

Deconstructed
11
Post-Segovian Narratives of the
Classical Guitar

INTRODUCTION
This chapter considers the contrasting narratives which emerged con-
currently in the recordings of British, North American and Eastern
European classical guitarists during the 1970s. These developments
can be understood in terms of a counter-ideological perspective on
the repertoire in relation to the Segovian paradigm which continued
to remain prevalent at this time. For example, a number of guitarists’
recorded programs during this period begin to be informed by musi-
cal aesthetics associated with nationally situated progressive compo-
sitional movements and the tenets of the European avant-garde. In
many cases such programs were a response to Julian Bream’s example,
as represented in his 20th Century Guitar LP, while elsewhere, as in
Eastern Europe, they developed in relative isolation from the West-
ern context. At the same time, in an echo of the career trajectory of
John Williams, a small number of guitarists located in Canada and
the United States began to look to the popular music domain (draw-
ing upon Rock, Broadway, Jazz, Brazilian music and the work of The
Beatles) for new possibilities for their recording programs. Before con-
sidering these examples in detail this chapter begins with a summary
of the situation of the marketplace for classical guitar recordings at
the end of the 1960s.

THE CLASSICAL GUITAR AND THE RECORDING INDUSTRY

AT THE END OF THE 1960S
By the end of 1960s the marketplace for classical guitar recordings
can be seen to have reached a peak of development in the context of
a marketing model driven by the appeal of particular classical guitar
personalities and their associated repertoire. In a 1966 Billboard article
entitled, “Classical Guitar Disks Ride High with String of Big Sales
Victories”, Fred Kirby drew attention to the high profle successes
of Bream, Williams and Segovia, the recent recordings made by the
Duo Presti–Lagoya and the Romeros for the Mercury label, as well as

257
258 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Laurindo Almeida’s classically-oriented discs for Capitol, such as the

Concerto de Copacabana, and his 1965 pop crossover album, Sueños.
In addition, Kirby drew attention to artists recording on the more
prominent independent labels operating during this period, including
Rey de la Torre (Epic), Alirio Díaz and Karl Scheit (Vanguard). Kirby
attributed the success of recordings by artists such as Bream and Sego-
via to the fact that they had been actively focused on “increasing the
available guitar literature” either through commissioning new music,
or by diversifying into other areas of plucked string performance as
Bream had done with the lute (1966: 48). Similarly, in a 1972 article for
Guitar Player magazine, Pierre Bourdain, a music industry veteran and
Director of Merchandising at Columbia Records, pointed out that the
health of the marketplace for classical guitar recordings in the early
1970s could be observed in the fact that “today every major record
company has its house guitarist, all of whom are excellent” (Aikin
1972: 18), citing Bream (RCA), Williams (Columbia), Segovia (Decca/
MCA), Yepes (Deutsche Grammophon) and Parkening (Angel). He
also remarked upon the importance of this factor to the sustainability
of the marketplace for the instrument:

Classical guitar records have traditionally sold well, and this goes
back to my early experience when they were 78 rpm records. There
was always a market for good classical guitarists from the frst
Segovia records which were 78s, all through the years when we’ve
had such good guitarists as Narciso Yepes, Julian Bream, Christo-
pher Parkening and so on.
(Aikin 1972: 18)

Bourdain also noted that, in contrast to the popular music industry

where recordings typically served as a means of developing an artist’s
profle, the marketing of classical guitar recordings (as well as classical
music recordings in general) continued to rely heavily upon reputa-
tions had been established and subsequently sustained through con-
certizing: “Generally a new artist cannot sell alone on records, he has
to be visible in the concert business as well” (1972: 37).
It was also apparent that there was a close relationship between the
status of a particular “house” guitarist and the nature of what poten-
tially could be recorded and released. In most cases record companies
deferred to the tried and tested when signing new artists – namely, re-
cital discs that operated within the confnes of the Segovian historical
repertoire pattern, or recordings of the most popular concertos, such
as the Concierto de Aranjuez. They were only happy to entertain devi-
ations from the norm if their artist’s reputation merited it. In Bour-
dain’s words, record company commitment to promoting an album
depended upon “factors of repertoire, artist and commercial popular-
ity” and, where more “esoteric” recordings are concerned, “it depends
on the repertoire, assuming of course that the guitar is marketable,
which is very true of guitarists of the stature of Julian Bream and John
Post-Segovian Narratives 259

Williams”. Referring to John Williams’ relationship with CBS, Bour-

dain commented that classical guitarists,

know what their repertoire is. They have pieces in their perfor-
mance which they regularly play at their concerts. They learn a few
pieces a year and they discuss them with us. It’s a mutually agreed
upon program. John Williams comes to us if he has a piece which
he is unusually enamored with, and then if it is agreed, the selec-
tion is recorded.
(Aikin 1972: 36)1

Similarly, Bream’s stature as a house guitarist by the late 1960s was

a key factor in enabling him to propose more “esoteric” material for
release. Refecting on his experiences with RCA in 1983, Bream ex-
plained the nature of his relationship with the label when choosing
album repertoire:

My record company, RCA, has always given me carte blanche to

record just what I want and how I want …. They may suggest
something but normally speaking they allow me to select the music
to be recorded. This all comes from many years of trust, of course,
and a certain amount of success. Obviously I know that certain
records will not sell as well as others, but when I’ve done a record
which I have really wanted to do, although I have known it was
unlikely to be a great commercial success, I will then try do a more
popular album next time.
(Palmer 1983: 164)

The comments of Bream and Williams are indicative of the extent to

which particular house guitarists were able to shape the directions of
their recording careers during this period. In effect those guitarists
who had established frm reputations as proftable recording artists in
the 1950s and 1960s now held a huge amount of sway over the culture
of the classical guitar. What they chose to perform in concert, and
ultimately disseminated via their recordings, informed the wider per-
ception of the instrument and its repertoire, which in turn fed back
into record labels’ conceptions of the classical guitar as a marketable
idea. Their status also afforded them a certain amount of freedom in
what they committed to record, whether driven by convention or a de-
sire to experiment. By the mid-1970s this A&R paradigm had become
increasingly problematic for the new generation of classical guitarists
many of whom were keen to move beyond conventional models for
marketing classical guitar recordings.

THE ASSIMILATION OF THE BREAM PARADIGM

For some classical guitarists the key to developing a more individual
recording profle was to build upon Bream’s model and explore further
260 The Recording Model Deconstructed

the possibilities for reconciling the existing repertoire with develop-

ments in progressive compositional thought that had been taking place
within the wider sphere of Western art music. By implication this ne-
cessitated extricating oneself almost entirely from the Segovian reper-
toire position, because, while the latter’s campaign for new music had
resulted in a steady stream of works that had broadened and enriched
the available repertoire, these were tailored to Segovia’s relatively con-
servative musical tastes as well as strongly associated with his person-
ality. The language of the Segovian “contemporary” guitar repertoire,
in so far as it was endorsed by him in his concerts, publications and re-
cordings, was essentially an extension of nineteenth-century tradition,
which by and large employed traditional (albeit more favorful) har-
monic languages based in tonality and conventional melodic gestures
couched within straightforward musical structures. Segovia’s rejection
of progressive compositional styles (most famously in regard to Frank
Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves) has often been criticized, although this
in fact beneftted the younger generation of guitarists because it left a
considerable amount of repertoire untouched and therefore free for
them to utilize in developing their performer profles.
As discussed, the groundwork for a progressive repertoire model
for the album program had been laid in Europe with Bream’s land-
mark 20th Century Guitar and Julian Bream’70s LPs in particular, as
well as the various DGG recordings of Siegfried Behrend. These had
demonstrated the potential for unfamiliar and often unconventional
musical languages to be convincingly rendered on the instrument, as
well the possibilities for exploiting the guitar’s technical and timbral
resources further. The rejection by these guitarists of certain elements
of the Segovian repertoire in their recordings in effect served to delin-
eate a counter-ideological response to what Stover (1979) later called
the Segovian “aesthetic power structure”. Bream, for example, did not
play or record the music of Ponce and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, two com-
posers that Segovia had elevated to canonic status. When asked in an
interview why this was the case, Bream had no reservations in pointing
out the shortcomings of these composers relative to his own musical
aesthetic:

No, I haven’t recorded those composers. I think Tedesco had real

talent as a composer, but his ideas were supremely dull … I can’t
commit myself to music that doesn’t stir me up…. He [Ponce] was
very gifted, but I don’t think he ever really found a language in
which to express what he wanted to say. I think he fuctuated too
much between the poles of Neo-Classicism and Romanticism, and
harmonically the music tends to be rather plain, and the texture
pleasing and not distinctive.
(Newton 1983: 19)2

By the early 1970s the younger generation of guitarists that followed

Bream were, through their concertizing and subsequent recording
Post-Segovian Narratives 261

projects, actively debating the classical guitar canon. These artists’ re-
cordings not only featured the most up to date contemporary reper-
toire pieces (initially those advocated by Bream), but also frequently
showcased new works they had sourced themselves through their pro-
fessional relationships with composers. For example, the American
guitarist Alice Artzt’s debut album, Classic Guitar, released in 1971
on the Gemini label (GME 1018), included both the frst post-Bream
recording of the Nocturnal and a work written for her by John Duarte,
entitled Sonatinette, composed “as a token of faith in Alice Artzt’s
future”. These were juxtaposed with several earlier pieces by Vincenzo
Galilei, John Dowland, Domenico Scarlatti and Anton Diabelli. In his
liner notes, John Duarte wrote approvingly of Artzt’s efforts to break
out of the repertoire clichés:

The composition of her recorded programme is characteristic

in its absence of threadbare potboilers, trivia, Spanish picture-
postcards and displays of virtuosity for its own sake; she has been
true unto herself in selecting music for which she has real affection
and understanding.
(Duarte 1971a)

Artzt’s recording of the Nocturnal was important in moving the

work beyond Bream’s interpretative model and into the mainstream
repertoire, where it now became available as a basis for building al-
ternative forms of recital program. The work’s attractiveness to the
younger generation of guitarists at this time was twofold. As a com-
position which straddled the line between earlier traditions of North-
ern European plucked string music (in its references to the lute) and
modern, but nonetheless accessible, post-war idioms, the Nocturnal
was refreshingly free of Spanish and Latin American connotations.
At the same time, as a piece comparable in scope and substance to
works such as the Bach Chaconne and Manuel Ponce’s Variations on
“Folia de España” and Fugue, it was a highly suitable contemporary
vehicle for up and coming guitarists to demonstrate their perfor-
mance credentials in recorded form.3 In 1974 the South African gui-
tarist Timothy Walker included the Nocturnal on his album Guitar
Recital (L’Oiseau-Lyre DSLO 3), where it set a context for new solo
guitar works written for him by British composers – specifcally Da-
vid Bedford (You Asked For It), Peter Maxwell Davies (Lullaby for Il-
ian Rainbow)4 and Giles Swayne (Canto I – Mr. Timothy’s Troubles).
Much of this repertoire was of an abstract musical character and
utilized the instrument in an often unorthodox manner, particularly
Bedford’s You Asked For It, which pushes the limits of conventional
guitar performance in its requirement for the use of a teaspoon and
a piece of paper. By contrast Czech guitarist Josef Holeček’s 1975
recording of the Nocturnal for the Swedish BIS label (BIS LP-31)
appeared alongside Britten’s Songs from the Chinese (sung in this
instance by Märta Schéle), a work also associated with Bream and
262 The Recording Model Deconstructed

recorded by him on the 1965 album, Music for Voice and Guitar.
Holeček balances these pieces on Side B with Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s
comparatively conservative, but nonetheless substantial, Sonata
“Omaggio a Boccherini” Op. 77 and his less frequently heard Six
Songs from “The Divan of Moses-Ibn-Ezra”.
Artzt continued to focus on contemporary repertoire in her sec-
ond recording for Gemini, Original Works (GME 1019, 1973),5 an
album as diverse as Bream’s 20th Century Guitar in its range of na-
tionalities and styles. She gave another direct nod to the latter disc in
her inclusion of Henze’s Drei Tentos but also Segovia in her choice
of Tansman’s Cavatina Suite. British composer Tom Eastwood’s
Ballade-Phantasy, a work originally written for Bream in 1968 but
not recorded by him, provided a unique British perspective on gui-
tar composition at this time, while the concluding Processional and
Virginia Reel by Owen Middleton contributed an American favor in
its references to the square dance. The album’s opening work, John
Duarte’s Variations on a Catalan Folk Song, which had been written
for and recorded by John Williams some years earlier for Westmin-
ster, was by this point a repertoire standard. Its appearance signalled
Artzt’s continuing association with Duarte, who remained infuential
in her programming approaches over the course of her career, as well
as an erudite author of the liner notes to all her albums. Duarte’s mu-
sic (Birds Op. 66) was also featured on Artzt’s English Guitar Music
album (Meridian 1979), a disc strongly inclined towards the Bream
repertoire perspective, which included Walton’s Bagatelles, Berkeley’s
Theme and Variations Op. 77 as well as a second recording of the
Nocturnal.
Bream’s example also helped to create a climate within Britain for
the emergence of a younger generation of indigenous British guitar-
ists who were interested in promoting new repertoire by native Brit-
ish composers. One of the most signifcant recordings in this regard
was Forbes Henderson’s Twentieth Century Guitar (1978), an album
indebted to the Bream contemporary music programming model.6
This was a unique project instigated by George Clinton, editor of the
British magazine, Guitar, whose aim was to generate a body of modern
works which were both substantial in length and accessible to perform-
ers who were not necessarily of virtuoso standard. To this end Clin-
ton commissioned compositions from six of Britain’s most important
guitar composers resulting in a program comprising Gilbert Biberian
(Sonata No. 3), Reginald Smith Brindle (Sonata “El Verbo”), Stephen
Dodgson (Legend), Colin Downs (Mosaic), Oliver Hunt (Garuda) and
John Duarte (Night-Music). The scores for each of these pieces were
also published simultaneously with Henderson’s recording, which in
essence functioned both as an interpretative demonstration of the mu-
sic for the aspiring performer as well as a recital disc in its own terms.7
Twentieth Century Guitar was considered important enough to merit
a feature review by Soundboard’s John Wager-Schneider (1980) in
which he undertook an in-depth analysis of each of the pieces on the
Post-Segovian Narratives 263

recording. He concluded by praising Henderson’s success in mastering

such a diverse range of material:

One of the joys of this project is listening to the recordings of

these pieces by Forbes Henderson. His playing is expressive and
interpretive while being beautifully true to the scores. The styles
of the above pieces are completely different, spanning almost ev-
ery aesthetic found in new guitar music. A lesser player would
have evened out these subtle differences with the limitations of his
musicality, but Henderson has digested each piece and exploited
each to its full. Quite an achievement under what must have been a
daunting production schedule.
(1980a: 177)

Another British guitarist who emerged to prominence at this time was

Robert Brightmore (b. 1949) whose widely eclectic recording programs
were also concerned to explore new music by native composers. In par-
ticular Brightmore became associated with Oliver Hunt (1934–2000),
whose nearly 15-minute long Barber of Baghdad (composed for him in
1976) he recorded for the small Vista label (VPS 1077, 1980). This was
an unusual programmatic piece inspired by the One Thousand and One
Nights, whose improvisatory style and reiterative textural character-
istics were in marked contrast to much of the established contempo-
rary repertoire at this time. Also notable for its British music emphasis
was Neil Smith’s 1984 recording devoted to the music of John Du-
arte (GMR 1006). This was released by Guitar Masters Records, an
infuential guitar-focused label founded by Maurice Summerfeld in the
early 1980s, which was closely associated with the British periodical,
Classical Guitar. On the LP Smith surveyed repertoire standards such
as the Variations on a Catalan Folk Song and the English Suite (writ-
ten for Segovia) as well as more recent pieces such as Tout en Ronde
(composed for John Mills in 1975). Smith was a keen advocate of new
repertoire for the classical guitar (see also his 1981 album Neil Smith,
Pennine Records PSS 186), recognizing that models of interpretation
(which recordings provided) were necessary to encourage the interest of
the new generation of more technically able and open-minded players:

I feel that a better understanding of technique is producing a new

generation of players who are free from outdated ideas; they should
be able to exploit the new repertoire and thus help to promote the
“serious” aspects of the guitar. At present, too many players avoid
the plunge into modern music, often because they have no “model”
(recording or live hearing) on which to base their approach to it. I
feel that the future of the guitar is closely related to the number of
interpreters (not mere copyists) available to communicate the real
spirit of works in public performances. This is an area that still
needs, and perhaps always will require our greatest concern.
(Anon 1982: 60–61)
264 The Recording Model Deconstructed

LEO BROUWER AND THE AVANT-GARDE CLASSICAL

GUITAR
As has been observed in regard to Siegfried Beherend’s activities,
DGG played an important role in setting the progressive agenda in
classical guitar recording during the 1970s. One of the label’s most no-
table non-European signings was Cuban guitarist Leo Brouwer, whose
recordings were of particular importance in showcasing the guitar
works of avant-garde composers active in both Europe and Cuba at
this time. His debut album for DGG, Leo Brouwer Gitarre (1971), of-
fered an entrée into this new sound world, combining early music and
nineteenth century repertoire on Side 1 (Sanz, Narváez and Sor) with
cutting edge works on Side 2 by Cornelius Cardew (Material), Hans
Werner Henze (Memories aus dem “Cimarrón”) and Brouwer himself
(Exaedros I). A Gramophone reviewer noted of this album that Side 2’s
music represented:

serious attempts to provide the guitar repertoire with items of real

substance …. How good it will be when there exists enough mate-
rial of this quality to enable guitarists, and their listeners, to forget
all about the sort of vapidities heard on Side 1 …. What is encour-
aging about all three works is their avoidance of the stereotypes of
traditional guitar writing and their finding of viable alternatives
(M.H. 1972c: 360)

Brouwer’s choice of Memories aus dem “Cimarrón” reflected the grow-

ing interest in Henze’s guitar music at this time (Bream and Behrend
had both recently recorded the Drei Tentos), which was later to cul-
minate in the Bream-commissioned Royal Winter Music “Sonatas”.
The album was also of interest for the experimental mixing and multi-­
tracking techniques employed in the realizations of Cardew’s Material
and Brouwer’s Exaedros I. In Material, for example, multi-tracking
assists in delineating the work’s 17 short sections (labelled A–Q), each
containing fragments of music characterized by dense cluster chords
and wide angular melodic writing common in serial music. As is typi-
cal of much avant-garde repertoire of this period, much is left for the
performer to decide: Cardew’s score contains no dynamic, articula-
tion or phrase markings and the performer may repeat each section as
many times as desired and, in an ensemble context, the sections may
also be “freely counterpointed”. The latter expression aptly describes
Brouwer’s manner of organizing the material in the recording which
appears to have been built up from a series short takes (captured in the
reverberant environment of St Michaelsheim in Berlin). In the final
mixdown these are panned either hard left and right, with the effect of
continuous variation of the guitar’s position between the two speak-
ers. Hence the recording medium afforded Brouwer the possibility of
exploring an additional interpretative strategy for the composition
within the spatial dimension.
Post-Segovian Narratives 265

Brouwer’s approach can be understood in the context of Deutsche

Grammophon’s innovative explorations of stereo in its contemporary
music releases, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen and Carré
and Mauricio Kagel’s Match for Three Players (DGG 104993), which
appeared in its celebrated Avant-Garde box-set series (1968–1971). In
Kagel’s piece, for example, spatial elements are a key part of the work’s
conception, which is envisioned (according to the album’s liner notes)
as a piece in which two cellists are placed on either side of concert
stage with a percussionist in between them acting as an “umpire”. To
replicate this in the recording the two cellos are recorded at close prox-
imity panned left and right while the percussionist appears to move
frequently between the speakers, engendering a theatricality that one
critic suggested made it “perfect for the gramophone” (W.S.M. 1968:
889). Match for Three Players was produced by Karl Faust, who was
also involved in the production of the Leo Brouwer Gitarre album,
and is quite likely to have introduced Brouwer to these technological
possibilities.8
Brouwer’s second album for DGG, Rara (1973), was a more concen-
trated survey of the European avant-garde idioms of the period, featur-
ing guitar works by Italian (Sylvano Bussotti and Girolamo Arrigo),
and Spanish composers (Maurice Ohana, Josep Mestres-Quadreny
and Cristóbal Halffter). Also included on this album is Conrapuncto
especial III-c by Cuban composer and electronic music pioneer Juan
Blanco (1919–2008), whose realization by Brouwer again contains ex-
perimentation with the stereo feld. Rather than offering blow-by-blow
analysis of the works on the LP, Franz Willnauer’s liner notes function
more as a manifesto for the music, attributing the “unusual amount
of the employment of the guitar itself in the works of the most recent
contemporary music” to the avant-garde’s desire to elevate “everything
that produces sound” to compositional importance:

The composers appearing on this record represent a cross-section

through today’s leading musical avant-garde. Common to them
all is the subordination of overall musical form to structural ar-
rangements, which are derived from the specifc sound material;
common to them, however, is also the downright fanatical ex-
perimenting with the potentialities of sound, up until alienation
through interfering noises and sounds produced on purpose, up
until the limits of technical feasibility.
(Willnauer 1973)

Brouwer’s growing reputation as a leading composer of the Cuban

avant-garde was paralleled by the wider proliferation of his guitar mu-
sic on record during the 1970s. Around the same time as his DGG re-
cordings Brouwer also acquired a recording contract with the French
Erato label, with whom he issued Les Classiques de Cuba (1971), in-
terpreting earlier (Manuel Saumell) and more recent (Héctor Ángulo,
Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Harold Gramatges and Carlos Fariñas) Cuban
266 The Recording Model Deconstructed

music. The key recording here, however, was Brouwer’s authoritative

rendition of his own recently composed La Espiral Eterna (1971), a
landmark in progressive post-war classical guitar composition em-
ploying a musical language far removed from the conventional me-
lodic and harmonic idioms of the mainstream repertoire. In 1975
Erato also released Leo Brouwer, a comprehensive survey of several
important works for solo guitar, including La Espiral Eterna, Canti-
cum and Elogio de la Danza,9 performed in this instance by Uruguayan
guitarist Óscar Cáceres. Among the frst major label “house” guitarists
to record Brouwer were Narciso Yepes (Parabola on Gitarrenmusik des
20. Jahrhunderts, released in 1977) and John Williams (his 1978 re-
cording of the Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra No.1, which
employed aleatory compositional processes and quarter-tones). By the
early 1980s Brouwer’s work had become a vital source of alternative
repertoire for the younger generation of guitarists determined to side-
step the musical tenets of the traditional repertoire.

THE ALBUM PROGRAM RE-IMAGINED

During the 1970s the increasing availability of new music for the guitar
by contemporary composers began to encourage a re-consideration
of the objectives of the recorded classical guitar album program. LPs
dedicated to contemporary repertoire alone, for example, precluded
the historical coherence and neatly compartmentalized references
to evolving musical styles that had previously governed the organi-
zation of recital discs. Instead, recordings now began to be devised
in accordance with specifc concepts or project objectives, with liner
notes devoted to justifying the musical reasoning behind the choices of
repertoire. In her notes for Yepes’ Gitarrenmusik des 20. Jahrhunderts
(1977), for example, Ellen Hickmann devoted a signifcant portion
of her commentary to highlighting musical connections between the
strongly contrasting pieces on the album:

The works chosen for this record turn out to have more features in
common than one might expect from such dissimilar composers.
Frequent changes of metre even in apparently conventional pieces,
series of chords in free rhythm and melodies which often have no
prescribed metre, extremely detailed instructions to the soloist and
the most refned exploitation of the guitar’s technical possibilities,
pronounced dynamic gradations and sudden changes in tempo –
all these are important features in these scores. Contextually too
they have much in common – all these works are “character” pieces
in the literal sense of the word.
(Hickmann 1977)

Duarte’s liner notes for Artzt’s English Guitar Music album (1979), im-
plied that the program’s unity lay in its composers’ propensity to avoid
Spanish repertoire cliches and speak to an “international” audience:
Post-Segovian Narratives 267

Collectively they have demonstrated that, in order to write convinc-

ingly for the guitar, one does not have either to be of Spanish ex-
traction or to employ Spanish idioms. That their works are played
all over the world italicizes the point – and emphasizes the absur-
dity of the statement, made by a famous guitarist of a bygone age,
that “the guitar in the hands of an Englishman is a blasphemy”.
The listener who enjoys the music of this record is in no danger
of excommunication, in or out of quotes, for it presents a very
acceptable face of an instrument that is now truly international.
(Duarte 1979a)

Some recordings were created with the express intention of prosely-

tizing on behalf of the new music, serving both as a model for the
interpretation of new musical languages and as a demonstration of the
often unorthodox techniques required to articulate them. This was the
agenda of John Wager-Schneider’s Sonic Voyage (El Maestro, 1981),
for example, which offered “frst recordings of music written since
1945, exploring the many sounds of the contemporary guitar”. In par-
ticular the LP was intended to complement Wager-Schneider’s forth-
coming book, The Contemporary Guitar (1985) – a survey of innovative
compositional approaches since the 1940s (Cooper 1984a). Six pieces
were chosen which refected “some of the most important trends in
the literature, ranging from traditional modal harmony, chromaticism
and melodic atonality, to the newer worlds of texture composition and
electronic sound” (Wager-Schneider 1981b). Among these were Bruno
Bartolozzi’s Omaggio (1972), a showcase of extended techniques in-
cluding snap pizzicato and crossed string tamburo, and Spanish com-
poser Tomás Marco’s Albayalde (1965) in which Wager-Schneider
employs a range of exciters to sound the strings, including razor blades
and a ping pong ball.

THE RISE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN PROGRESSIVES

In April 197810 the noted Barrios scholar Richard Stover published
an article in the American magazine, Guitar Player, aimed at younger
classical guitarists who were beginning their careers, in which he ar-
gued passionately for a move away from the “Segovia-centred state of
affairs”. What he meant by this was that the classical guitar repertoire
was being defned too rigidly in reference to European classical music
and the works written for Segovia by his circle of composers (which
he termed “an aesthetic power structure”). He also drew attention to
the “musical bigotry” that had prevented the repertoire from expand-
ing into territory outside the classical sphere. A particular problem,
Stover observed, was that the market for classical guitarists operating
within the Segovian orbit was now saturated. This he illustrated using
a pyramid diagram, at the top of which was Segovia with Williams
and Bream directly below him, and below them a host of players in-
cluding Narciso Yepes, Alirio Díaz, Siegfried Behrend, Christopher
268 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Parkening, Alice Artzt and Liona Boyd. He asserted that “the whole
classical guitar scene has become too sophisticated to accept the ‘one
supreme authority theory’” and younger players ideally needed to “get
off the pyramid” and “quit trying to sell what those up there are selling:
the excellence of playing with a certain repertorial framework” (Stover
1979: 277). The article culminated in a number of suggestions of “con-
cepts that a classical guitarist might utilize when evolving both a dif-
ferent model and a new marketing concept”. These included exploring
“newer” chamber music groupings, “such as guitar/bass/drums; guitar
and percussion; acoustic and electric duo; guitar and synthesizer”. He
also advocated pursuing “particular kinds of solo repertoire that are
unexploited and as yet unknown and unappreciated” including “pro-
gressive” material, and conceiving “a new kind of music relevant to the
popular music-oriented public”, a music “curiously classical, yet def-
nitely American and will thus involve millions of people not presently
interested in the classic guitar”. Stover’s emphasis on American music
is indicative of the general re-orientation of the center of the classical
guitar scene to the United States from the late 1970s. While the United
States had long been a hub of classical guitar activity on account of
Segovia’s presence in New York, what Stover was advocating here was
a change of musical perspective in favor of the musical culture of the
United States rather than the European culture that Segovia had ar-
gued for in his concerts and recordings.
Fortunately for Stover, by the late 1970s a younger generation of
American guitarists was emerging whose perspectives on the classi-
cal guitar repertoire appeared to be far less subject to mediation by
the Segovian paradigm. This had been catalyzed by a new climate of
classical guitar teaching in the United States, spearheaded by Aaron
Shearer (1919–2008) at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, who
had developed a rational approach to classical guitar technique during
the 1960s and 1970s. This was in part a reaction to the relatively eso-
teric Segovian method of teaching in which formalized technical prin-
ciples were eschewed in favor of interpretative demonstrations that
were mimicked by the student. With its more objective focus on tech-
nique Shearer’s approach contributed to a signifcant advancement
in performance skills of American guitarists which enabled them to
confdently take on advanced and unorthodox contemporary music.11
In addition Peabody-trained guitarists exhibited a broader and more
objective musical outlook which made them largely immune to the
Segovian reportorial doctrines. By the early 1980s two Peabody grad-
uates in particular – David Tanenbaum (b. 1956) and David Starobin
(b. 1951) – had become well established as performers of progressive
contemporary classical guitar repertoire.
Starobin began to make recordings during the mid-to-late 1970s,
including an important LP of contemporary works for guitar and
voice (Vox Turnabout TV34727, 1978) with vocalist Rosalind Rees
(recording as the Rees–Starobin duo). The program had a pro-
nounced focus on American composers (including John Cage, Lou
Post-Segovian Narratives 269

Harrison and William Schuman), and in essence constituted a tem-

plate for Starobin’s unique approach to the guitar album over the next
decade. Recognizing that his interest in the contemporary repertoire
had implications for the marketability of his recording profle with
the major labels, in 1981 Starobin established his own label, Bridge
Records in New York:

The company started as a way of getting a bunch of guitar music

that other companies did not believe in. At other labels, I’d always
met resistance when it came to recording contemporary music.
That’s not only a problem for guitarists of course. But I found
this resistance was not based on knowledge. It was not, in other
words, the result of an executive having listened to a performance
and studied a score, but rather, it was based on the principle that
contemporary music is not saleable.
(Kozinn 1986a: 75)

With the establishment of Bridge, Starobin launched a groundbreak-

ing recording initiative entitled New Music with Guitar, releasing three
volumes between 1981 and 1985. These LPs surveyed a wide range of
contemporary music, much of it written for Starobin, including music
both for solo guitar and featuring the instrument in a range of en-
semble contexts. The preposition “with” is signifcant here, because it
enabled Starobin to move the emphasis away from the guitar as a loner
instrument with unique repertoire needs to the guitar as a participant
in the mainstream of contemporary musical activity with other play-
ers. The series showcased American composers in particular, includ-
ing the premier recordings of groundbreaking new guitar works by
canonical fgures of American music – Elliott Carter (Changes) and
Milton Babbitt (Composition for Guitar) – highly sophisticated and
abstract “modernist” works conceived with Starobin’s seemingly un-
limited technical facility in mind. The New Music with Guitar series
also provided a vehicle for the presentation of new material by the
younger generation of American composers, including Charles Wuo-
rinen (Psalm 39), Barbara Kolb (Three Lullabies), John Anthony Len-
non (Another’s Fandango) and William Bland (A Fantasy-Homage to
Tomás Luis de Victoria). Also represented were European voices, such
as British composer Bayan Northcott (Fantasia for Guitar) and Hans
Werner Henze (Carillon, Récitatif, Masque) as well as non-Western
perspectives, including Takemitsu (Toward the Sea), at a time when
the latter’s music just beginning to become known more widely in the
West. Summarizing his outlook on the classical guitar repertoire in
1987, Starobin remarked:

Our time, because of the tremendous media input everyone is sub-

jected to, is one of almost chaotic diversity. The music that’s being
written is also chaotically diverse, so in that sense the music of our
time refects the situation that people are thrust into. That kind of
270 The Recording Model Deconstructed

diversity appeals to me, maybe because I’m an American – we’re

not a whole nation, our parts are from everywhere.
(Duarte 1987: 266)

By the end of the 1980s Starobin had, through his recordings, situated
the development of the contemporary classical guitar recording frmly
within the North American orbit, a position which he continued to
build upon during the 1990s and beyond. Through Starobin’s efforts
the contemporary guitar “miscellany” album became naturalized, no
longer appearing as an anomalous one-off experiment (as the record-
ings of Bream might have implied), but a forum within which the pre-
sentation of new music could take place in an uncompromising and
unapologetic programming context.
Like Starobin, David Tanenbaum was also inclined to explore be-
yond the established paradigms of the classical guitar repertoire and
develop new possibilities for album programming outside the norm:
“Segovia was such a dominant fgure for so long that people just lined
up behind him. But now there are different perspectives emerging. Each
artist has to realize his or her own creative potential and not compro-
mise” (Ferguson 1986: 97). This he achieved by situating his perform-
ing and recording career within the Bream narrative of sourcing and
proselytizing on behalf of new music by living composers. Early in
his career Tanenbaum became closely associated with music of Hans
Werner Henze, and the latter’s monumental solo work, Royal Winter
Music, which he recorded in its entirety (i.e. First and Second Sonatas)
for the Florida-based Audiofon label (CD 72029, 1989).12 Tanenbaum
initially used Bream’s 1982 recording of the First Sonata (on the LP
Dedication) as reference point for developing his interpretation of the
music, although found that the latter differed in many respects from
Henze’s published score:

There are many discrepancies between the score of the Henze and
the recording; in fact, I sent Henze a letter numbering seventy-
fve!… I was going to play it on tour in the fall, but there were
things that just didn’t work, with some obvious problems…. When
I got the record I stayed up all night dictating, and was relieved to
have some answers…I had to go with what Bream did. I decided
that some of the changes that he made were interpretive changes.
He decided to edit a few things out, maybe simplify here and there.
But there were all kinds of accidentals and things where I just had
to go with the recording. I am going to ask Henze to verify them
before I put it on record.
(Schneider 1983: 266–267)

Tanenbaum’s edits to Bream’s score and subsequent performances of

the work met with the approval of the composer who subsequently
remarked, “You understand the music perfectly”, stating that he had
“found the key to music” and “can move about in it now as though
Post-Segovian Narratives 271

it was on quite familiar soil” (Tanenbaum 2003a: 16). This endorse-

ment of Tanenbaum as an interpreter of Henze’s work in effect ren-
dered his recording of Royal Winter Music the defnitive performance
on record.13 It also prompted further collaborations with Henze,
who subsequently dedicated a new concerto to Tanenbaum, An Eine
Aölsharfe (1985–6), which he recorded in 1991 with Ensemble Modern
(Harmonia Mundi HM859-2).
Outside the Peabody orbit, another important fgure in the develop-
ment of the North American contemporary classical guitar scene at
this time was Jeffrey Van, a pioneer of classical guitar in Minnesota
(centered around Minneapolis-St Paul). Like Starobin he looked for op-
portunities beyond the solo guitar repertoire, commissioning American
composer Dominick Argento’s Letters from Composers (1968) which
he recorded with tenor Vern Sutton for the Composers Recordings Inc.
series (CRI SD 291) in 1972. His later solo album Twentieth Century
Guitar Music (Cavata 1979), was notable for its eclectic program of
works by Brouwer (Canticum and Danza Caracteristica), Villa-Lobos,
Rodrigo and Reginald Smith Brindle’s El Polifemo de Oro (linking him
to the Bream tradition). Van’s most important pupil, Sharon Isbin (b.
1956), also showed a concern with contemporary repertoire in her early
recordings for Sound Environment Recording Corp., Classical Guitar
Vols 1 and 2 (1978/1980), which surveyed recent Latin American music
(including Brouwer’s La Espiral Eterna and Canticum) and the Bream
repertoire (her frst recording of the Britten Nocturnal). Her third al-
bum, Sharon Isbin Guitar Recital (Denon 1981), featured Stephen
Dodgson’s Partita No. 1 (a nod to John Williams) and a new work by
American composer Bruce MacCombie entitled Nightshade Rounds.
The latter had been written in 1979 for Isbin’s debut recital at the Alice
Tully Hall and, in its unique repetitive minimalistic style, refected a
contemporary North American musical aesthetic that was not typical
to the classical guitar repertoire at this time.14
One of the most unorthodox American classical guitar personali-
ties to emerge during this period was Stephen Funk Pearson (b. 1950),
an important pioneer in the revival of the guitarist-composer tradi-
tion in the US context (see Chapter 13). In his formative years Funk
Pearson studied classical guitar with a number of established fgures
including Alice Artzt, José Tomás, Frederic Hand and Oscar Ghiglia
and, in keeping with the prevailing “historical composer” zeitgeist of
the 1980s (see Chapter 12), showed an inclination towards nineteenth-
century composers such as Sor and Johann Kaspar Mertz in his recit-
als (Cooper and Hudis 1984). However, his frst album, Hudson River
Debut (Kyra 1001),15 released in 1983, was entirely focused upon his
own music, which drew upon a range of styles and infuences. In par-
ticular Funk Pearson’s compositions were notable for their surreal and
often humorous titles (reminiscent of Erik Satie), which were often
programmatic in their implications, such as Brunella the Dancing Bear,
Ardea Herodias Waltz (Dance of the Great Blue Heron) and Tubéscent
(a medley of TV show music), an approach immediately at odds with
272 The Recording Model Deconstructed

the conventions of the classical tradition. Funk Pearson explained his

attitude towards naming pieces in a 1984 interview for Classical Guitar:

In my music I usually don’t want to have any of the preconceived

notions that a “Prelude” or an “Étude” would give. I mean, to call
it this or to call it that … I want to create something new. So from
that standpoint the title just isn’t important. I dislike the idea that a
creative mind can’t go to work on a title. Of course… in “Brunella
the Dancing Bear”, I defnitely do want to bring the mind of the
listener to a certain point before I start, so that some of the hu-
mour can be appreciated from that standpoint. But some of my
other titles are pretty vague, and that’s the way I want to do it.
(Cooper and Hudis 1984: 18)

This quirky and somewhat irreverent attitude towards the classical

guitar “composition” prompted favorable comment from the critics;
Colin Cooper, for example, remarking in Classical Guitar magazine
that “at its best his work has a purity of vision comparable to that of
the great primitive painters …. His work is energising and captivating,
and just what the guitar needs as an antidote to the often infated ‘big’
works that are being written just at present” (Cooper 1984: 61). In its
decidedly un-European perspective on the guitar repertoire, Hudson
River Debut was particularly coherent with Stover’s ambitions for the
American guitar scene and a provided model for contemporaries who
were similarly inclined to foreground their own compositions in their
recordings (see, for example, Benjamin Verdery’s work discussed in
Chapter 13).16 In terms of production aesthetics, Funk Pearson’s LP
was also notable for having been recorded live “to two-track tape, with-
out the use of any overdubbing or mixing techniques” (Funk Pearson
1996), lending the performances a certain unadulterated spontaneity
in contrast to the more “polished” studio productions of the period.

CONTEMPORARY EASTERN EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

Returning to the European context, the exploration of musical bound-
aries of the classical guitar repertoire was also a preoccupation of the
guitarists who were emerging from the Eastern European classical guitar
scene in the late 1970s. Like their more forward-thinking American and
Western counterparts, these artists were concerned to avoid the Span-
ish/Segovian repertoire paradigm, in this instance through promoting
ideas of classical guitar composition that had evolved in relative isola-
tion behind the iron curtain. A key fgure here was the Czech classical
guitarist Vladimír Mikulka (b. 1950), who by the 1980s had achieved
an international reputation as a versatile performer and recording art-
ist. His early albums, including his 1975 debut LP, Compositions by J.S.
Bach and his 1981 LP of the music of Sor and Giuliani (both for Supra-
phon),17 displayed a consummate mastery of the historical literature.
However, by the early 1980s Mikulka was becoming better known for
Post-Segovian Narratives 273

his outstanding recordings of contemporary Eastern European clas-

sical guitar music and in particular the works of the Ukranian-born
Czech guitarist Štěpán Rak (b. 1945) and Soviet guitarist Nikita
Koshkin (b. 1956), both of whom were pivotal fgures in the revival of
the European guitarist-composer tradition. Their music frst appeared
on Mikulka’s 1980 LP Kytarovy Recitál18 (Koshkin’s Andante Quasi
Passacaglia e Toccata and Rak’s Variace na Téma Jaromíra Klempíre)
in the context of an eclectic program of works by contemporary com-
posers Brouwer, Torroba, Rodrigo and Villa-Lobos. However, with
his landmark album, Vladimir Mikulka Plays East European Guitar
Music by Nikita Koshkin and Štěpán Rak (BIS LP-240, 1983), they
became the primary focus. The centerpiece of this LP was Koshkin’s
innovative multi-movement fantasy suite, The Prince’s Toys, a work
employing many unusual sound effects and techniques which at the
time presented considerable a technical challenge for Western guitar-
ists. The album’s fipside contains three works by Rak, of which the
most substantial is Farewell Finland, subtitled Fantasia-Sonata on a
Finnish Folk Song, described by Duarte in his liner notes as “a ma-
jor work, an important addition to the guitar’s repertory, substantial
in length and rich in emotion”. Duarte also reviewed the album in
Gramophone, describing the LP as “the most important recording of
guitar music in many years”, referring in particular to the signifcance
of Koshkin’s piece to the repertoire:

Nikita Koshkin, a Muscovite, another composer/guitarist, still

studies at the Gnesin Institute at the age of 28. Of his large out-
put of music, mostly for the guitar, little has been heard in the
west – and even less published…. Russians love fairy tales and
in this one a bored prince’s toys grow to life-size, come alive and
fnally disappear through a hole in the wall, taking the prince
with them. As a work of imagination this has no equal in the
guitar’s repertory, deploying a plethora of strange sound effects
in a totally musical way, telling a magical story with overtones of
Prokofev and Shostakovich.
(J.D. 1984b: 1300)

Mikulka issued further recordings of Rak and Koshkin in 1984 on

Guitar Recital (Supraphon OX-1253-S), the former’s three movement
Lorca and the Guitar here being the standout work, and in 1990, an
authoritative disc of Rak’s solo guitar music, Voces de Profundis/The
Last Disco (GHA) the title referring to the two extended “tone poems”
that make up the bulk of the album.
In the 1980s the Czech Panton label (founded in 1967) emerged as
the principal representative of the new generation of Czech guitarists,
including Lubomír Brabec, Miloslav Matoušek, Martin Mysliveček,
Vladislav Bláha and Pavel Steidl. Of these, Mysliveček, Matoušek and
Steidl pioneered the most original recorded programs, which often
incorporated contemporary Czech music. Mysliveček’s 1981 album,
274 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Martin Mysliveček (Panton 8111 0174) is of comparable importance

to Mikulka’s Koshkin/Rak disc in its foundational recordings of ex-
tended works by two Czech composers, Petr Eben and Petr Fiala.
Eben’s piece, entitled Tablatura Nova (1979), is a set of rhapsodic vari-
ations on an old Czech Renaissance love song with a musical language
of a decidedly abstract contemporary character. Petr Fiala’s Five Ep-
igrams, a similarly progressive work, employs extended techniques
including the percussive use of the guitar soundbox, rasgueado and
Bartók style pizzicato. At the same time Mysliveček’s disc addresses
more traditional Ibero-American perspectives in its inclusion of pieces
by Turina, Villa-Lobos and Brouwer. Matoušek’s Kytara/Guitar album
(Panton 8111 0318, 1983) also features signifcant works by Czech
composers – Rak (Petit Nocturne) and Jana Obrovská (Hommage à
Béla Bartók) – together with works by Antonio Lauro (his rarely heard
Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra) and Regino Sainz de la Maza. The
inclusion of the Lauro is here in keeping with the burgeoning interest
in his and other Latin American composers’ work in Europe at this
time. Obrovská, by now a canonic Czech composer for guitar, also
appears on Steidl’s frst album, Debut (1986), alongside music by Rak
and Martin Vojtíšek.
From the mid-1980s, Eastern European guitar music began to ap-
pear in the mainstream European classical guitar repertoire with
greater frequency. Nikita Koshkin’s work, for example, was recorded
by Sven Lundestad and Alice Artzt (both chose the Andante Quasi
Passacaglia e Toccata) in 1986 and 1989, respectively, while John Wil-
liams included Koshkin’s most performed piece, the Usher Waltz, on
his Seville Concert album (1993). Jana Obrovská’s music also began to
enter the canon at this time, appearing on Alice Artzt’s Musical Trib-
utes album (Hyperion 1985) and Robert Aussel’s frst recital disc for
the French Guitare Plus series (Harmonia Mundi 1992).

TRAVERSING BOUNDARIES: THE RECORDINGS

OF LIONA BOYD
While most classical guitarists in the 1970s chose to re-make the tradi-
tions of the classical guitar from within the established concert guitar
paradigm, the Canadian guitarist Liona Boyd was one of the few art-
ists during this period to follow John Williams’ path and situate her
classical guitar recording career in close proximity to developments in
the commercial popular music arena. While this enabled her to enjoy
considerable record sales and gain a large international audience, it
also brought the cost of alienation from the more outspoken critical
voices of the classical guitar establishment. Like many of her genera-
tion, Boyd’s classical guitar roots were in the Segovia tradition, which
she had absorbed via her teacher Alexandre Lagoya, and her recorded
repertoire was initially drawn from this context. She began her re-
cording career with the small Toronto-based independent label, Boot,
Post-Segovian Narratives 275

a label run by country artist Tom Connors specializing in folk and

country music19 which at the time was unproven in the classical feld:

The label took its name from the stomping boot Tom used to
thump up and down on a wooden board to his down-home Mar-
itime music. It was diffcult to get excited about the name of my
new record company, and the ungainly stomping boot logo on the
album jacket, but I hoped this detail would be overlooked by my
classical followers, who would never comprehend what a stomping
boot had to do with classical guitar.
(Boyd 1998: 88)

Boyd’s frst album for Boot, entitled The Guitar (BMC 3002), was re-
corded in 1974 at Manta Sound in Toronto and produced by pioneering
female producer Eleanor Sniderman. The record took a broad survey ap-
proach to repertoire, “selecting from works I had carefully polished un-
der Lagoya’s tutelage” (Boyd 1998: 88), including transcriptions of Bach,
Scarlatti, Albéniz and Debussy and contemporary pieces by French,
Spanish and Brazilian composers. The sessions for this recording also
initiated Boyd’s interest in studio based production processes, including
composite editing from multiple takes and artifcial reverberation:

My task was to play through each piece three or four times until
Eleanor [Sneiderman] assured me that we had a “perfect take.” …
Together the three of us edited the record; David Green introduced
me to the magic of the studio, demonstrating how he could splice
a good part of one take onto a better part of the next take, thereby
cutting out the imperfect or less-musical sections. He could even
vary the overall tone by adding different degrees of treble, bass,
and reverb. Before this initiation, I had never understood how Ju-
lian Bream’s guitar sustained notes so much longer than mine ever
could. Ah, the wonder of reverb!
(Boyd 1998: 88, 89)

To underline Boyd’s classical guitar pedigree, Joseph Pastore’s liner

notes for The Guitar reproduced endorsements from Alexandre La-
goya and Christopher Parkening, the latter’s presence effectively align-
ing Boyd with younger devotees of the Segovian school. Pastore also
noted that, “The debut recording of the talented Canadian guitarist
Liona Boyd is of special importance to the developing guitar move-
ment for it adds an outstanding female virtuoso to its numbers” (Pa-
store 1974). The gender motif proved to be the principal means of
distinguishing Boyd from her male classical guitar playing peers as her
recording career evolved. In a manner reminiscent of John Williams’
“Prince of the Guitar” motif, Boyd was later dubbed by a Canadian
critic, the “First Lady of the Guitar”, an expression which was repeat-
edly used in the marketing of her albums.
276 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Boyd’s second album for Boot, The Guitar Artistry of Liona Boyd
(BMC 3006, 1976) while again historical in structure was more
adventurous, featuring works by Lauro and three pieces by the
Canada-based Romanian composer Robert Feuerstein, which were
more progressive in style. Boyd also included one of her own compo-
sitions, entitled Cantarell, a paraphrase of a simple Prelude by Tár-
rega, which gave an early indication of her interest in performing
self-authored classical guitar music rather than established concert
repertoire. The album is also notable for the use of overdubbing tech-
niques which enabled her to fully realize her arrangements of Bach –
the three part Fugue No 2 from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered
Clavier and the Two Part Invention No. 8 – which would not have
been playable on a single guitar without signifcant adaptation. As
with the earlier examples of Rey de la Torre and Almeida the use
of double-tracking is explicitly mentioned in Boyd’s liner notes, pre-
sumably to stave off accusations of fakery. Interestingly Boyd is also
credited as the album’s producer, suggesting some degree of creative
control over the recording.
Boyd’s big break came in 1976 when she signed a fve-album con-
tract with CBS, which made her the most high-profle female classi-
cal guitarist of her generation. In contrast to her major label peers,
whose recordings typically served as vehicles for the exploration of the
historical and contemporary classical guitar canon, she instead used
this as an opportunity to cultivate an overtly commercial profle. This
can be seen in the titles of her albums such as Miniatures for Guitar
(1977), Spanish Fantasy (1980), A Guitar for Christmas (1981) and The
Romantic Guitar of Liona Boyd (1985), which, as Boyd notes in her
autobiography, fulflled her aim to engage the broadest audience pos-
sible with “accessible melodic pieces” and “repertoire of an emotional
nature” in preference to “more complex contemporary works” (Boyd
1998: 185). Boyd also capitalized on her recordings by publishing their
contents as sheet music, a strategy more typical in the popular domain
(Christopher Parkening also engaged in this practice with his record-
ings for the Angel label). In general, Boyd was not an advocate of
progressive repertoire, drawing the line (on her 1983 Virtuoso album)
at Villa-Lobos, Torroba and Lennox Berkeley (the latter’s lighthearted
Sonatina Op. 51).20 Discussing the meagre sales of this album relative
to previous recordings, Boyd observed that:

As expected, the classical reviewers embraced Virtuoso. In my ca-

reer, rave reviews have always occurred in inverse proportion to the
number of records sold. I can please either the public or the critics,
but seldom both. I have always believed, however, that the most
important thing for an artist is to please oneself.
(Boyd 1998: 185)

While “happy to have recorded the more demanding repertoire” on

Virtuoso it was clear that Boyd was most at home on albums such as
Post-Segovian Narratives 277

Miniatures for Guitar (1977), which, as its liner notes unashamedly

acknowledged, “does not contain any major works for her instru-
ment but rather presents some of the simpler pieces beloved by all
who respond to the magic voice of the guitar” (Boyd 1977). Not sur-
prisingly Boyd’s programming decisions invoked the ire of the clas-
sical guitar establishment. In his Gramophone review of First Lady
of the Guitar (1979), Duarte criticized the album’s clichéd repertoire
choices:

When it comes to the music we are faced with the meatless hors
d’oeuvres trolley, flled with snacks that test the digestion of neither
provider nor consumer, some of the veritable “Russian salad” of
the repertoire. In the playing there is considerable sensitivity of a
“romantic” kind, marred by persistent rubato that always borrows
but never pays back, doubtless irresistible to a general (but not
genuinely musical) public … this dated type of assemblage of vi-
gnettes, away from which guitarists are fortunately moving, is not
enough despite the (tremolo excepted) technical perfection of its
execution.
(J.D. 1980: 1172)

Duarte was being a little unfair here, however, in that he did not ac-
knowledge the inclusion on this LP of the Fantasy for Guitar written
for Boyd by Canadian composer Milton Barnes. This piece, which
is described in the liner notes as a “tone picture of Northern Can-
ada, its lakes and forests, wild animals and vast wilderness” (Anon
1979), was the closest Boyd came to playing guitar music of a more
unorthodox nature, employing a range of percussive techniques in-
cluding “tamboura, pizzicato, nail strumming and rapping against
the body of the guitar”. The musical idiom is both accessible and at
the same time distanced from the largely Romantic content of the
album.
Another critic who singled Boyd out for particular condemnation
was Allan Kozinn who scathingly reviewed her Spanish Fantasy album
in High Fidelity:

On a smaller label, Boyd’s efforts would be harmless enough. But

with CBS’s “First Lady of the Guitar” hype supplementing the vis-
ibility she has achieved on the talk-show circuit, there’s always the
danger that some unsuspecting listener might come to the guitar
through one of her glitzy albums; and if what that listener hears
is taken to represent the current standard of performance, Boyd’s
more deserving colleagues will have been done a disservice.
(Kozinn 1982b: 80)

The reviews of both Kozinn and Duarte illustrate the reluctance of the
classical guitar fraternity at this time to recognize that classical gui-
tar records had become highly marketable commodities, particularly
278 The Recording Model Deconstructed

when they drew upon a backlog of proven “hit” repertoire to sustain

sales. They had also not understood that Boyd in fact had no interest in
courting the opinions of the establishment critics in her recordings and
their desire to see guitarists pushing the boundaries of the repertoire.
Rather she was concerned with audience appeal and happy to harness
the resources of a major label to develop a profle that was much more
akin to the pop star than the classical musician. This classical guitar
“star” model has been revived repeatedly since Boyd’s time – most re-
cently in the recordings Miloš Karadaglić – where it has been met with
far less opposition.
Boyd’s refusal to be confned by the expectations of the classical gui-
tar fraternity was also refected in her various crossover projects in
the late 1970s and 1980s. An important infuence here was John Wil-
liams, as she acknowledged in a brief opinion piece in Guitar Player
magazine:

Back then, it was pretty radical for a classical guitarist to play elec-
tric and tour with a band. I thought it was a very courageous thing
to do, and he [Williams] opened my eyes to the fact that classical
musicians didn’t have to stay within the strict confnes of classical
parameters. My own career as a classical guitarist was just getting
started then, and although I was already breaking convention a bit
by opening for Gordon Lightfoot, John showed me how far you
could stretch.
(Boyd 2002: 28)

Another important infuence was Chet Atkins who in 1979 recruited

Boyd, along with John Pell and John Knowles to record The First Nash-
ville Guitar Quartet for RCA. This unique record mixed together nylon
and steel stung guitar timbres in intricate four-part arrangements of
well-known folk classics, with nods to Boyd’s own guitar origins in the
included classical material – Rodrigo Concerto and Brandenburg (after
Bach). Refecting on her career in 2002, Boyd commented that, “I lost
the classical world when I played with Chet Atkins. I thought it was a
great opportunity. I loved it; Chet has been one of my heroes but it was
amazing that the classical world stuck their noses up in the air” (Piburn
2002: 31).21 In 1987 she was involved in another four-guitar collabora-
tive project, this time instigated by Rik Emmett (of power trio Triumph)
in association with Guitar Player magazine and billed as the “Canadian
Guitar Summit”. Here Boyd worked with two rock guitarists – Emmett
and Alex Lifeson (of Rush)– and jazz guitarist Ed Bickert on a 6-minute
recording which showcased the particular stylistic approaches of each
of the four guitarists individually and then together in combination.
Discussing the project in a Guitar Player feature (Ferguson 1987) Boyd
remarked upon the distance she now felt from the classical guitar es-
tablishment and her need to explore outside its restrictive confnes by
performing non-Segovian repertoire and composing her own crossover
music (“Segovia, Williams, and Bream don’t do that”). In the recording
Post-Segovian Narratives 279

itself, in addition to playing guitar in the conventional classical manner

utilizing tremolo and arpeggio techniques, she also experimented with
techniques outside the standard classical guitar remit acquired through
her association with Chet Atkins:

One of the things I did differently was use Lenny Breau’s harmonic
technique, which Chet Atkins explained to me years ago. There ar-
en’t any classical pieces that use it, so I had to refresh my memory
to learn it again. Now I’m incorporating it into quite a few of my
compositions.
(Ferguson 1987: 74)

In the year prior to Canadian Guitar Summit Boyd had also released
Persona (1986), an album produced by Michael Kamen which in-
cluded contributions from guitarists David Gilmour and Eric Clapton.
Here Boyd moved the classical guitar decisively into the contempo-
rary popular music arena, situating her instrument relative to polished
1980s pop production values, her guitar now heavily laden with effects
and combined with a range of synthetic timbres and electronic per-
cussion. The album featured compositions by Kamen, Vangelis and
three pieces by Boyd herself, as well as music written especially for
Boyd by acoustic guitarist Richard Fortin, with whom she frequently
collaborated. The one classical guitar piece on the album – an arrange-
ment of Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra (retitled as “Memories
of a Thousand Moons”) – provided the most obvious link to Boyd’s
concert roots. However, in terms of its production aesthetics this was a
long way from tradition, featuring a very reverberantly treated guitar
accompanied by wind sound effects and a synthetic choir. Persona as
a whole exhibited traits of New Age music, an emerging genre defned
by a fusion of classical music, minimalistic textures, synthetic instru-
ments and ambient sounds.
As with Williams’ activities during this period, Boyd’s exposure to a
range of recording contexts and studio hierarchies outside the classical
sphere also appears to have engendered an interest in the practical as-
pects of the production process, as well as alerted her to the possibilities
of participation in the creation of the fnal product. Boyd recalls the
circumstances of her frst recording for Boot in the following terms:

Eleanor [Sneiderman] volunteered to produce my debut recording

and, with her mind set on simplicity, decided to name it The Gui-
tar. She secured a top engineer, David Green, who booked the best
studio in downtown Toronto, Manta Sound. Never having set foot
in a recording studio, I was completely ignorant about sound vari-
ables and microphones, so I left every decision to David.
(Boyd 1998: 88–89)

By the mid-1980s, however, and the achievement of a certain amount

of status and autonomy with her new label CBS, Boyd’s perspective on
280 The Recording Model Deconstructed

her role in the recording process was somewhat different. Interviewed

during the recording of the Canadian Guitar Summit project, Boyd
indicated the extent of her control of the production process:

I’m fussy about the kind of sound I want and what mikes are
used and how they are positioned. I’ve always been involved in
the sound that I’ve gotten, especially on my solo records, but I
don’t pretend to know all of the technical details about how things
are mixed. I’ve watched mixing, editing, and every stage of a re-
cord being made … I’ve always been involved, as far as the editing
of all my albums goes, so when I hear a guitarist say that he lets
the company edit his records, I think it’s just out of laziness. Who
better than the artist knows what they had in mind for a certain
interpretation?
(Ferguson 1987: 88, 90)

POPULAR MUSIC AS REPERTOIRE: THE CLASSICAL

GUITAR CANON INFILTRATED
By the late 1970s it was clear that popular music was beginning to have
a marked impact upon the character of the mainstream classical guitar
repertoire itself. This was due to a range of factors which had gradu-
ally given rise to a more liberal musical environment within which the
presentation of popular music as repertoire in a “serious” recital con-
text could be considered a possibility. As observed in earlier chapters,
in the broadly defned world of the classical guitar there had already
been a certain amount of engagement with popular music forms. Latin
American guitarists steeped in popular music idioms certainly infu-
enced this, particularly those who emigrated to North America from
Brazil, such as Laurindo Almeida (and later Carlos Barbosa-Lima).
At the same time guitarists active in the popular music feld during the
1950s and 1960s, including Chet Atkins, Charlie Byrd and Bill Harris,
had demonstrated that the classical guitar could lend a degree of so-
phistication to the expression and articulation of popular styles. More
recently the crossover experiments of Williams and Boyd in the 1970s
further contributed to the erosion of boundaries that had previously
delimited the repertoire that an established classical guitarist might le-
gitimately become involved with.
The principal means by which popular music entered the classical
guitar repertoire was via the established practices of transcription and
arrangement. Important in laying the foundations for this approach
was a 1975 recording by US-based Cuban guitarist Mario Abril enti-
tled Classics of American Music (Hansen Records),22 whose centerpiece
comprised two suites of music from well-known Broadway musicals –
Bock and Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof and Gershwin’s Porgy and
Bess. Capitalizing on the ragtime revival ushered in by the flm, The
Sting (1973), and the albums of Joshua Rifkin (Piano Rags by Scott
Joplin Vols 1 and 2 1970/1974), the LP also included arrangements of
Post-Segovian Narratives 281

Joplin’s The Entertainer and The Easy Winners. Anticipating criticism

that the performance of such music on the classical guitar might be
construed as inappropriate, Robert Ruda’s liner notes devoted much
space to justifying Abril’s musical choices:

Though thousands of compositions were written for the guitar

during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, it is the 20th century that
is proving to be the most prolifc period for the guitar …. A clas-
sical guitar is not necessarily one on which only classical music is
appropriate …. The classical guitar is essentially a solo instrument
and though limited in volume, it is capable of tonal shadings that
express new dimensions in music not originally written for the in-
strument. Recently, popular and country music as well as the clas-
sics and music from the theatre have enlarged their audiences by
being arranged and performed on the classical guitar.
(Ruda 1975)

Ruda then attempts to make the argument that music “from the the-
atre” is of the same permanence of classical music: “Theatre music is
often of such inspired nature that it is not uncommon for Broadway
music to be performed as a concert unlike most popular music which
must refect the temporal prevailing style”.
Contemporary with Abril’s album was the 1976 debut recording of
the young American classical guitarist Douglas Niedt, Classic Gui-
tar Artistry (Antigua S-1000). Niedt, who, ironically, had won frst
prize in the International Chet Atkins Guitar Competition in 1970,
made transcriptions of non-classical repertoire a particular focus
of his recorded output. On Classical Guitar Artistry, he adapted the
traditional miscellany format to an eclectic program of familiar clas-
sical guitar repertoire – Turina’s Fandanguillo, Giuliani’s Rossiniane
No. 1 Op. 119, transcriptions of Satie and Ravel, an Argentinian folk
dance by Fernando Bustamente and pieces by George Gershwin (his
bluesy Prelude No. 2 for piano) and Stanley Myers (an arrangement
of Cavatina which predated the version recorded by John Williams
for The Deer Hunter in 1979). His 1981 follow-up LP, Virtuoso Visions
(Antigua S-2000) displayed a stronger inclination towards jazz in its
transcriptions of Dave Brubeck’s Blue Rondo A La Turk and Duke
Ellington’s Dancers in Love (from the 1945 Perfume Suite), as well as
arrangements by crossover classical guitarist Jorge Morel of several
Gershwin songs. These pieces were freely combined with an eclectic
selection of music by Baroque (Corelli and Bach), North American
(George Kleinsinger), Latin American (Pablo Escobar) and Irish
composers. Concerning Morel’s Gershwin arrangements, the album’s
sleeve offers the following justifcatory program note:

It was quite fashionable in the nineteenth century for pianists

such as Liszt to perform virtuoso, string-popping transcrip-
tions and paraphrases of operas, symphonies and national airs.
282 The Recording Model Deconstructed

The paraphrase by Jorge Morel of works by Gershwin certainly

follows in that tradition.

The infuence of jazz is also refected in the programming of Charles

Postlewate’s 1981 LP, Dual Image – Jazz and Classical Guitar Solos
(Prism), whose title refers to the dualism of Postlewate’s musical back-
ground. Originally an electric guitarist in jazz and dance combos, Pos-
tlewate was converted to the classical guitar while studying jazz theory
at Wayne State University in Detroit, later participating in master
classes with Segovia disciples Oscar Ghiglia and Michael Lorimer. His
programming approach is similar to Niedt’s in its combining familiar
classical repertoire – works by Turina and Villa-Lobos – with arrange-
ments of popular Brazilian tunes (Corcovado and Manhã de Carna-
val), Irish music and original compositions (Improvisation on “Autumn
Leaves”) infuenced by jazz theory and improvisation techniques. The
LP also included a piece by renowned American jazz guitarist Johnny
Smith who endorsed Postlewate on the album’s cover:

Charles Postlewate is one of the few serious classical guitarists

who has pursued the use of the classical instrument in jazz mu-
sic as well as the standard classical literature. His classic playing
refects the very honest straightforward person that he is, and his
improvised music brings out the deep personal interest that he has
in creative music.

One of the most infuential crossover guitarists active in the US

during this period was Carlos Barbosa-Lima, by now a well-estab-
lished fgure on the North American scene,23 whose recordings for the
Concord label advocated persuasively for the inclusion of Brazilian
popular music within the repertoire. In 1982 he released Carlos Barbo-
sa-Lima Plays the Music of Antonio Carlos Jobim and George Gershwin
(Concord Concerto CC 2005) an album undertaken in direct collab-
oration with Jobim himself. Reviewing the disc, Brian Hodel praised
Barbosa-Lima’s arrangements of the Jobim pieces:

The Jobim arrangements … are so fresh I felt I was hearing such

well-known songs as Corcovado and Desafnado for the frst time.
The use of polyphony is striking and original and the performances
have a revealing transparency fashioned by a different treatment
of each voice. These pieces now belong to the classical guitar no
less than Ponce’s Mexican songs and Llobet’s Catalonian pieces
…. What this record does not sound like is “a Brazilian guitarist
playing Jobim or Gershwin”. Yes, the arrangements are ingenious,
the interpretations inspired; but what makes this album so special
is Barbosa-Lima’s penetration to the essence of each piece. This is
“classical music” in the best sense of the phrase.
(Hodel 1983b: 49)
Post-Segovian Narratives 283

In 1984 Barbosa-Lima continued his focus on Brazilian popular music

with Carlos Barbosa-Lima Plays the Music of Luiz Bonfá and Cole Por-
ter (Concord Concerto CC 2008), an album which had the principal
aim of promoting Luiz Bonfá’s music more widely in North America.
Bonfá (1922–2001) was, along with Jobim, a key fgure in the develop-
ment of the bossa nova, as well as a prolifc composer and arranger,
best known for his piece Manhã de Carnaval, popularized in the Mar-
cel Camus flm, Black Orpheus (1959).24 In 1957 he relocated to the
United States, where he became, along with Laurindo Almeida, one
of the most well-known exponents of Brazilian guitar active outside
the country. While Bonfá recorded very little repertoire of an explic-
itly classical nature, the infuence of his classical guitar background is
refected in the sophistication of his solo guitar compositions and ar-
rangements, which enabled his music to easily cross over into Brazilian
classical guitarists’ repertoires. Barbosa-Lima summarized the impor-
tance of Bonfá’s music to the classical guitar repertoire in an interview
with Brian Hodel in 1984:

Bonfá’s music offers classical guitarists new patterns, a strong mu-

sical message, great communicative power – in short, music that
has been very intelligently thought out. Furthermore, since we
study traditional musical forms such as the minuet, pavane and so
on, why not study those that come from Brazilian culture?
(Hodel 1984: 4)

Another guitarist who undertook to expand the classical guitar reper-

toire to include music of the Brazilian popular sphere was Paulo Belli-
nati (b. 1950), whose particular focus was Garôto. He made an early
recording of Garôto’s works in Brazil for Discos Marcus Pereira in
1986, and then in 1991 issued The Guitar Works of Garôto on the San
Francisco-based GSP label, which brought the music to a wider North
American audience. This was essentially a scholarly endeavor, accom-
panied by a two-volume edition of scores transcribed by Bellinati from
Garôto’s original recordings. In his preface to the latter, Bellinati made
his case for the acceptance of Garôto into the repertoire:

When I played some of Garôto’s compositions for the frst time, I

discovered that an important chapter of Brazilian folk music had
been neglected – a period that preceded the beginning of the bossa
nova in the ‘60s, a rich and original repertoire yet to be discovered,
with excellent harmonic and technical levels that, like Villa-Lobos’
masterpieces, should be part of Brazilian guitar literature. I be-
came determined to resurrect Garôto’s guitar works.
(1991: 4)

The growing infuence of Brazilian popular music on the North Amer-

ican classical guitar scene during the 1980s was refected in particular
284 The Recording Model Deconstructed

in the recordings of Sharon Isbin. Seeking to move beyond the Span-

ish and Latin American material she had been exploring on Spanish
Works for Guitar (1981) and Dances for Guitar (1984), in 1985 Isbin
joined forces with Laurindo Almeida and jazz–rock fusion guitarist
Larry Coryell to record 3 Guitars 3 for the Pro Arte Digital label. This
was an album of re-imagined jazz-infected versions of classical guitar
favorites arranged for guitar trio, including the Adagio from Rodri-
go’s Concierto de Aranjuez, Falla’s The Miller’s Dance, and original
music by Almeida (Brazilliance) and Coryell (April 7th and P.S.P #1).
Also featured were Almeida’s arrangements of works by Brazilian
composers Ernesto Nazareth and Radamés Gnattali. Isbin further ce-
mented her association with Brazilian and American popular music in
her duo collaborations with Barbosa-Lima on Brazil with Love (1987)
and Rhapsody in Blue/West Side Story (1988). The former was focused
on compositions by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Pixinguinha and Ernesto
Nazareth, arranged by Jobim and Barbosa-Lima, while the latter am-
bitiously transcribed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and selected dances
from Bernstein’s score for West Side Story.
In addition to American jazz and Brazilian styles, one of the main
catalysts for the adoption of popular music into the classical guitar
repertoire during the 1970s and 1980s was the music of The Beatles.
Universally recognized for its melodic appeal and harmonic inventive-
ness, this was a natural choice for guitarists keen to re-purpose their
repertoire without alienating their core audiences. Furthermore The
Beatles’ music had received a certain amount of approval from the
classical music establishment,25 enabling it to acquire legitimacy as
repertoire in a classical music context. The practice of arranging The
Beatles for solo classical guitar can be dated to the early 1970s, with
one of the frst examples appearing on John Williams’ Changes album
(“Because” from the album Abbey Road). Another early instance was
British guitarist Timothy Walker’s inclusion of Peter Maxwell Davies’
arrangement of “Yesterday” on his 1974 Guitar Recital album. Walk-
er’s liner note for the piece states that “Peter Maxwell Davies has taken
the tune and treated most of it in strict canon, making more than just
a ‘straight’ arrangement and has thereby added another piece to the
modern literature for guitar” (Walker 1974). A key factor in the le-
gitimization of The Beatles as solo repertoire for classical guitarists
was Toru Takemitsu’s set of popular music transcriptions, 12 Songs
for Guitar, published in 1977. Four of the 12 Songs are arrangements
of The Beatles – “Here, There and Everywhere”, “Yesterday”, “Mi-
chelle” and “Hey Jude” – which in Takemitsu’s hands are transformed
into harmonically sophisticated and technically challenging classical
guitar miniatures. An early recording26 of the 12 Songs was made
by Oscar Cáceres in 1981 (on Pavane ADW 7037), with the endorse-
ment of Takemitsu himself, who remarked (in the LP’s liner notes)
on his being “puzzled by and discontent with the narrowness of the
repertoire for guitar music”, suggesting that the “world of the clas-
sical guitar is walled in an enclosure which is denied all contact with
Post-Segovian Narratives 285

the contemporary”. Hence “in composing these 12 Songs I was not

inspired by any grandiose ambition. The only source of inspiration
was my humble wish to provide the guitarist installed in an immobile
world with just another window opening into another kind of land-
scape” (Takemitsu 1981). Further contributions to The Beatles canon
were made by Leo Brouwer in his two-guitar arrangement of “Fool
on the Hill”, recorded on his De Bach a los Beatles album (1981), and
re-recorded by Williams on Portrait of John Williams (1982). Com-
plete albums of Beatles’ music for classical guitar also began to appear
including Notis Mavroudis’ Beatles for Classical Guitar (1978) and
Kresten Korsbæk’s Plays the Beatles for Classical Guitar (1985), both
drawing on the published Joe Washington (1974) arrangements. Some
guitarists also explored The Beatles’ music in the context of the larger
ensemble format, such as Jozef Zsapka on his 1986 album Homage
to Beatles (Opus 9313 1706), which contains arrangements by Czech
­guitarist-composer Štěpán Rak for a guitar-led mixed ensemble.

NOTES
1. Later when asked by Allan Kozinn (in 1980) if he had been under any
pressure from CBS to record certain works, Williams replied “No, I have
a wonderful relationship with CBS. Basically, I can record whatever I
like” (Kozinn 1983a: 291).
2. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, recording the latter’s Sonata Op. 77 for EMI in
1993.
3. By the early 1980s the Nocturnal had been widely recorded by the younger
generation of guitarists, including Sharon Isbin.
4. Walker later attained a reputation as a recognized specialist in contem-
porary guitar repertoire, particularly in association with Peter Maxwell
Davies’ Fires of London ensemble, on whose recordings he appeared fre-
quently during the 1970s.
5. Later reissued by Hyperion as Twentieth Century Music.
6. This LP also had the distinction of being recorded by Bream’s engineer
John Bower in the Concert Hall of the Royal Northern College of Music.
7. Prior to Henderson’s recording Guitar magazine had also funded similar
didactically oriented recordings, including John Mills’ 20th Century Gui-
tar Music. This offered a wide survey of modern music including pieces
by Brouwer, Frank Martin and Jean Absil and British music by Stephen
Dodgson (his Study and Serenade) and John Rutter (Rondeau Caprice).
8. At the same time Brouwer’s interest in such techniques is also likely to
have been influenced by developments in multi-track recording in the
popular sphere. Brouwer’s interest in this field is apparent in an essay
entitled “Los Sistemas de Grabación en la Musica Popular” in his book
La música, lo cubano y la innovación (1982).
9. Brouwer appeared on the album in duet with Cáceres in his Micropiezas.
10. Reprinted in 1979.
11. For a profile of Shearer and his teaching methods see Lawrence (2004).
12. Danish guitarist Leif Christensen (discussed in Chapter 12) was the first
European guitarist to record the work in its entirety (i.e. both Sonatas) in
1983 (issued on PAULA 25).
286 The Recording Model Deconstructed

13. In 2000 Tanenbaum revived the work in his concert programs to com-
memorate its 25th anniversary, leading him to make a second recording
of Royal Winter Music in 2003 (Stradivarius STR 33670). In his liner
notes for this album Tanenbaum compared himself to Glenn Gould and
the latter’s re-recording of the Goldberg Variations towards the end of his
life.
14. This piece also suggests Brouwer, hinting at the textures of La Espiral
Eterna for example.
15. Later re-released in 1996 with new recordings on GSP 1001CD.
16. Verdery has also included Funk Pearson’s music in his concert programs
(Donahue 2018).
17. Respectively, Supraphon 1111 1585 and Supraphon 1111 3028.
18. Recorded in Japan for Supraphon (10 2825-111) and also released on the
Denon label.
19. Observing that there were no home grown classical labels in Canada at
this time (Canada’s most famous classical musician, Glenn Gould, was
signed to CBS), Connors decided to capitalize by recording local classical
musicians. The label is also known for its recordings of Canadian Brass.
20. It is instructive in this regard to compare Boyd’s work with her Canadian
contemporary Davis Joachim, who in 1975 recorded Canadian Music for
Classical Guitar (Melbourne SMLP 4025).
21. Boyd continued her association with Atkins in 1980 when she hired him
to edit her Spanish Fantasy album.
22. Hansen was also the publisher of Abril’s numerous sheet music arrange-
ments of popular music. In essence then, this was an album tie-in.
23. Barbosa-Lima emigrated to the United States in 1967
24. See Hodel (1984) for a full account of Bonfá’s earlier career.
25. See for example, Deryck Cooke’s famous essay, “The Lennon-McCartney
Songs” in Vindications (1982).
26. The frst recording was made by Japanese guitarist Kiyoshi Shomura in
1977 on the Toshiba label.
12
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition

INTRODUCTION
This chapter considers trends in classical guitar recording from the early
1970s to the mid-1980s which can be seen, in their focus upon retaining
and revitalizing the repertoire traditions of the instrument, to refect
an attitude of conservatism. This refers both to guitarists who contin-
ued to adhere closely to the Segovian canon and those who helped to
perpetuate the Spanish perspective more generally. Also considered is
the persistence of the practice of transcription and the growing incli-
nation to mine the historical repertoire, which served to further orient
guitarists towards the programming of a wider range of works, often
by relatively unknown composers. The role of recordings in facilitating
the admission of Latin American music to the classical guitar canon is
also discussed with particular reference to Agustín Barrios and Anto-
nio Lauro, in effect a belated recognition on the part of European and
North American classical guitarists of a long-established guitar tradi-
tion. Finally, the chapter considers developments in recording practice
during the 1970s as guitarists explored and refned existing models for
the sonic presentation of the classical guitar on record. A particular
focus here is on the “audiophile” movement which evolved from the
high fdelity traditions of classical guitar recording established in the
1950s, and the short-lived “direct to disc” fad which aimed to reinstate
live performance characteristics.

SEGOVIA’S LEGACY IN NORTH AMERICA: CHRISTOPHER

PARKENING
While there was a pronounced move away from the Segovian repertoire
position on the part of many of the younger generation of guitarists
during the 1970s, this was not necessarily representative of a consensus
amongst performers, and indeed there was arguably a strengthening
of the Segovian paradigm in response. This was in part due to the per-
sistence of Segovia’s infuence as a concert performer and teacher, as
well as his presence as a recording artist for American Decca. Segovia’s

287
288 The Recording Model Deconstructed

legacy also continued to be reinforced by the generation of guitarists

who had emerged in the 1950s, including Bream, Lagoya, Díaz, Yepes,
and even Williams, who in various ways embodied Segovian and Span-
ish repertoire traditions. This in effect created the conditions for the
secure transmission of Segovia’s legacy to a signifcant proportion of
the younger generation which manifested itself to varying degrees in
their recorded output.
Among Segovia’s most fervent enthusiasts in North America
during the 1970s was Christopher Parkening (b. 1947) whose early
development as a guitarist was strongly infuenced both by Segovia’s
presence on record as well as his direct mentoring of Parkening’s
career as a performer. An important catalyst here was Jack Mar-
shall, a professional guitarist, composer and arranger for Capitol
Records,1 who had urged Parkening’s father to “get the records of
Andrés Segovia … the greatest guitarist in the world” (Parkening
and Tyers 2006: 15). These provided the foundation for Parkening’s
understanding of guitar performance style and musical interpreta-
tion during his formative years (“my dad and I sat for hours in the
living room listening to those LPs” (2006: 15)), who cites Segovia’s
recordings of the Courante from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 (on an An-
drés Segovia Concert, DL 9638) and the Ponce (Weiss) Prelude in E
(on An Andrés Segovia Recital, DL 9633) as being particularly infu-
ential. By the mid-1960s Parkening was performing before Segovia
in televised masterclasses at the University of California, Berkeley
and receiving tuition from him at the Winston-Salem North Caro-
lina School of the Arts. In a New York Times article of February
1968 Segovia named Parkening as one of the handful of guitarists
– including John Williams, Oscar Ghiglia and Aldo Minella2 – to
whom he was “proud to pass on the burden of keeping the guitar
respectable” (Henahan 1968a).
Parkening made his frst recordings in the late 1960s after securing
(via Marshall’s connections with Robert E. Myers)3 a six-album con-
tract with Angel Records, the classical subsidiary of Capitol Records,
which effectively made him the label’s “house” classical guitarist until
the late 1970s.4 His frst two albums, In the Spanish Style and In the
Classic Style, both recorded and released simultaneously in 1968, show
a marked infuence of Segovia’s American Decca recordings in their
repertoire choices. In the Spanish Style, for example, contains Segov-
ia’s transcription of Albéniz’s Leyenda, four of Ponce’s Preludes (Nos
1, 2, 4 and 6), three Fernando Sor studies (3, 17 and 19, numbered ac-
cording to the published Segovia edition), as well as Tárrega’s Recuer-
dos de la Alhambra and the Estudio Brillante (the “Alard” study). Also
included are Villa-Lobos’ Estudo No. 1 (one the few studies recorded
by Segovia), Antonio Lauro’s Vals Venezolano No. 3 (also known as
Vals Criollo, the only Lauro work recorded by Segovia) and Torroba’s
Romance de los Pinos. The Segovia infuence is even more apparent
on In the Classic Style, which is comprised entirely of pieces either
transcribed by Segovia or composed for him, including transcriptions
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 289

of the Bach Chaconne and the Courante from Cello Suite No. 3, and
even Ponce’s re-harmonized version of the Prelude from the Cello
Suite No. 1 frst recorded by Segovia for HMV. The pieces written for
Segovia are represented by Ponce (the Prelude in E major after Weiss)
and Tansman (excerpts from the Cavatina Suite). Parkening’s situa-
tion within the Segovian orbit is also emphasized in the biographical
material of the accompanying liner notes (by Rory Guy), which in-
clude a quotation from Segovia, “By reason of his unique talents, he
belongs to that special group of my disciples of which I am so proud”.
While Parkening’s repertoire choices in these frst recordings were
quite clearly indebted to Segovia, his performance style was, how-
ever, by no means an emulation of Segovia’s. Discussing Parkening’s
approach to the Bach Chaconne on In the Classic Style, Carl Miller
wrote, “Parkening provides us with a rather fresh interpretation of the
Chaconne, one that is deeply felt and has unswerving continuity, quite
unlike that of Segovia. It is not an overly dramatic rendition” (Miller
1969a: 35). It is also clear that Parkening did not see himself as per-
manently adhered to the Segovian repertoire position. Interviewed in
1974 he remarked that

I would like to expand the repertoire as much as possible. You

know, you can’t keep playing the pieces that Segovia has played –
and after all, who plays them like Segovia? So I’ve been in touch
with various composers … I’ve spoken to Aaron Copland about
writing a concerto, and Rodrigo is writing me a concerto.
(Partridge 1974: 25)

At the same time, however, Parkening was in accord with Segovia re-
garding the boundaries of his musical aesthetic: “If you don’t enjoy
what you play, it won’t come off; I don’t particularly enjoy the really
‘far out’ atonal music, so I won’t play it” (Oliver 1974: 186).
From 1969 onwards Parkening began to work closely with recently
installed Angel producer Patti Laursen (1927–2013), who assisted
him in developing a more conceptual approach in his album pro-
gramming without entirely losing sight of the Segovian perspectives
that had informed his development. With Romanza (1969), for exam-
ple (an album whose theme is “encores”), while much of the focus
is on Segovia-associated composers and works – Federico Mompou
(“Cuna” from Suite Compostelana), Castelnuovo-Tedesco (“Melanco-
lia” from Platero and I), Villa-Lobos (Preludes Nos 1 and 3) – there is a
stamp of individuality engendered by Parkening’s inclusion of his own
edition of Albéniz’s Rumores de la Caleta and two arrangements by
Jack Marshall, one of the famous Romance de Amor in distinctive har-
monic guise, the other of the Catalonian folk song best known as “El
Noi de la Mare”. The LP’s lavish gatefold presentation again makes
much of the Segovian association, including photographs of Parken-
ing with Segovia and Mompou at Santiago de Compostela in 1968,
and a reproduction of a letter of endorsement from Segovia (written in
290 The Recording Model Deconstructed

1969) emphasizing Parkening’s importance to the pursuit of the mae-

stro’s “mission”:

Christopher Parkening, like John Williams, may happily continue

the four purposes to which I have dedicated my life: to redeem the
guitar from disreputable folkloric amusements; to create a noble
musical repertory for it; to make the guitar known by the phil-
harmonic public of the world; to place it in the courses of major
conservatories and academies in order to teach it properly to its
young lovers.
(Guy 1969)

A more distinctive repertoire perspective begins to be apparent on

Parkening Plays Bach (1972), whose all-Bach focus was suggested by
Laursen (Parkening and Tyers 2006), perhaps in response to the gen-
eral trend at this time for devoting whole albums to the composer’s
works. Here the program includes Parkening’s own transcriptions of
Bach, including Gavottes I and II (Cello Suite No. 5) and three Pre-
ludes from The Well-Tempered Clavier (I, VI, IX), as well as ambitious
new arrangements by Rick Foster of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and
Sheep May Safely Graze, which were particularly challenging in their
technical demands. In a bid to justify the endeavor, Foster contributed
a detailed commentary on the transcribing process for the album’s liner
note, in which he outlined the issues and problems encountered when
attempting to render works originally composed for accompanied cho-
ral groups effectively on a single guitar. The LP was well received in
the US, Shirley Fleming (S.F. 1971a: 72), for example, fnding the tran-
scriptions “very successful”, although the British reviewer for Gramo-
phone, echoing the critique of the Segovian “miscellany” program that
had been ongoing since the 1950s, remarked that “one does not really
like movements shifted out of context in this way” (M.H. 1974: 226).
Parkening’s next LP, Parkening and the Guitar, released in 1976, while
once again of the mixed repertoire type, pushed the boundaries further
in its blending of “the music of two eras and schools, the Baroque
and French impressionist”. Here Parkening contributed the Baroque
transcriptions (Handel, de Visée, Weiss and Couperin) while Marshall
and guitarist Jerry Hyman arranged several nineteenth-century piano
works by Satie (the three Gymnopedies), Debussy (The Girl with the
Flaxen Hair), Poulenc (Pastourelle) and Ravel (two pieces from the
“Mother Goose” Suite). The French works in particular provided a
refreshing alternative to the typical classical guitar transcription fare
during this period. In recognition of the disc’s uniqueness Parkening
and the Guitar was nominated for a Grammy in 1977 in the category
“Album of the Year: Classical”.
Parkening, like Bream and Williams, has shown much interest in
the recording process, which is frequently given emphasis in his inter-
views and writings (see, for example, his autobiography, Grace Like a
River). In particular Parkening’s attitude that recordings are essentially
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 291

subservient to the live performance places him in close relation Sego-

via. He took to heart, for example, Segovia’s idea that concertizing
functioned to “‘burnish in’ a new set of pieces in order to record them
at the end of the season” (2006: 79) and saw this as necessary to perfect
an ideal interpretation for a recording – “you’ll subtly change things
and mature with the piece, and you’ll have a much better record” (2006:
203). Rory Guy’s liner notes concerning the works on Parkening and
the Guitar highlight this point:

All have been performed by Parkening again and again in recent

concert appearances as he burnished the arrangements, perfected
the fngerings and colorings, and deepened his familiarity with the
music, seeking out the soul of each work before fnally committing
it to a recorded performance. The record is thus a splendid doc-
ument of an artist at a place in time: a singularly brilliant guitar
virtuoso in performances lovingly molded by him to give fullest
range of expression to the responsive voice of his guitar.
(Guy 1976)

Parkening maintained the view that the studio is not the place to exper-
iment with the music being recorded – issues of “musicianship, tempos
and timing” and decisions about where to “use certain tone colours”
ideally needed to be worked out in advance (2006: 202). Laursen later
remarked of Parkening that,

Chris is very laser-like in his focus. It isn’t a matter of just doing

a few things, relaxing for a bit, then going back. He’s very much
a perfectionist, concerned about color and changes that shape a
phrase. He works very hard to get all that detail; his feeling is that
records are there to last a very long time, and he’d rather take the
time to do it right.
(McCardell 1987)

Parkening also echoed Segovia in his view that technical perfection should
not be overly prioritized in recording, rather there is a need to abandon
oneself during a session to produce “the truly exceptional take”, which
will not necessarily be achieved immediately (2006: 203). Like Segovia he
worked in “long take” form, which he experienced as common practice
during his frst studio sessions with Angel (2006: 69–70).

THE SPANISH PERSPECTIVE RETAINED

While Parkening was constructing recording programs that gestured
directly towards the Segovian repertoire, other players of his gener-
ation focused their attention on reinvigorating the contemporary
Spanish traditions of the classical guitar. Angel and Pepe Romero,
for example, were both strong advocates of the music of Joaquín Ro-
drigo, each contributing notable recordings of his large-scale works,
292 The Recording Model Deconstructed

the Concierto de Aranjuez and the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre. They

were also the dedicatees of Rodrigo’s Concierto Madrigal for two gui-
tars and orchestra, which they recorded for Philips (6500 918) in 1975.
Comprising a suite of Spanish dance style variations on a Renaissance
madrigal this represented a refreshingly original take on the guitar
concerto form at this time. Rodrigo’s music became a particular focus
of Pepe Romero who in 1981 released a defnitive survey of the com-
poser’s essential solo guitar works (Philips 7300 915), and in 1984 the
premier recording of the Concierto para una Fiesta (Philips 411 133-1).
Dedicated to Romero, who also received a strong written endorsement
from Rodrigo in the album’s liner notes, this was the frst solo guitar
concerto Rodrigo had written since the Concierto de Aranjuez. The sig-
nifcance of the recording was underlined in Duarte’s attentive review
which could not avoid making comparisons to its predecessor:

The heart of Aranjuez is its slow movement (who doesn’t know the
tune?) and here Rodrigo indulges nostalgically in self-quotation,
the “new” opening melody, again given frst to the cor anglais, de-
rived directly from the “old”. Throughout, the resemblances are
strong, not least in the orchestration with its piping woodwind, but
the intervening 43 years show in harmony (the dissonances now as
anguished as sardonic and teasing), overall complexity, and a far
greater awareness of what is necessary to allow the guitar to be
heard – Aranjuez, for all its success, is unrealistically orchestrated
from this standpoint.
(J.D. 1984: 127)

Angel Romero’s 1976 debut solo guitar recording for the Angel label,
Spanish Virtuoso (Angel S-36094), also advocated strongly for the Span-
ish repertoire in its broad survey of Albéniz, Granados, Tárrega, Turina,
Torroba and Rodrigo (his Fandango). His 1978 LP, Virtuoso Works for
Guitar (Angel S-37312), featured Rodrigo’s Elogio de la Danza (com-
posed for Celedonio Romero in 1971), together with staple repertoire
pieces by Torroba (the Piezas Características, Burgalesa and the Fan-
danguillo from Suite Castellana), and a revised transcription of Al-
béniz’s well-heeled Asturias/Leyenda, which revisited the piano score in
order to restore, in Romero’s words, the “inner harmonics” of the music
that were often omitted by guitarists.5 In 1982 Romero also issued a
recording of Torroba’s unique work for guitar and orchestra, Homenaje
a la Seguidilla (ASD 4171), conducted by the composer himself.6 This
was a piece that Torroba had been working on since 1962, having been
recorded by Narciso Yepes around 1965–66 (Columbia SCE 903), but
not fnally performed in its defnitive version until 1975 (by Irma Cos-
tanzo in Buenos Aires). Duarte’s review of Romero’s disc drew atten-
tion to the recording’s importance as a counterbalance to the Aranjuez:

One of the deadening effects of the commercial obsession with Ro-

drigo’s Aranjuez is the suppression of other works for guitar and
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 293

orchestra, not least those of Torroba – the most numerous of all …

The Homenaje is a quietly appealing work, unlikely to displace
Aranjuez in public favour but none the worse for that. Torroba’s
skill in scoring (far greater than Rodrigo’s) is aided by excellent
studio balance and clean digital recording, not to mention fne per-
formances by all concerned.
(J.D. 1982b: 236)

Ironically the frst LP wholly devoted to the works of Torroba (Guitar

Music of Torroba, Saga 5462) was recorded by a British guitarist, Eric
Hill (b. 1942), a self-confessed Segovia afcionado (Nott 1979). One
of the most accomplished British guitarists of the younger generation
that followed Bream in the 1970s, Hill had from the outset of his ca-
reer shown a marked interest in recording miscellany style programs
of the established Spanish and Latin American repertoire. These were
all issued by the British budget label, Saga, and include The Classi-
cal Guitar (1974), which featured several Segovia-associated favorites
(Albéniz’s Asturias, Tárrega’s Capricho Arabe etc), his 1977 all Vil-
la-Lobos disc, and Virtuoso Spanish Guitar Music (1982), a program
of works by Turina and Rodrigo. The Torroba recording project had
arisen from Hill’s correspondence with Torroba’s son (then based in
Madrid), who had supplied him with “a pile” of the composer’s scores
(Nott 1979). From these Hill selected a number of familiar works by
Torroba which, while often performed in concert, had, surprisingly,
received few recordings by guitarists.7 Duarte commented that:

Strange then that, although this (probably the frst ever all-
Torroba recording issued) contains pieces that are all well known,
so many items should have only one comparative version – and
one, none at all. Until recently, in fact, the Sonatina was perhaps
the most-played and least-recorded work in the entire repertoire
of an instrument whose players have never thought twice about
recording the familiar. Torroba has served the guitar faithfully
(and vice versa) and it is nice to have him honoured on a one-
composer disc, a thing that does not often happen to those who
write for the guitar.
(Duarte 1979b: 234)

One of the strongest advocates for the Segovian/Spanish repertoire

tradition during the early 1980s was Bream, who in 1979 launched
a multi-volume series of recordings entitled Music of Spain. These
were conceived as a musical illustration to an eight episode TV
project entitled Guitarra (completed in 1984), whose purpose was
to trace the history and development of classical guitar in Spain.8
The series contained many flmed sequences of Bream performing
a wide range of repertoire on location in a number of iconic Span-
ish cities, including Seville, Cadíz and Granada. In the manner of
the popular music video artist, rather than recording live, Bream
294 The Recording Model Deconstructed

mimed to his own pre-recorded performances (Kozinn 1985b). In

effect this constituted a new paradigm in classical guitar recording
which accorded with the increasingly visual context of consumed
recorded music at this time. The Music of Spain LPs themselves were
conceived in relation to the chronological narrative of the TV series,
beginning with the music of vihuelists (Volume 1, 1979), Classical
period Spanish composers, Sor and Aguado (Volume 4, 1981), and
the well-known transcribed piano pieces of Albéniz and Granados
(Volume 5, 1983). Later LPs focused on the contemporary Spanish
repertoire – Volume 7 (1984), A Celebration of Andrés Segovia, dealt
(mostly) with composers associated with Segovia, while Volume 8
(1984) surveyed the music of Rodrigo,9 including a new recording
(Bream’s third) of the Concierto de Aranjuez. The process of making
these albums prompted Bream to review his earlier spontaneously
conceived performances of seminal repertoire derived from the pi-
ano literature – namely Albéniz and Granados – in order to imbue
them with “a great deal more thought” (Kozinn 1983b: 22), and re-
cord some works for the frst time:

I’ve always played a lot of Spanish music, but not as much as most
guitarists do. In fact, some pieces that are played and recorded quite
often – I’m thinking of the Granados and Albéniz transcriptions –
are works I had never recorded before. In fact, recording those
proved fascinating, because I’ve always used arrangements I
cooked up years ago, and never properly wrote down. But for the
record – since one has to provide the producer with a copy of the
score – I returned to the piano originals, and found that I could
incorporate material that made the transcriptions more faithful,
while still allowing the instrument to breathe.
(Kozinn 1983b: 22)

An associated double LP – Guitarra: The Guitar in Spain – was also

released in 1985, intended as a tie-in to the series following its broad-
cast. This was comprised of re-issued material from the earlier Music
of Spain LPs, some of which had been re-recorded to accommodate
new conceptions that Bream had formed of particular pieces during
the making of the TV series (for example the Aguado Rondo Bril-
lant Op. 2 No. 3 and the Sor Op. 9 Mozart Variations). The LP also
included re-recordings of some early repertoire from Music of Spain
Vol. 1 (originally performed on lute) to take advantage of the vihuela
that Bream had commissioned for the series from luthier José Roma-
nillos, and new recordings of Baroque era material by Sanz, Guerau
and Santiago de Murcia (played on a Romanillos Baroque guitar). In
making these LPs Bream thus moved closer than he had at any other
point in his career to the period performance aesthetics on the guitar
just as these were beginning to become more commonplace in record-
ings of the historical repertoire.10
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 295

RECORDINGS AND THE CLASSICAL GUITAR

TRANSCRIPTION
Alongside concerns with maintaining the traditions of the mainstream
repertoire, the late 1970s and early 1980s also saw a renewed enthusi-
asm for the practice of classical guitar transcription, which for some
artists became a central focus of their recorded programs. A typical
strategy was to revisit earlier versions of particular pieces, such as
Segovia’s edition of the Bach Chaconne, or alternatively to explore
the potential of canonical classical repertoire that had not yet been at-
tempted on the guitar. One of the most active guitarists in this regard
was Eliot Fisk who recorded a number of albums focused exclusively
on transcriptions of music of the Baroque and Classical periods. Fisk
situated his work as a transcriber in the line of his predecessors who
had sought to augment the repertoire:

I sort of taught myself how to transcribe really, though I learned

a great deal from earlier models of Segovia, Bream, Díaz, Ghiglia,
and various other people who had made various effective tran-
scriptions for the guitar. I would like to think that I have made
some important contributions to our repertoire through the ar-
rangements that I’ve made.
(Wager-Schneider 1981a: 10)

At the same time Fisk was keen to stress the importance of making a
unique contribution of one’s own to the transcription literature:

Every generation has to practically reinvent the wheel on its own

terms. This is why the act of making my own transcriptions is not
an act of disrespect towards past transcriptions. Quite the con-
trary it’s a recognition that I could never render a transcription in
the way, let’s say Segovia or Tárrega were able to.
(Tosone 2000: 43)

In particular Fisk’s LPs refect a strong interest in the music of Do-

menico Scarlatti (1685–1757), whose keyboard sonatas he frequently
transcribed, and Bach. Both composers are the subject of his debut,
Eliot Fisk Plays Scarlatti and Bach 8.30 Tonight (1978) and feature
prominently on American Virtuoso (Musical Heritage Society 1982)
and Eliot Fisk Performs Works by Baroque Composers (MusicMasters
1985), which includes Fisk’s own version of the Bach Chaconne. By
contrast The Classical Guitar (Musical Heritage Society 1983) broke
new ground in its ambitious transcriptions of works by Haydn (Piano
Sonata in E fat Hob XVI/28), Mozart (Divertimento K439B No.4),
Antonio Soler (three keyboard sonatas) and two of Paganini’s Caprices
(anticipating Fisk’s later Paganini: 24 Caprices album). With all Fisk’s
recordings there is a sense of a scholarly context to his transcriptions,
296 The Recording Model Deconstructed

underpinned by his musicologically inclined liner notes which impart

an erudite authority to his transcribing practice. Regarding his tran-
scription of the Froberger Suite XV on American Virtuoso, for exam-
ple, he comments:

I have modeled extemporaneous ornamentation appropriate to

Froberger’s suites on his toccatas, free pieces which often feature
Italian vocal ornaments he may have absorbed during two extended
periods of study in Rome under the great Frescobaldi. In addi-
tion, I have utilized aspects of the lute and guitar styles Froberger
would have encountered during his visit to Paris in 1652. Finally
I have adopted Froberger’s original Allemande–Gigue–Courante–
Sarabande ordering.
(Fisk 1982)

Fisk’s recordings of the Scarlatti sonatas on Eliot Fisk Plays Scarlatti

and Bach 8.30 Tonight were informed by his studies at Yale with harp-
sichordist and Scarlatti specialist Ralph Kirkpatrick (Wager-Schneider
1981a),11 whose thoughts regarding the affnity between Scarlatti’s mu-
sic and the textures and harmonic idioms of the guitar are quoted in
Fisk’s liner notes. In the case of Eliot Fisk Performs Works by Baroque
Composers, the notes were provided by Allan Kozinn, who in addition
to discussing the historical and musical context of the transcriptions,
drew attention to the “revisionist” nature of contemporary transcrib-
ing practice in relation to earlier traditions.

In transcribing the Ciaccona from the violin’s four strings to the

guitar’s six, decisions about voicing naturally present themselves.
Segovia published his choices in his own classic edition as a start-
ing point, during their student years. Today, however, guitarists
playing Bach’s transcriptions have made a point of returning to
the original versions and making their own decisions.
(Kozinn 1985a)

Fisk was also keen to provoke new ideas concerning the interpreta-
tion of period music. For example, in his performance of the Bach’s
Lute Suite No. 1 in E minor on the American Virtuoso LP, he dis-
played a certain daring in his use of elaborate baroque ornamenta-
tion, which is even applied in the famous Bourrée movement where
it would typically have been avoided for the sake of rhythmic co-
herence. This was remarked upon by Duarte in his review of ASV
reissue of the disc:

Guitarists are frequently reluctant (or unable) to embellish ba-

roque music, or occasionally do it in a way that does not suit the
instrument, but no such charge could be levelled at Fisk. His em-
bellishment is profuse and well conceived, though many might re-
gard it as excessive; the little Bourrée of BWV996, for instance, sits
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 297

on a knife-edge of rhythmic instability and sounds as uncomfort-

ably diffcult as it truly is in this prodigally decorated form.
(J.D. 1984a: 1196)

Re-thinking Bach performance practice on the guitar was also a pre-

occupation of Fisk’s contemporary, Sharon Isbin, during the 1980s.
Isbin’s concern was to improve upon her predecessors’ approaches to
transcription and performance, particularly Segovia, whose idiosyn-
cratic editions remained predominant in guitar circles. In the early
1980s she undertook a period of study with harpsichordist Rosalyn
Tureck focusing on new technical approaches to executing ornamenta-
tion on the guitar, including the “cross-string” trill (McCreadie 1980;
Tosone 2000). The culmination of this research was a new Tureck–
Isbin performing edition of the lute works (G. Schirmer 1984–1985)
which formed the basis of Isbin’s 1989 album J.S. Bach: Complete
Lute Suites (Virgin Classics). This recording was accompanied by co-
pious liner notes written by Isbin discussing the context of Bach’s lute
works and key questions concerning their performance, including jus-
tifcations for her ornamentation strategy. Here Isbin, like Fisk, was
concerned to situate the recording frmly within a scholarly context:
“In this edition, musical structure, manuscript notations, and baroque
performance practice inform all decisions regarding articulation, em-
bellishment, dynamics, tempo, rhythm, and phrasing” (Isbin 1989). As
with recordings of unfamiliar contemporary music, Isbin’s album in
this instance functioned as proof of concept for her radical overhaul-
ing of established approaches to performing Bach on the classical gui-
tar and contributed to a paradigm shift where ornamentation practice
was concerned.12
The Swedish guitarist Göran Söllscher (b. 1955), who began re-
cording for Deutsche Grammophon in the late 1970s, also like Is-
bin showed a concern with authenticity in Bach transcription and
performance, here specifcally in regard to questions concerning the
ideal instrumental medium for their execution. To this end Söllscher
released two LPs of Bach’s lute works in 1983 (410 643-1) and 1984
(413 719-1) which are of particular interest for their employment of
an eleven-string “alto” guitar, specially made by the Swedish luthier
Georg Bolin. There is, in this regard, a direct link to Narciso Yepes’
earlier recordings of Bach (also on DGG) which employed a specially
made ten-string guitar (see Chapter 10). Both the Söllscher LPs in-
clude musicologically couched liner notes which devote attention to
discussing the question of precisely which instrument Bach intended
the lute works to be performed upon, namely whether it was an actual
lute or the so-called lute-harpsichord (lautenclavicymbel). Söllscher’s
comments in his liner notes for the 1984 recording served to justify the
eleven-string guitar’s use both in practical and historical terms:

It is possible to play almost all compositions written for the Re-

naissance and Baroque lute on this guitar with only very slight
298 The Recording Model Deconstructed

modifcations. In my opinion it is specially suited to the perfor-

mance of Bach’s lute works, because it enables me to solve technical
and interpretative problems better than the [shorter] fngerboard
of the lute (52–58 cm) allows; the choice of the guitar is also justi-
fed from the historical viewpoint, as the lute was no longer widely
played in Bach’s time – a fact which he acknowledged when he
named alternative instruments on which pieces could be played.
(Päffgen 1984)

Another young guitarist who made transcription and arrangement a

central focus his recordings was the US-based Cuban guitarist Manuel
Barrueco (b. 1952). On an early (1978) recording for Vox Turnabout
(TV34738) he revisited the piano works of Albéniz (fve movements
from Suite Española Op. 47) and Granados (fve Spanish Dances from
Op. 37 – Nos 1, 5, 3, 4 and 12) giving a much needed face-lift to rep-
ertoire that had by this time been re-transcribed and re-recorded to
saturation point. Then in 1980 he responded to the growing climate
of interest in the music of Domenico Scarlatti, recording fve of his
own transcriptions on Vox TV 34770. This was followed in 1981 by a
recording of new transcriptions of the second and fourth Lute Suites
of Bach on Vox Cum Laude 39023. As Barrueco’s recording career
developed (further to his signing to EMI), his transcriptions became
more ambitious. Of particular note were his recordings of selections
from Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos (Manuel Barrueco Plays De
Falla Ponce Rodrigo, 1987) and of Mozart – the Piano Sonata in G
major K283 and the Adagio from the Piano Sonata in D major K576
(Manuel Barrueco Plays Mozart & Sor, 1988). Unlike Fisk and Isbin,
however, Barrueco did not (at least as far as the liner notes for his
albums suggest) foreground an overtly musicological attitude to tran-
scription. Rather transcription here functioned primarily as a vehicle
for accessing new material that could be situated alongside existing
repertoire favorites, thereby enabling the expansion and enrichment
of the historically oriented classical guitar recital program. Barrueco’s
Mozart transcriptions, for example, are programmed alongside well-
known works by Fernando Sor (the Grand Solo Op. 14 and the Op. 9
Mozart Variations) due to “the similarity of their aesthetic views, the
fact that they both drew upon a common reservoir of forms and tech-
niques” (Henke 1988).
In some quarters, guitar transcription also began to exhibit an ex-
perimental character functioning as a vehicle for guitarists to test the
limits not only of what was tasteful relative to the guitar’s musical
capabilities, but also of what was actually physically feasible on the
instrument. Classical guitar recordings in this context began to func-
tion as a proving ground for the viability of a particular transcription,
especially when the diffculties were so pronounced that few other gui-
tarists were likely to attempt to perform it on the concert stage. One
guitarist who repeatedly used the recorded medium as a platform for
showcasing experimental transcription in this manner was Kazuhito
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 299

Yamashita (b. 1961), who emerged in the late 1970s as the leading
light of a Japanese hyper-virtuosic school of technical guitar playing.
Yamashita’s concert performances, with their emphasis on speed, py-
rotechnics and endurance, effectively transformed classical guitar per-
formance into a sport, closely paralleling the exhibitions of guitarists
such as Eddie Van Halen in the rock sphere. Discussing a Yamashita
concert in Guitar Review in 1985, Larry Snitzler commented upon
the “circus” excitement “generated by Mr. Yamashita’s continuing,
occasionally successful efforts to storm technical barriers previously
thought to be impregnable” (1985b: 34). Not surprisingly Yamashita’s
approach divided the classical guitar critics and alienated the older
generation of performers, while naturally attracting the younger guitar
community which was enamored with the spectacle.
Early in his concert career Yamashita became notorious for his
transcription of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition,13 an ambi-
tious attempt to render a work originally written for piano on a single
guitar which made unprecedented demands on technique, including
a number of passages that appeared almost impossible to execute. In
an interview (Arai 1985: 13) Yamashita stated that his motivation in
making the transcription had been to “realize the infnite, hidden pos-
sibilities of the instrument” and “develop the wonder of the guitar mu-
sic we already have … by means of a more colourful, a more dynamic
and symphonic form of expression, and so achieve a greater scale”. Of
Yamashita’s live performance of this work Snitzler wrote:

Stunning as it may be to witness such a feat – an accomplishment

which literally moves back the limits of what until now has been
conceived as possible on the guitar – does Mussorgsky’s work
emerge unscathed or diminished? In my opinion, this music is sim-
ply too complex and too vast to exist comfortably within the con-
fnes of the guitar ….
(1985b: 35)

The debate over this particular transcription’s effectiveness as guitar

music was carried over into Yamashita’s 1981 recording of the work,
which was reviewed by John Duarte for Gramophone in March 1983.
He began by commending the parts of the arrangement that worked
well on the guitar:

The gentle, refective and skittish lie well within the guitar’s ex-
pressive territory […] and there are magical moments when the
instrument lives up to Beethoven’s description of it as a “miniature
orchestra” and Yamashita, clearly a painter of vivid frescos, de-
ploys just about everything it is capable of.
(J.D. 1983b: 1072)

However, Duarte found that the recorded medium revealed certain

aspects of Yamashita’s arrangement that were “absurd” in terms of
300 The Recording Model Deconstructed

extremes of dynamic range required to bring them off convincingly. In

his performance of “The Great Gate of Kiev”, for example, he noted
“several fortissimo passages come close to causing the stylus to skid”.
Elsewhere, “faced with a dynamic range that, at its other extreme sinks
to the veriest whisper, the recording engineers have done well, but a
little compression would have been to everyone’s advantage” (1983b:
1072). In conclusion Duarte could not help “doubting the musical
wisdom of having committed it [the arrangement] to a commercial
recording instead of keeping it in the ‘laboratory’”. Interestingly Ya-
mashita’s recording of the work provoked further debate when it was
scrutinized in reference to the published score, which had appeared in
the same year on the Gendai Guitar imprint. This subsequently led to
an ongoing debate in the pages of Soundboard (Duarte 1983d; Ophee
1987; Clinton 1987; Ophee 1988) regarding the transcription’s authen-
ticity as performable guitar music. One particular accusation was that
Yamashita had used studio overdubbing to realize certain passages,
without which they would have been unplayable, and that his live per-
formances were therefore not faithful to the published version of the
transcription.
Yamashita’s ambitious attitude towards the guitar transcription set
a precedent for his contemporaries, including Eliot Fisk who in 1992
attracted much attention with the release of Paganini: 24 Caprices
(Music Masters/Musical Heritage Society), a virtuosic re-imagining of
Paganini’s fnger-breaking violin pieces on the guitar. Fisk wrote in his
liner notes:

Little by little over a period of several years time I discovered new

techniques to overcome a series of technical hurdles that exceeded
everything I had ever attempted …. Of course, I found that by
challenging myself again and again to expand my concept of the
possible I learned a great deal from Paganini! I hope that the result
may be of some interest not just to guitarists and violinists but to
music lovers, amatrici and artisiti of all ages who may thus expe-
rience one of the masterpieces of Western instrumental music in a
new context.
(Fisk 1994a: 11)

Like Isbin’s collaboration with Tureck in her revisions of Bach, in de-

veloping his transcriptions for the recording Fisk consulted violinist
Ruggiero Ricci who had made a number of recordings of the Caprices
since the 1940s. Ricci also endorsed Fisk’s album, describing it as “an
enormous accomplishment that will raise the level of guitar playing”
(Fisk 1994a: 3).

HISTORICAL COMPOSER RECORDING PROJECTS

Alongside trends in contemporary repertoire programming and tran-
scription, a number of guitarists during the 1970s began to focus
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 301

their recording activity on the largely unexplored territory of the his-

torical guitar repertoire. Such projects were typically focused on the
nineteenth-century guitarist-composer tradition (hence an extension
of the solo composer focused program) featuring individuals whose
work was either little known to the public, or familiar only on the basis
of a handful of pieces included on recital discs. The emergence of the
trend was remarked upon by Allan Kozinn in an article in the New
York Times entitled “The Guitar Enters Music’s Mainstream” in which
he referred to a “quiet revolution” of “musicological exploration the
likes of which the instrument has not seen since the early 1920s when
Andrés Segovia and Emilio Pujol began searching Europe’s libraries for
the lost music of the lute and vihuela composers” (1979: 19). Central to
these developments, according to Kozinn, were the “new breed of gui-
tar musicologists”, including Brian Jeffrey and Thomas F. Heck, noted
specialists in the early nineteenth century composers Fernando Sor and
Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829), respectively, whose work was pivotal in
raising awareness of their output amongst performers. In the context
of such scholarly activity, historical composer recordings came to func-
tion as key sites of debate in regard to questions of performance style,
reliability of musical sources and appropriateness of instrumentation.
Giuliani’s music in particular began to receive a considerable amount
of attention during the 1970s after having been largely excluded from
guitarists’ recording programs. Segovia, with the exception of a sin-
gle movement from the Sonata Op. 15 (on An Andrés Segovia Concert
DL 9638), had recorded little of it, and for many years Giuliani’s best
known work on LP was the Concerto No. 1 in A major Op. 30, which
had proliferated on albums by Bream, Williams, Behrend, Díaz and
Scheit during the 1960s. With the appearance of Heck’s dissertation
(1970) on the Viennese classical guitar in 1970, and his subsequent work
promoting Giuliani’s scores via the Guitar Foundation of America
(GFA), this situation began to change as a number of guitarists became
interested in making Giuliani the subject of their recordings. The frst
“house” guitarist to endorse the solo guitar music of Giuliani during
this period was Bream who recorded two works – the Grande Ouverture
Op. 61 and the Allegro from the Sonata Op. 15 – on the LP Classic
Guitar in 1969. Then in 1974, at Heck’s instigation,14 he recorded the
virtuosic Le Rossiniane “operatic potpourri”, Ops. 119 and 121 (RCA
ARL1–0711). Here Bream took a certain amount of editorial license
with Giuliani’s published scores to enhance the music’s effect, including
cuts in parts of Op. 121 and the incorporation of sections of another Le
Rossiniane set – Op. 122 – into Op. 119. While a somewhat inauthentic
treatment of the source material from a scholarly perspective, the re-
cording nonetheless met with Heck’s approval, who recognized its value
as an exemplar of Giuliani performance practice.

The English virtuoso demonstrated overwhelmingly in this record-

ing how to breathe new life into classic works. (His earlier resur-
rection of Giuliani’s Grande Ouverture, Op. 61 [RCA LSC 3070]
302 The Recording Model Deconstructed

was an obvious foreshadowing of how eloquently he could make

this repertoire speak.) …The freedom of interpretation that Bream
brings to these works may make some guitarists shudder. This
writer, considering the improvisatory and episodic nature of even
the best potpourris, views Bream’s liberties as altogether appropri-
ate. The potpourri genre is just about the only one in the classic era
that permits such liberties at the level of the soloist.
(Heck 1977: 48)

Another key contributor to the Giuliani revival was Pepe Romero,

who issued recordings of the Concerto No. 1 (Philips 6500 918) and
the Introduction, Theme with Variations and Polonaise for guitar
and strings Op. 65 (Philips 9500 042) in 1975 and 1976, respectively.
These were followed in 1978 by two landmark LPs, one featuring the
second and third guitar concertos (Philips 9500 320), the other an
all-Giuliani program of solo guitar works (Philips 9500 513), includ-
ing the Gran Sonata Eroica, the Grande Ouverture, La Melanconia
and the Handel Variations. Romero’s LP covers acknowledged the
assistance of the GFA – i.e. Heck, the organization’s archivist – “in
providing material for the preparation of these recordings”, whose
scholarship also informed the program notes that accompanied the
discs.15 Romero’s sibling, Angel, also made a notable contribution to
the growing body of Giuliani recordings in 1979 with his LP of Le
Rossiniane Op. 119 and Op. 122 (Divine Giuliani Angel SZ 32376).
This marked an advance on Bream’s earlier 1974 disc with Op. 119
now appearing in its complete original form, “as composed”.16
His 1983 recording of the frst and third guitar concertos (Angel
S-37967) also demonstrated a concern with the preserving the integ-
rity of Giuliani’s music. Here he restored the development section
in Concerto No. 1 which had been considerably redacted in earlier
recordings (including Bream’s), while in the third concerto, which
Giuliani had originally composed for a nineteenth-century terz gui-
tar (tuned a minor third higher than standard), Romero employed
a standard instrument with a judiciously placed capo. Duarte dis-
cussed this strategy in his liner notes:

The object is to maintain the close relationship between the music

and the left hand fngering on the instrument; in order not to cre-
ate excessive diffculties by pushing the fngering three frets higher
(a minor third higher), he has tuned the guitar a semitone higher
than usual and used the capodastro to raise the pitch by a further
whole tone.
(Duarte 1983b)

By the early 1980s historical composer focused projects had become an

established recording strategy, enabling guitarists to circumvent what
Kozinn (1979) called the “grab bag” recital program, while affording
depth of immersion and specialization in niche areas of the historical
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 303

classical guitar repertoire. Between 1981 and 1985 Danish guitarist

Leif Christensen (1950–1988) issued a series of one-off recordings, en-
compassing the works of Giulio Regondi (1822–1872), Fernando Sor
(the Op. 6 and Op. 29 Etudes), the major works of Miguel Llobet, and
the music of the Russian guitarist Wassilii Stepanowitsch Sarenko17
(1814–1881). These were released on the independent Danish Paula
label (run by producer Karin Jurgensen and engineer Leif Ramlov
Svendsen) which, like Bridge, possessed an open-mindedness towards
projects that did not on the surface appear to be commercially via-
ble propositions. Christensen’s recordings exhibited a distinctly musi-
cological outlook characterized by scholarly research into the music
(he often wrote his own liner notes, or employed specialists such as
Matanya Ophee in the case of Sarenko) and a concern with authen-
tic performance practice. On the Sor and Regondi discs, for example,
Christensen employed an 1830 Lacote guitar, while on the Sarenko he
performed on a specially made seven-string Russian instrument. George
Warren, in his obituary for Christensen (who died tragically in a car
accident in 1988), suggested that with these LPs he was “evolving …
a whole new approach to recording” which represented the antithe-
sis of the “potpourri” approach to the classical guitar concert pro-
gramming and de-emphasized performer idiosyncrasy in the service of
faithfulness to the musical text.
In 1981 the works of the composer Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806–
1856) appeared on LP for the frst time in the debut recording of
American guitarist David Leisner, The Viennese Guitar (on the inde-
pendent Titanic label, Ti-46). This disc also included a complete per-
formance of Giuliani’s Op. 15 Sonata, a work with a reputation for
considerable diffculty which had rarely been recorded in its entirety.18
Mertz was also central to Alice Artzt’s LP Romantic Virtuoso Guitar
Music (1982), whose works appeared alongside Giuliani and Dioniso
Aguado. Duarte reviewed the album, emphasizing its importance in
raising awareness of the historical solo guitar repertoire even if the
music itself could not compete with nineteenth century canonical
composers:

Conscious of the yawning gap in the instrument’s nineteenth-

century repertory (a strange one, the guitar being thought of as
a romantic instrument), aided by a recent epidemic of archival
scholarship and, doubtless spurred by suggestions that the guitar
is a “borrower’s” instrument, players are busy exhuming evidence
to prove that the burial was premature – that those responsible
were in various ways incompetent in establishing that death had,
or indeed should have, taken place. The present record is a con-
tribution to the process of resuscitation, adding to previously
unrecorded works by two known composers several by Mertz,
whose name has recently resurfaced. Now it would be fatuous to
suggest that there is anything here to threaten the status of Cho-
pin, Schumann or Mendelssohn as composers of related genres,
304 The Recording Model Deconstructed

but echoes of all three can be heard in this selection of charming

character pieces, refecting the general musical taste and, often
fads of their time.
(Duarte 1982a: 61)

Another important fnd during this period was the little known Ital-
ian guitarist, Luigi Legnani (1790–1877), whose Introduction, Theme
and Variations Op. 64 featured on Michael Newman’s Italian Pleasures
LP, here programmed with works by Giuliani and Ferdinando Carulli
(1770–1841). Legnani’s music (10 Caprices Op. 10) also headlined
Eduardo Fernandez’s frst release on the Decca label (1985), a debut
recording entirely devoted to nineteenth-century composers, including
Giuliani, Diabelli, Paganini and Sor.
One of the most ambitious historical recording endeavors of this
period was undertaken by American guitarist Lawrence Johnson (b.
1942) who in 1983 initiated a project to record the complete works
of Fernando Sor. Johnson, like Bream and Romero, beneftted from
contemporary musicological scholarship, here basing his recordings
on Brian Jeffery’s recently published (1977) facsimile edition of The
Complete Works for Guitar (Ferguson 1989).19 Past surveys of Sor’s
work had been confned to the certain of the larger sonatas,20 selected
studies (see the earlier LPs of Rey de la Torre, John Williams and Nar-
ciso Yepes) and well known variation sets, and, with the exception of
Alice Artzt’s more recent 1978 “anniversary”21 LP, Guitar Music by
Fernando Sor (which also drew upon Jeffery’s edition), his music had
rarely been explored more widely in album programs.22 Johnson’s aim
was to correct this imbalance through demonstrating in recorded form
the full scope of Sor’s output for the guitar, as he explained in an inter-
view for Guitar International in 1988:

I feel we have to get one composer very well documented so that

we can, perhaps, see that there is a great deal of good literature
in the 19th century. I feel that Sor is, perhaps, the best of these
composers, although I don’t wish to put value judgement on this.
If someone came along and said Giuliani was better, I would say
“that’s fne, that’s your opinion”. But I would like to record all the
works of Sor with the idea that people could see that we would
have a real treasure there.
(McConnell 1988)

Johnson commenced the project as an unsigned independent artist,

which necessarily placed limits on the technological facilities avail-
able to make the recordings.23 In true DIY fashion he recorded late
at night in a reverberant hall at Roberts Wesleyan College in New
York (where he held a teaching post) using a Revox 77 tape recorder
(Seghatoleslami 2018).24 He initially released his recordings on cas-
sette via his own CRG Records before signing a contract with ELAN
which issued his recordings on CD (eventually amounting to 15 discs
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 305

in total). In his recordings Johnson cultivated a rhythmically fuid

“Romantic” interpretative style reminiscent of Segovia (whose mas-
terclasses he had attended in 1966),25 which for some commentators,
such as Soundboard reviewer George Warren, appeared self-indulgent
and inappropriate:

How I wish I could recommend Lawrence Johnson’s Solo Guitar

Music of Fernando Sor … but Johnson does not make it easy for
me. It’s not that he’s short on technique, or untalented – both
here, in Sor’s Op. 11, a minor masterpiece which he gives its frst
complete recording ever, and in his earlier world premiere re-
cording of the Second Sor Sonata, Op. 25, he shows fashes of
real musicianship. It’s just that he abandons the quality these
fashes indicate when he tackles the Op. 14 Gran Solo, tossing
all of his own standards to the winds and subjecting this Hayd-
nesque work to the sort of “romantic” approach a pianist would
associate with Vladimir de Pachmann: wildly self-indulgent,
chaotic, and with little sense of time or proportion. He does this
with his eyes wide open; this is the way he hears the music in his
inner ear.
(Warren 1988b: 84)

It is clear that Johnson saw himself as a guardian of the Segovia style

of classical guitar performance, which at the time was in the process of
being derided by the current generation of guitarists,26 and his record-
ings functioned as a vehicle for proselytizing on its behalf:

Many people in the guitar community are in infantile adolescent

rebellion against the infuence of Segovia. […] I fnd this is true
in a lot of guitarists I have talked to. They want to disassociate
themselves from Segovia; from this infuence. Segovia is the father
of modern guitar playing. Segovia could express more on our in-
strument than any other guitarist I know. We should learn how he
expressed things. Many lessons are still to be learnt from Segovia.
The man was one of the greatest and was recognized in the whole
frmament of classical music, not just the guitar community, as
one of the greatest performing artists of the mid 20th century. We
are crazy if we reject his infuence.
(McConnell 1988)

As a repertoire project, Johnson’s recordings of Sor quickly set a tem-

plate for other guitarists active at this time, including Kazuhito Ya-
mashita whose own complete recording of Sor’s works (made in 1987)
was issued on 16 CDs by Victor (Japan). The series also anticipated the
activities of the Naxos label in the early 1990s which subsequently built
much of its catalogue on multi-volume editions of complete works of
nineteenth-century guitarist-composers, including Sor, Giuliani and
Napoléon Coste.
306 The Recording Model Deconstructed

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CLASSICAL GUITAR CANON

One of the most signifcant developments of the 1970s, which can be
readily traced in recordings of this period, was the assimilation of
Latin American music into the classical guitar canon. In one sense
this was a new narrative of the classical guitar which could be un-
derstood in terms of the broader movement to challenge or modify
the Segovian repertoire paradigm. However, as Chapters 4 and 7 have
already highlighted, the culture of the Latin American classical gui-
tar had long constituted a rich and multifaceted tradition which had
simply remained outside the awareness of North American and Euro-
pean guitarists, with the exception of the repertoire that Segovia had
endorsed (by Villa-Lobos, Ponce, Crespo and so on). Its inclusion in
the mainstream repertoire can thus be regarded as much the result of
a general awakening to what the continent already had to offer, as an
attempt to consciously re-construct the identity of the classical guitar.
The growing recognition of the importance of the Latin American
repertoire was undoubtedly catalyzed by the performing and recording
activities of Latin American guitarists who had achieved international
profles over the decades, including Laurindo Almeida, Alirio Díaz,
Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Turibio Santos, Oscar Cáceres and Leo Brou-
wer. All were able to reach large audiences through their recordings
during the 1960s and 1970s which enabled them to promote particu-
lar areas of their indigenous repertoire more widely. It is also unlikely
that the explosion of interest in Latin American music during the
1970s would have occurred without the growing body of scholarship
spearheaded by a new generation of musicologists writing in North
American periodicals such as Soundboard and the Guitar Review. A
key infuence here was the American musicologist and guitarist Rich-
ard “Rico” Stover (1945–2019) who brought Barrios’ music to wide
attention through his groundbreaking “Guitarra Americana” column
in Soundboard. The re-emergence of Barrios’ scores and recordings in
the light of Stover’s research provided a catalyst for a renewed debate
concerning the boundaries of the classical guitar repertoire and the
nature of the music permitted to be included within it. Other notable
researchers who emerged alongside Stover at this time, whose interests
spanned much of the Latin American continent, included Corazón
Otero (Mexican music), Brian Hodel (Brazilian music) and Carlos
Molina (Cuban music).27 Stover was particularly vociferous in his
publicization of the neglect of Latin American music by guitarists. In
his inaugural article for his “Guitarra Americana” series he wrote:

I have … continually encountered in the world of the classic guitar

a certain viewpoint and subsequent attitude that precludes taking
seriously any guitar tradition other than “the pure classic guitar”,
which means: European music only. Anything else is fuff and
need not be taken seriously. A great number of those who feel this
way also hold with the opinion that the classic guitar is in need
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 307

of “continuous legitimization” in its quest to establish itself as a

serious instrument.
(Stover 1985: 86)

Stover drew attention to the fact that “one of the major characteristics
of the Latin American repertoire is the fact that it is, by and large,
music written expressly for (and most of the time on) the guitar”, ob-
serving that there was a tendency to marginalize guitarist-composers
within classical guitar circles. He also highlighted the preoccupation of
classical guitarists with the works of the “Great Masters”, their overt
concern with “new repertoire” and adherence to “keyboard-oriented
standards” (a reference to transcriptions). In essence these were all
criticisms of the dominant Segovian aesthetic position on the classical
guitar, which, at this time, was being subject to increased scrutiny by
the younger generation.
Barrios’ music, which represented a uniquely all-encompassing Latin
American perspective on the classical guitar, was central to Stover’s cam-
paign for the admission of Latin American guitar music to the main-
stream repertoire. Prior to Stover’s researches, interest in Barrios’ music
had generally been confned to certain parts of Latin America, where
it had remained popular with the younger generation of guitarists into
the 1950s and 1960s. Third party recordings had to some degree helped
to preserve Barrios’ presence (his own 78s were out of print), although
these initially appeared in a sporadic and isolated fashion. In 1940 Oy-
anguren recorded Danza Guaraní to represent “Paraguay” on Vol. 1 of
his Latin American Folk Music set of 78s (Decca A-174)28, Abel Carlev-
aro included Las Abejas among his 1949 Parlophone recordings and one
of Barrios’ most popular encore pieces, Danza Paraguaya appears on
Venezuelan guitarist Alirio Díaz’s 1956 recording, Récital de Guitare No.
1 (BAM LD 032). Meanwhile outside the Latin American orbit Lau-
rindo Almeida had circulated snippets of Barrios’ music to a wider au-
dience global on his 1955 Capitol album, Guitar Music of Latin America
(see Chapter 6). A growing sense of Barrios’ importance to the classical
guitar canon within Latin America was indicated by Geraldo Ribeiro’s
debut LP, Interpreta Nazareth e Barrios (RCA Victor Brazil 1959) which
included six works and Díaz’s LP Solos de Guitarra (Espiral 1966), which
included eight. The 1970s saw the foodgates open on an international
scale with numerous guitarists now adding Barrios to their recorded
album programs, including Turibio Santos on Classiques d’Amerique
Latine (Erato 1969), Carmen Marina on Recordando de Espana (SMC
1971), John Williams on John Williams Plays Barrios (CBS 1977), Balta-
zar Benitez on Latin American Music for the Classical Guitar (Nonesuch
1978), Guy Lukowski on Guitar Music of Barrios (EMI 1979), Liona
Boyd on First Lady of the Guitar (CBS 1979) and Jesús Benites on Jesús
Benites Plays A. Barrios (Globo 1981). The standout LPs of this period
were those made by Williams, Lukowski and Benites which were pivotal
in moving Barrios from being simply another item on a Latin Ameri-
can themed program to a composer of signifcance with a substantial
308 The Recording Model Deconstructed

oeuvre that deserved a focus in its own right. Also of importance was
the release in 1981–82 of a collection of Barrios’ original 78 rpm record-
ings remastered to LP on Stover’s El Maestro Records label (EM 8002).
Stover also worked tirelessly during this period to convince critics of the
legitimacy of Barrios’ music as classical guitar repertoire. His Winter
1983–84 “Guitarra Americana” column is of particular interest for his
step by step rebuttal (with the support of Latin American guitarists such
as Lauro and Brouwer) of the major criticisms of Barrios that had been
levelled against his music (even by critics of the stature of John Duarte)
such as his anachronistic musical style and his lack of connection with
European musical traditions.
As European and North American guitarists were gradually awak-
ening to existence of indigenous Rioplatense guitar repertoire, Rio-
platense guitarists themselves remained to varying degrees beholdened
to more dominant repertoire constructs. For example, those who
achieved international recording careers in the early 1970s, such as Ar-
gentinian guitarists Irma Costanzo (b. 1937) and Ernesto Bitetti (b.
1943), appeared to defer to the strong pull of the Spanish/European
perspective and the “approved” Latin American repertoire such as
Villa-Lobos. Costanzo, a pupil of Abel Carlevaro, who came to prom-
inence in the late 1960s, certainly possessed a performing repertoire
that encompassed indigenous music, as evidenced by her early record-
ing for the Argentinian Qualiton label (QI-4000) which includes pieces
by Héctor Ayala and Carlevaro.29 However, she concentrated her few
EMI/Odeon recordings (made in 1972) on recording composers such
as Turina, covering his complete music for guitar, and Villa-Lobos,
whose Five Preludes were issued in an unusual pairing with the Bach
Cello Suite No. 3 (a transcription undertaken in collaboration with
Abel Carlevaro rather than the Duarte edition). In his review of a
later re-compilation of the Turina and Villa-Lobos recordings, Peter
Sensier offered insightful critical observations concerning the ways in
which Costanzo’s Argentinian idiosyncrasies had informed her treat-
ment of the Brazilian and Spanish repertoire:

Argentina may be, geographically speaking, virtually next door

to Brazil, but musically they are much farther apart, and Señor-
ita Costanzo does nothing to close the gap. The vigour and the
saudade, the two Brazilian qualities with which the Preludes are
imbued, are here replaced by a gaucho nostalgia (admirable in its
place) and a languor which remove all the tension which is so much
a part of these pieces. The same mood is carried over into Turina’s
Sevillana, not my favourite piece by this composer, except for the
rasgueo passages which are played in a clean incisive manner as
befts an Argentine guitarist.
(P.S. 1976: 320)

Ernesto Bitetti, like Costanzo began to establish himself as an inter-

national recording artist from the late 1960s onwards, making LPs
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 309

for a number of European labels, including Hispavox, Vox Turnabout

and EMI. These also surveyed the established canon, including works
by Bach and Weiss, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and the Fantasía
para un Gentilhombre, and historical programs of Spanish music across
the centuries from Milan to Turina. The boundaries of Bitetti’s reper-
toire focus are succinctly summarized in Shirley Fleming’s review of
his 1970 LP, Contemporary Music for the Guitar, a strongly Segovian
program dominated by Tansman, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ponce and
Villa-Lobos: “The ‘contemporary’ label means no more than that the
composers survived at least to the midpoint of this century; the spirit
of all these works is totally traditional, and the most modern sonority
to be heard is that of Villa-Lobos’ 1929 Estudio No. 11” (S.F. 1970:
111). Elsewhere guitarists such as Baltazar Benitez (b. 1944) began to
take a more experimental approach. His LP, Latin American Music for
the Classical Guitar (1978), issued by the pioneering American label,
Nonesuch, brought the music of Abel Carlevaro (described in Shir-
ley Fleming’s liner note as a “strong 20th century purveyor” of the
Latin American player-composer tradition), to a wider international
audience. His Preludios Americanos are here programmed with three
pieces by Barrios and a rarely performed Ponce work in the variation
form, the Theme, Variations and Fughetta on a Theme by Antonio de
Cabezón.
By the early 1980s, a growing sense of a Rioplatense identity could
be discerned in the recordings of Argentinian guitarists of the younger
generation such as Maria Isabel Siewers (b. 1950). Siewers was taught
by Maria Luisa Anido and gained early recognition through her par-
ticipation in Vidal’s Concours International de Guitare. In 1984 she re-
leased Maria Isabel Siewers Plays the Music of Argentina (GMR 1003
1984) on the small British Guitar Masters Records label. This offered
a survey of contemporary Argentine classical guitar music that was
largely unfamiliar to European audiences, with the exception of Al-
berto Ginastera’s Sonata Op. 47 which was just beginning to be taken
up by classical guitarists (see Chapter 13). The other composers fea-
tured on the disc were Carlos Guastavino (here a substantial work, his
Sonata No. 2), Jorge Cardoso, Angel Lasala, Jorge Labrouve and Ma-
ria Luisa Anido herself. In his liner notes, Colin Cooper (an editor of
Classical Guitar magazine), drew attention to the role of the Segovian
paradigm in determining the place of Latin American music within
the repertoire, a situation that was now being challenged by Siewers’
and other guitarists’ recordings:

Since in many South American countries the guitar has become

something of a national instrument, it is not surprising that these
various infuences have found their way into guitar music, both
“popular” and what we might call, for want of a better expres-
sion, “classical”. The dividing line is in any case very faint, and
that is one of things that gives South American music its great-
est strength. In Europe, for many decades, guitar taste was largely
310 The Recording Model Deconstructed

dictated by the famous soloists, of which the greatest was Segovia.

If he did not choose to play very much from the South American
repertoire, it meant that our chance of hearing it in concert were
somewhat diminished – for Segovia’s infuence was powerful and
pervasive. That picture is changing rapidly.
(Cooper 1984b)

While Siewers focused on Argentinian guitar music of a certain “clas-

sical” orientation, her older colleague Jorge Morel (b. 1931) was at the
same time cultivating a recording identity that placed him much closer
to the “populist” ethos of Barrios. Morel was a classically trained gui-
tarist (taught by Pablo Escobar) who had during the 1960s expanded his
repertoire into a number of different areas, including jazz and popular
music (McClellan and Bratić 2007). In the early 1980s Morel released
two recital style LPs on the Guitar Masters Records label which brought
together the various facets of his musical identity. The frst, entitled Vir-
tuoso South American Guitar (GMR 1002 1981), was an eclectic mix
of Morel’s own pieces, arrangements of “music of my favourite South
American composers” (including Edmundo Zaldivar’s Carnavalito and
Fernando Bustamente’s Misionera) and pieces in the more “serious”
classical vein by Duarte (his Homage to Antonio Lauro) and Crespo (the
piece Norteña, which had been popularized by Segovia). At the same
time, Morel’s own compositions, such as Danza Brasileira and Choro,
demonstrated his wide conversance with Latin American styles, per-
formed with a freedom and spontaneity comparable to the recordings
of Barrios. The second, Jorge Morel Plays Broadway (GMR 1004 1982),
refected the crossover approach that has characterized the repertoire of
many Latin American guitarists since the 1950s, with arrangements of
music by Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story Suite), Gershwin, Paul
Desmond (his Take Five) and two songs by The Beatles (“Yesterday”
and “Norwegian Wood”). Rather than being straightforward replica-
tions of the originals, however, these are highly sophisticated, often
contrapuntal re-workings which refect the complexity of Morel’s clas-
sically informed technique. Interviewed by Brian Hodel in 1983, Morel
commented on the ongoing prejudice against South American music:

What is it that makes South American music inferior in quality in

any way to the European mainstream repertoire, in terms of the
guitar? We have Villa-Lobos, Ponce, Barrios, Lauro. Why should
Spanish music for the guitar be more acceptable than Brazilian or
Argentine?
(Hodel 1983a: 14)

Ironically, within a decade of making these remarks Morel’s music had

found a permanent place within classical guitarists’ repertoires and
was beginning to be widely recorded.30
It was also during the early 1980s that Venezuelan guitar music be-
gan to become frmly established within the mainstream repertoire,
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 311

and in particular the compositions of the guitarist-composer, Antonio

Lauro. Here the groundwork had been laid by Alirio Díaz who had
begun to introduce Lauro’s music to European classical guitarists as
early as the 1950s during the period of his association with Segovia at
the Accademia Musicale Chigiani di Siena. This infuence was refected
in Segovia’s inclusion of Lauro’s well known “Natalia” Vals No. 3
(also known as Vals Criollo) on his 1955 Art of Andrés Segovia (DL
9795) LP.31 John Williams, who became acquainted with Díaz around
the same time, also made a recording of this piece for his Delysé debut
(1958) and included other Lauro compositions (Seis por derecho and
El Negrito) on his CBS albums during the 1970s and 1980s. Díaz him-
self had been recording Lauro since the 1950s, including certain valses
on his various recital discs for Teppaz, BAM and HiFi Recordings Inc.
His EMI LP Guitar Music of Spain and Latin America (1970), which
featured the Six Venezuelan Valses, brought the music to the attention
of an international audience, while announcing Díaz as Lauro’s “most
vital interpreter”.32 Duarte’s liner note also assisted in the music’s pro-
motion as viable repertoire:

They are full of ebullient movement and, though their texture if

often one of broken chords, the profle of a melody somehow man-
ages always to emerge. It is the energy and innocent good nature of
the music which enable it to succeed where other music, of equally
frugal material, might tumble into banality.
(Duarte 1970a)33

As with Barrios, once European guitarists became convinced of Lau-

ro’s signifcance they quickly began to feature his music on their LPs.
The frst record devoted entirely to Lauro’s guitar music, David Rus-
sell Plays Antonio Lauro (GMR 1001), was released in 1980 on the
Guitar Masters Records label. In addition to surveying Lauro’s pop-
ular valses, Russell’s disc also offered perspectives on his weightier
compositional endeavors in his programming of the more substantial
three-movement Sonata and the Suite Venezolana. The album’s liner
notes highlight the breadth of Lauro’s work as a composer and impor-
tance to the classical guitar repertoire, as well as acknowledging Díaz’s
pivotal role in bringing the music to a global audience. The younger
generation of Venezuelan guitarists quickly followed suit, led by Luis
Zea who recorded Lauro’s Triptico (a work dedicated to Segovia) and
the recently composed Suite, homenaje a John Duarte (1981) on his Si-
mon Bolivar LP (EMI 1983). Zea’s disc also included works by another
major Venezuelan guitarist-composer, Vicente Emilio Sojo, to whom
Díaz had also given priority on his earlier LPs. Sojo’s music also began
to appear on European classical guitarists’ recordings from the early
1970s, for example, on Alberto Ponce’s Prestige de la Guitare au XX
Siècle (1972), Diego Blanco’s Ponce, Sojo, Lauro, Barrios (BIS LP-33,
1976) and David Russell’s Something Unique (1979), all of whom fo-
cused on the Five Pieces from Venezuela.34 Blanco’s disc in particular
312 The Recording Model Deconstructed

constituted an early template of what was to become a dominant re-

cital disc model built around an all-Latin American guitar program.
Here Sojo is programmed alongside Lauro and other Latin American
guitarists including Barrios, and counterbalanced, almost as if an anti-
dote to the folkloric tendencies of this repertoire, with Manuel Ponce’s
considerably more substantial Variations on “Folia de España” and
Fugue. By the mid-1980s the Latin American recital disc had become
a convenient vehicle for the collation of the most popular pieces drawn
from the continent, encapsulating Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba
and the Rio de la Plata, and was seized upon eagerly by guitarists who
wished demonstrate a more ecumenical approach to repertoire pro-
gramming. One guitarist who showed a particular inclination towards
this material was Eliot Fisk who in 1981 recorded Eliot Fisk Performs
Latin American Guitar Music (MHS 4233), a disc whose program is
almost identical to Blanco’s. His later 1987 album, Latin American
Guitar Music (EMI CDC 7 47760 2), however, is considerably more di-
verse in its coverage of music of Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico
and Paraguay. The disc includes an interesting liner note that pays trib-
ute to Alirio Díaz for awakening Fisk’s enthusiasm for Latin American
music and “a whole universe of musical possibilities”, and discusses,
in reference to Barrios in particular, the issues of authenticity raised
by the fuidity of the Latin American musical urtext, which is “halfway
between real folk music and art music” (Fisk 1987).
Elsewhere in Mexico, Manuel López Ramos’ infuence had been
such that by the early 1970s a new generation of Mexican guitarists
had emerged who were now beginning to make signifcant inroads into
the global classical guitar scene. Among the frst to develop a sustained
international recording profle in the 1970s was Alfonso Moreno (b.
1949), a winner of the Radio France Competition in 1968. He made
a number of recordings for EMI in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
much of it focused on the mid twentieth century concerto repertoire
associated with Segovia – Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Villa-Lobos, Ro-
drigo (the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre) and Ponce. Moreno’s 1982
recording of the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez (with Enrique Bátiz
and the London Symphony Orchestra) was regarded as a milestone
at the time both in terms of Moreno’s performance and the technical
achievements of the (relatively early) digital recording. In his review
for Gramophone, Duarte remarked that:

In a catalogue bursting with recordings of the ubiquitous Aran-

juez there is none better than this. It would need an entire essay
to enumerate the virtues of Moreno’s impassioned and technically
brilliant performance, the magnifcent playing coaxed from the
LSO by Bátiz, the totality of the rapport among all concerned,
and the digital recording that makes clear even those details often
lost in recordings no less than in concert the products of optimistic
scoring.
(J.D. 1982c: 136)
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 313

Moreno’s disc of Ponce’s Concierto del Sur (1983) was also signifcant
in being only the third recording after the Segovia and John Williams’
versions, thereby affording him the scope to take ownership of a sig-
nifcant Mexican work. On this disc the work appears alongside or-
chestral pieces by composers of, or associated with, Mexico – Carlos
Chavez and Rudolfo Halffter.
Within Mexico itself an indigenous tradition of classical guitarists
and composers had also begun to emerge whose presence was crystal-
lized by the release in 1976 of the LP Guitarra Mexicana on Discos
Pueblo DP-1025 (a label associated with Mexican folk music). This
was the frst LP to explicitly state the case for an indigenous Mexi-
can classical guitar school, and by implication a departure from the
Segovian position, through a survey of earlier and more recent Mex-
ican classical guitar music. Included were pieces by Manuel Ponce,
Javier Hinojosa, Guillermo Flores Méndez and Juan Helguera, per-
formed by four Mexican guitarists, Selvio Carrizosa, Julio César Ol-
iva, Flores Méndez and Helguera,35 the latter two interpreting their
own music. The liner notes (in Spanish) underlined the diversity of
styles represented, from Ponce’s Baroque infuenced neoclassicism
(the Courante from the “hoax” Suite No. 2 in D after Scarlatti) to the
“trabajo dodecafónico” (twelve-note work) of Hinojosa (Te lucis ante
terminum). The inclusion of Ponce’s Rumba from Cuatro Piezas (then
unpublished) is also of interest on account of its strummed “folkloric”
character which is at odds with the more “polite” Ponce repertoire
programmed by guitarists such as Segovia.36 The Guitarra Mexi-
cana format was later repeated in 1989 with La Guitarra en el Nuevo
Mundo Vol. 7 (UAM/Producciones Kay-Lay), an album which simi-
larly surveyed works by indigenous guitarist-composers interpreting
their own works. Helguera, Flores Méndez and Oliva are once again
included, now joined by Ernesto Garcia de Léon and Gerardo Tamez,
two fgures whose works are today regarded as cornerstones of the
modern Mexican guitar repertoire. Ponce’s continuing importance to
the culture of the Mexican classical guitar was also underlined by the
landmark multi-volume series of LPs, Los Clásicos de México (Angel)
issued between 1978–1980 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of
the composer’s death. Six volumes were devoted to Ponce’s guitar mu-
sic and feature performances by a number of guitarists then prominent
in Mexico including Miguel Alcazar, Manuel López Ramos, Enrique
Velasco, Jesús Ruiz and Mario Beltrán del Río.
Meanwhile in Cuba, the state EGREM organization continued to
dominate classical guitar recording activity into the 1980s, initiating
two important LP series, Música para Guitarra: Jovenes Músicos de
Cuba and Guitarra. Both proselytized on behalf of an indigenous Cu-
ban classical guitar identity and can thus be compared to the afore-
mentioned nationalistically focused surveys that began to appear in
Mexico during the same period. The Jovenes Músicos de Cuba series,
released in two volumes in 1978, included contributions from the
younger generation of Cuban guitarists including José A. Pérez Puentes,
314 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Martín Pedreira, Roberto Kessel, Aldo Rodríguez, Mario Daly, Flores

Chaviano, Efraín Amador and Antonio A. Rodríguez. Some are heard
interpreting their own music, such as Pedreira, Amador and Daly,
whereas others perform a range of repertoire of Cuban (Brouwer)
and more broadly Latin American origin (Ponce, Villa-Lobos). Both
albums were produced by Jesús Ortega. The multi-volume Guitarra
series also ranged widely in its survey of Cuban guitarists, including
the Dúo Madiedo–Pérez Puentes (Vol. 2), Nico Rojas (Vol. 3), Rey
Guerra (Vol. 4) and Leo Brouwer (Vol. 5).37 The Madiedo–Pérez Pu-
entes duo (formed in the 1980s) specialized in a range of repertoire,
including works by Pérez Puentes himself. Their album (released in
1984) acknowledges the European duo repertoire in the inclusion of
Sor’s Les Deux Amis, Op. 41 but again places an emphasis on Cuban
perspectives including arrangements of pieces by Ernesto Lecuona.
Rey Guerra’s contribution (1984) is of particular interest for its fo-
cus on selections from Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Platero and I (a work
closely associated with Segovia and which had not at this time been
re-recorded) programmed with Brouwer’s Estudios Sencillos. A major
fgure on the post-1980s guitar scene, Guerra (b. 1958), has been a
long-time associate of Brouwer and a trusted performer of his music.
Brouwer’s own recordings during this period signaled the relinquish-
ment of his avant-garde credentials in favor of a growing eclecticism
informed by popular music and the historical canon. This is illustrated
by De Bach a los Beatles (recorded at EGREM in 1981), whose pro-
gram offered a prescient comment upon the increasingly postmodern
character of the contemporary classical guitar (the LP includes music
by The Beatles, Scott Joplin, Pernambuco, Bach, Weiss and de Falla).
Brouwer’s music also continued to proliferate in the recording pro-
grams of guitarists based outside Cuba, appearing, for example on
LPs by Hubert Käppel (APM 1984), Olivier Bensa (Harmonia Mundi
1984) and the Uruguayan guitarist Jorge Oraison (Leo Brouwer Guitar
Works Etcetera, 1987). Signifcantly the Bensa and Oraison discs con-
stituted early instances of all-Brouwer focused programs, heralding
the composer’s canonization as mainstream repertoire. Julian Bream,
who had previously performed very little Cuban music, in 1986 com-
missioned (in association with BBC producer Gareth Walters) Brouw-
er’s Concerto Elegiaco. This was a piece in a warmer Romantic idiom,
composed by Brouwer to afford him “a period of rest and tranquility
after the preoccupation with the avant-garde that characterized many
of his symphonic and chamber works of the 1960s” (Walters 1987).
Bream subsequently recorded the concerto for RCA in 1987.

AUDIOPHILE RECORDING AND THE CLASSICAL GUITAR

By the end of the 1960s the fundamental principles of high fdelity clas-
sical guitar recording had become well established and widely dissem-
inated as a sonic aesthetic in the recordings of Segovia, Bream, Yepes,
Williams and others. Central to this was the practice of employing
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 315

microphone set-ups designed to balance direct guitar sound with the

ambience of a specially chosen resonant environment in the service
of a “realistic” concert hall perspective. Typically recording involved
the placement of a matched pair of microphones in front of and near
to the guitarist (commonly around six feet away),38 often with addi-
tional microphones being employed at a further distance to capture
the acoustic properties of the room. During the 1970s this approach
continued to be pursued zealously by engineers, giving rise to an “au-
diophile” aesthetic which aspired to preserve a tradition of sonic pu-
rity in recording at a time when multi-tracking, micro-editing and the
artifcial studio manipulation of sound were becoming the norm in
record production. Audiophile recording persisted with the practice of
recording exclusively in venues with an exemplary acoustic, the use of
minimal microphoning to capture the acoustic space and the guitar’s
sound in balance, as well as a purist attitude towards the construction
of the fnalized recording using a minimal editing approach. In the late
1970s the practice was further augmented by “direct to disc” record-
ing which was seized upon as a means of inculcating spontaneity and
liveness into the recording process and whose technical constraints
ruled out the possibility of after-the-fact of editing.
A pioneer of the audiophile classical recording aesthetic in the
1970s was Robert von Bahr, founder of the renowned Swedish label,
BIS, which became closely associated with the younger generation of
guitarists emerging in Europe at this time, including Josef Holeček
and Vladimir Mikulka (Czechoslovakia), Diego Blanco (Spain) and
Jukka Savijoki (Finland). Von Bahr, who initially produced and en-
gineered all the label’s recordings himself, took a typically minimalist
approach, using a single pair of Sennheiser microphones and a Revox
A-77 tape recorder, in the service of a recording philosophy he articu-
lated (in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner) in a later Gramophone
advertisement:

The philosophy of BIS cannot be explained – it has to be heard.

For it is only in the complete integrity of the music and the re-
cording medium that von Bahr’s genius can be appreciated. Within
the bounds of the current technology, nothing is allowed to stand
between the listener and the experience of music performed by art-
ists whose dedication to their craft is as great as that of von Bahr
himself.
(BIS 1989: 634)

BIS was also one of the earliest labels to make a point of including
detailed information in album liner notes regarding the circumstances
of the recording, including the location and specifc type of guitar
being used. This strategy became part and parcel of the presentation
of audiophile recordings, acting as an indicator of quality which en-
couraged the listener to invest in the recording’s distinctive sonic attri-
butes. The novelty of BIS’s approach at this time was remarked upon
316 The Recording Model Deconstructed

by John Tanno (Soundboard’s reviewer of guitar recordings in the

1970s) in a review of a Diego Blanco’s 1976 LP, Ponce, Sojo, Lauro,
Barrios (BIS LP 33):

BIS is to be complimented for their careful recording of the gui-

tar and for providing technical information regarding where and
when the recording took place (September 11 and 12, 1975, at the
Castle Wik in Sweden, and released this year). They also tell us
the publisher of each work recorded and even what guitar Blanco
uses. This should become standard procedure for all recording
companies.
(Tanno 1976: 75)

It was also common to fnd audiophile production values being es-

poused by the smaller independent labels that emerged in the Great
Britain and the USA during the 1970s, enabling guitarists pursuing
freelance careers outside the orbit of the majors to achieve standards
of recording previously only available to Segovia, Bream and Yepes.
Among the younger benefciaries was Alice Artzt, whose frst LPs Al-
ice Artzt Classic Guitar (1971) and Alice Artzt Plays Original Works
(1973),39 were made for the London based Gemini40 label. These were
engineered by Michael Smythe, a freelance recordist and founder of
the Vista label, which was held in particular esteem for its outstanding
recordings of organ music.41 Through this, and later experiences with
Meridian and Hyperion, Artzt was able gain an appreciation of “high
end” recording aesthetics, leading her, like Bream, to eschew recording
studios, which she regarded as being “out of the question if one wants
a natural guitar sound”:

Studios are intentionally dead acoustically, and by the time the

engineer has fltered out the disagreeable high frequencies and
compensated for the odd bass resonances one gets in such places,
and has added artifcial reverberation, one is left with a sound that
gives the impression of a guitar about 20 feet long and 10 wide
with each note sounding like a highly reverberant marshmallow.
(Artzt 1979b: 82)

Among Artzt’s most notable “audiophile” records are those she made
for Meridian, a British label established in 1977 by engineer John Shut-
tleworth (1921–2019), singer Francis Loring and producer Ted Perry
(later the founder of Hyperion). Writing in 1979, Artzt described Me-
ridian as being “fanatical about honesty of sound” and a company that
“would never agree to flter or alter anything once recorded”. This, she
observed, was in contradistinction to American companies where was
“not unheard of to flter all attack sounds, squeaks, and buzzes so thor-
oughly as to remove all traces of any characteristics that could let one
know it was a guitar one was listening to and not, say, an electronic or-
gan” (Artzt 1979b: 83). Ironically her frst album for Meridian – Guitar
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 317

Music by Fernando Sor (1978) – was made in the USA, but was overseen
by the well-regarded freelance production team of engineer Marc J. Au-
bort and producer/editor Joanna Nickrenz.42 Aubort, like von Bahr fa-
vored a minimal microphone technique and recording in locations with
excellent acoustics – in this case Rutgers Presbyterian Church on West
Seventy Third Street in New York City.
Artzt’s later Meridian albums – Guitar Music by Francisco Tárrega
(1979), English Guitar Music (1981) and Guitar Music by Manuel Ma-
ria Ponce (1982) – were overseen by John Shuttleworth in the UK,
who, according to the liner notes for each album employed a very sim-
ple set-up comprising an AKG C24 microphone and a Kudelski Nagra
IV-S (two track stereo) tape recorder. The AKG C24 (described by
Artzt as “astronomically expensive”) was a vintage stereo capacitor
microphone (introduced in 1959) operating on the Blumlein cross-
pair principle, which became a favorite in audiophile recording in the
1970s.43 In reference to one of her Meridian sessions – most likely for
the English Guitar Music LP – Artzt observed that the microphone
was set a distance “of about 6 feet, since in this way we would have
the best chance of getting something resembling a natural sound – if
it were placed well”. The location in this instance was Mayhurst, a
stately home in Sussex (Wadhurst near Tunbridge Wells) in the UK,
which was chosen for its resonant acoustic characteristics44 (Artzt
1979b) and the recording proceeded by “doing two or three takes of
each piece or movement, and then discussing what still needed to be
redone” (1979b: 83).
Artzt’s Guitar Music by Francisco Tárrega LP is also of interest for
the use of a genuine Torres guitar called La Leona, anticipating a later
“extension” of the audiophile aesthetic (see Chapter 13) concerned
with using period instruments to impart a certain timbral authenticity
to the recording’s sound. The Torres guitar is discussed in some detail
in Artzt’s liner notes for the album:

Since the most important composer-guitarist who used a Torres

guitar, and wrote his music with that sort of sound in mind was
Francisco Tárrega, the logical step was to make a record of Tárre-
ga’s works on this guitar, and to try to recreate as far as possible,
the style in which he might have played these works himself.
(Artzt 1979a)

Artzt also noted that the instrument suggested “a much more roman-
tic style of playing” which encouraged her to the imitate nineteenth-
century gestures “which one can still hear on a few very old recordings”
(implying the 78 rpm discs of Llobet perhaps).
A concern with location-based recording aesthetics remains ap-
parent on Artzt’s later LPs – Romantic Virtuoso Guitar Music (1982),
Musical Tributes (1985) and Variations, Passacaglias and Chaconnes
(1989) – which were made for Hyperion label, a company founded by
Ted Perry, formerly of Meridian. Romantic Virtuoso Guitar Music, for
318 The Recording Model Deconstructed

example, was recorded at Bishopsgate Institute in London, a pleasingly

resonant venue also used in 1969 by John Williams for John Williams
Plays Spanish Music. Musical Tributes by contrast contains material
recorded in two separate locations and by two different engineering
teams: Side 1 was recorded in Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New
York, overseen once again by the duo of Aubort/Nickrenz, while Side
2 was recorded at Bishopsgate Institute in London and engineered by
Mark Sutton.45 The contrast between these two venues is readily ap-
parent on the LP, the guitar at Bishopsgate having been captured at a
greater distance than at Rutgers, and in a decidedly more reverberant
setting.
Artzt’s younger American contemporary, Sharon Isbin, was simi-
larly fortunate to work with excellent engineers on the small indepen-
dent labels she recorded for at the outset of her career in the late 1970s.
She made her frst LPs (a two volume set entitled Sharon Isbin Classi-
cal Guitar) with Sound Environment Recording Corp. (based in Lin-
coln, Nebraska) in 1978. The frst disc is of particular interest for its
liner note which includes a lengthy statement by engineer Russ Borud
(Borud 1978) discussing the recording set-up and the problems he en-
countered in achieving an ideal guitar sound. These included fnding a
suitably refective room to create the “feeling of being in the Great Hall
of a castle”, and then locating a suitable position for the guitarist in
relation to the surrounding surfaces. Borud comments that his chosen
microphone array employed a “shadow triangulation” which he felt
represented the instrument in space “quite accurately”. He goes into
some detail regarding the effect of this arrangement on the sense of
the guitar in space (“if you fnd a tendency of the image to be slightly
left at times, this is the room responding at certain frequencies”) and
the listener is advised to “sit so there is a 60 degree included angle”
between the two speakers and not to play the recording too loud. He
also refers to the Masaru Kohno guitar played by Isbin on the record-
ing which he states “records quite well”. Borud’s “Production Notes”
regarding Artzt’s second LP for Sound Environment Corp. (1980),
which was recorded in a different location, are of equal interest con-
cerning audiophile engineering perspectives on recording the classical
guitar at this time:

The room this recording was made in played an important role in

the sonic attributes of this record. It is a beautiful stone church in
St. Paul, Minnesota; a room that has an interesting acoustic qual-
ity (one often attributed to fne Baroque instruments) of inducing
a sonic “bloom” effect after a note is struck (the note seems to get
bigger or swell due to the acoustic nature of the room). The more
sonic nuance available through your playback system, the more
you will hear this effect. Additional details to listen for in this re-
cording are the occasional sounds that mysteriously occur from
time to time in large stone edifces. No real explanations exist for
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 319

the occurrence of these sounds in the building, but they are in the
recording… listen for them.
(Borud 1980)

Isbin was also among the frst classical guitarists to make digital re-
cordings just as the new technology was beginning to proliferate, in
this case for the Japanese Denon label in 1980 (these feature the “PCM
Recording” stamp on their disc labels) and later Pro Arte Digital. Dig-
ital recording provoked a whole new series of debates concerning the
aesthetics of classical guitar sound in the early 1980s as the new me-
dium began to impact upon traditional analogue-based approaches to
recording and mixing.

RECAPTURING LIVENESS: CLASSICAL GUITARISTS AND

“DIRECT TO DISC” RECORDING
In the late 1970s a small number of classical guitarists became in-
volved with a short-lived recording trend known as “direct-to-disc”.
This was an extension of audiophile recording practice in which the
performance was cut live straight to disc, thereby avoiding the sonic
impurities that typically accrued when recording using tape-based pro-
cesses, as explained by John Borwick in a 1976 Gramophone article:

Amongst people interested primarily in the achievement of maxi-

mum quality in reproduced music, there has been a revival recently
in the concept of recording straight to disc. For two decades now,
practically every gramophone record has frst gone through a tape
recording stage at the studio – sometimes two or more such stages.
The complete take-over of magnetic tape as the master recording
medium (plus a brief experiment with 35mm magnetic flm) can
be attributed to the ease of editing and quick cueing that it allows
compared with the relatively cumbersome disc-cutting lathe. For
multi-track working and overdubbing of later tracks, of course
tape is essential. Unfortunately the interpolation of a tape stage
necessarily implies some degradation of sound quality. Changes
of frequency response can be corrected easily enough and back-
ground noise (tape hiss) has been considerably reduced by Dolby
etc., but distortion – particularly transient distortion – is bound to
exist at the tape stage and cannot be removed thereafter.
(Borwick 1976: 1393)

Because direct-to-disc recording precluded the possibility of any fur-

ther editing, it required painstaking attention to detail in the initial
recording set-up and superlative “mixing-on-the-fy” as the recording
progressed. In effect the process revived the conditions associated with
recording to 78 rpm disc during the early twentieth century, as encoun-
tered by guitarists such as Segovia and Barrios. The “new” challenges
320 The Recording Model Deconstructed

of direct-to-disc recording for both musicians and engineers are suc-

cinctly summarized in the liner notes for a 1977 LP made by jazz
guitarist Charlie Byrd for Crystal Clear Records Inc. (Charlie Byrd
CCS8002)46:

Creating this recording required artists with exceptional musical

talent and extraordinary skill from the engineering staff. The pres-
sure was really on, with no margin for error. Everything had to be
done right the frst time, with no opportunity to go back and cor-
rect any mistakes. What you hear is real – the genuine excitement
of live music on disc. The remarkable quality of the fnished press-
ing is the result of numerous improvements throughout the record-
ing chain which refect Crystal Clear’s total dedication to quality.
(Anon 1977)

Direct-to-disc recordings also revived earlier philosophical debates

concerning the ontology of the recording relative to the live event.
Discussing Laurindo Almeida’s LP, Virtuoso Guitar (also recorded for
Crystal Clear),47 jazz critic Philip Elwood remarked that while direct
to disc recording has “only a casual relationship to the sort of horn-to-
wax (or mike-to-wax) methods which were used from the 1880s until
the conversion to magnetic tape techniques in the 1940s … one import-
ant similarity is that what you buy is, in fact, a recording of something
that really happened”. Elwood also added that while older tape-based
transfer methods “may turn out interesting sounds … the resulting
disc is not a ‘recording’ of an event” (Elwood 1990).
For those artists willing to rise to the challenge, direct-to-disc offered
an opportunity to reinstate characteristics of liveness and spontaneity
which were often lost when undertaking multiple takes of recordings in
studios. This was the case with American guitarist Michael Newman,
for example, who in 1979 recorded Michael Newman Classical Guitarist
for the Sheffeld Lab company (based in Santa Barbara, California).48
In an interview with Allan Kozinn in 1980 Newman explained that his
reasons for engaging with the direct-to-disc process were motivated by
the view that recordings were essentially an inauthentic representation
of live performance:

I was aware of the risks. But I got tired of listening to recordings

that were technically fawless, and then going to concerts and hear-
ing that artists could not approach the same level of perfection.
(Kozinn 1980a: 54)

He also made a distinction between “recording as an art in itself ” and

the idea of making a recording that accurately refected one of his
own live performances: “I knew that people who listened to my al-
bum would understand that the playing was typical of one of my con-
certs”. By implication this meant accepting that certain noises would
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 321

be admitted into the recording that were extraneous to the music itself:
“Yes, you hear my chair squeak a little, and you hear my watch rattle
sometimes when I use a vibrato; but those things are not all drastic”
(Kozinn 1980: 54). To achieve a greater level of realism Newman also
decided that he did not want the recording environment itself to feel
like a studio:

I decided that if I wasn’t going to have the advantage of editing, I

certainly wasn’t going to have the disadvantage of sitting in a stu-
dio and playing only to a microphone. I wanted to feel as if I were
performing in a concert, so we invited some people to the sessions.
(Kozinn 1980a: 54)

Newman’s approach during recording was to focus on the musical per-

formance rather than worrying about making errors, with at least the
knowledge that it was possible to cut a single side again. The optimum
time allowed by the engineers for a high-quality single side of music
was around 14½ minutes, which here presented Newman with a differ-
ent challenge relative to his live performances:

I had no idea what concentration for 14 ½ minutes was like. Even

in concert I know the places in a piece where I can relax – where
I can let up and build energy. But to maintain peak concentra-
tion with no chance to rest while recording was very physically and
mentally draining.
(Kozinn 1980a: 54)

The genuine feeling of liveness captured in Newman’s direct-to-disc

performance was made more palpable by the remarkable clarity of the
recording, which represents the guitar’s transients with crisp defni-
tion and exhibits a quiet, hiss free background. The manner in which
the guitar’s direct sound is foregrounded was also antithetical to the
reverberant aesthetic common to many guitar recordings at this time,
nearer in fact to the ethos of John Williams’ close microphoning ex-
periments. The permanent commitment to disc of occasional perfor-
mance glitches and unexpected noise also offered a challenge to critics
accustomed to listening in terms of the prevailing aesthetic of polished
edited sound. Reviewing the disc in 1979, Kozinn commented, in an
echo of earlier critiques of Bream, that:

Sheffeld’s recorded sound is sparkling and noise-free. In fact, it

may be too accurate, picking up such sounds as fngers sliding on
strings that are often edited out of tape-to-disc recordings. And the
engineers chose not to fade between cuts as Newman checked his
tuning. Those accustomed to the more idealized guitar presenta-
tion on conventional discs may fnd this taste of realism intrusive.
(A.K. 1979: 119)
322 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Colin Cooper (Classical Guitar magazine) on the other hand found the
recording to be effective precisely because of the faws it contained:

The direct-disc recording does mean the odd clunk, a bit of tuning
here and there, and the occasional gasp and shuffe. But the sense
of immediacy is enhanced; you really do feel that you are listening
to a live performance, with all is attendant distraction. The point
is that they need not be distractions. A serious listener will listen
only to the music.
(Cooper 1984d: 64)

Another classical guitarist who undertook direct-to-disc recording at

this time was Kazuhito Yamashita, for his debut album, Romance de
Amor (RCA 1978, Direct Master Series).49 This was issued in a lavish
gatefold presentation which included extensive notes on the recording
set-up (including diagrams showing microphone positions and details
of the recording equipment) together with short essay describing the
process of making the recording by producer Hiroshi Isaka. To con-
tribute to the authenticity of the experience Isaka strove to capture
“the natural reverberation of a 1,200 seat concert hall” (the Iruma City
Auditorium, Saitama), to which end a multi-microphone set-up was
employed comprising matched pairs of Neumann U-67s and Schoeps
CMT-55s50 to record the direct sound of the guitar and four Neumann
M-49C microphones placed in positions around the seating area. In
typical bravura style, Yamashita (then only 17 years old) opted to per-
form the Britten Nocturnal, a work requiring immense concentration
to render convincingly in a single take. To mitigate potential problems
Isaka recounted that on the day of the session he asked Yamashita to
make a recording of the piece on tape frst, which functioned as a test
run:

First we meanwhile did a tape recording of his performance and,

after hearing it, discussed the music thoroughly in order to achieve
a satisfactory DD recording. The performance in Britten’s Noctur-
nal consequently was as close to perfection as possible though it
was recorded on tape and edited. The advantage of DD recording
is that the tension of the whole and the parts can be splendidly
conveyed to the listener. In this way the image of this young tal-
ented artist, Kazuhito Yamashita, clearly comes through.
(Isaka 1978)

For Kozinn, Yamashita’s rendition of the Nocturnal in these circum-

stances was a success, presenting “neither technical nor interpretive
hurdles”, and while the reading was “a bit on the fast side” (as was also
the case with Yamashita’s performance of the Fernando Sor Intro-
duction and Allegro on Side 1), he was able to evoke the “sometimes
dreamy, sometimes turbulent moods Britten’s score calls for”(A.K.
1979: 119).
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 323

The attitude of the direct-to-disc process, in the sense of the risk

involved, was also apparent in the recording of Eliot Fisk’s debut al-
bum, Eliot Fisk plays Scarlatti and Bach 8.30 Tonight (1978), which
was recorded by Mark Levinson51 for his Acoustic Recording Series.
As the title suggests this had the purpose of capturing the feel of a live
concert and was made in the chapel of the General Theological Semi-
nary in New York City. In this instance the direct cut process was not
used, rather Fisk’s performance was captured on tape but subject to
“minimal editing” with no re-takes. The recording was issued on a 12-
inch 45 rpm disc which was a typical strategy of audiophile recordists
at this time to improve resolution (yielding around 20 mins per side).
Of the recording session, Fisk wrote (in the LP’s liner notes):

The prospect of making a minimally edited recording, as is the

policy of Mark Levinson Acoustic Recording Series, presented me
with a rather frightening contrast to what I knew of the recording
habits of most contemporary concert artists. In selecting the takes
preserved on this album, I have opted for spontaneity over techni-
cal perfection. Of course, the product of this orientation expresses
what I feel for and about this music more honestly than a painstak-
ingly edited version ever could. What this effort represents, then,
is my playing on one evening at one particular moment in my life.
(Fisk 1978)

There is a certain irony in that, on the rare occasions classical gui-

tarists have consented to issue live recordings of their actual concert
performances, the amount of editing that is undertaken to engender
a professional fnal sounding product is considerable. Among the few
guitarists to have made such recordings are Julian Bream and John
Williams,52 who in 1979 issued Julian Bream and John Williams Live
(RCA ARL2–3090), a double LP sourced from the duo’s highly suc-
cessful North American tour of October 1978 covering Washington,
Boston, New York, Ann Arbor and Toronto. The duo were by this
point a well-rehearsed and closely integrated musical unit having col-
laborated on two previous studio albums, which no doubt mitigated
the risk of making a recording in this more unpredictable context.
Nonetheless, as Peter Dellheim explained in the LP’s liner notes, the
issued album was actually “a musically judicious edition of the tapings
of their concerts in Symphony Hall, Boston on October 15 and Av-
ery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York
on October 18”. After listening to the various tapes to select content,
Dellheim observed that,

The thing that struck us was that the very spirit of each city seemed
to have given a subtly different temperamental profle to each con-
cert. The autumnal Sunday afternoon recital in Boston seemed
especially effective in the more refectively lyrical parts while New
York’s Wednesday evening concert was particularly stunning in the
324 The Recording Model Deconstructed

more assertively vital and exuberant sections. We all agreed that

material from both concerts, if combined, would give us a total
performance that realized to the fullest extent the musical inten-
tion of the artists.
(Dellheim 1979)

This approach to compiling the album resulted in some interesting

editing decisions. For example, related movements within works were
not necessarily compiled from the same event (Dellheim cites the
Johnson Pavan and Galliard), and in some cases edits of individual
pieces, such as Le Pas espagnol from Fauré’s Dolly Suite, were spliced
backwards and forwards between the two concerts (or as Dellheim
puts it, the recording “shuttles between the two cities”). Such was
the imperceptibility of the editing in this regard that Malcolm Mac-
Donald, in his Gramophone review of the LP, noted that “the records
have all the qualities, in recorded sound and in quiet background, of
good studio-made ones” (M.M. 1979: 1912). In audiophile recording
fashion, Dellheim also provided information concerning the record-
ing set-up (overseen by engineer Edwin Begley), which comprised
“three highly directional ‘shotgun’ microphones” to obtain focus on
the two guitars individually and in combination, together with two
additional microphones positioned to capture the ambience of the
respective concert halls (Dellheim 1979). This enabled the inclusion
of a certain amount of audience presence and performer speech on
the LP which contributed to the feeling of being at a live event (in-
terestingly, however, later remastered versions of the album reduced
these aspects considerably).

NOTES
1. Marshall’s guitar music was featured on Laurindo Almeida’s Contempo-
rary Creations for Spanish Guitar album (see Chapter 6).
2. The Italian guitarist Aldo Minella (a pupil of Miguel Ablóniz) partic-
ipated in Segovia’s masterclasses in Siena during the 1950s and 1960s.
His recordings, which were made for various labels including Omnia and
Philips, as might be expected, adhere closely to the Segovia-endorsed rep-
ertoire. Of particular note is his LP devoted to Ponce’s works (Dischi
Ricordi – Orizzonte OCL 16245).
3. Producer of Laurindo Almeida’s recordings in the 1950s and 1960s.
4. Angel Romero was the label’s most notable signing in the late 1970s.
5. Both recordings were produced by Patti Laursen.
6. On this LP Torroba’s work is partnered with Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Con-
certo No. 1 in D Op. 99. For discussion of Torroba’s concerto see Clark
and Krause (2013).
7. Respectively, Aires de la Mancha, Piezas Caracteristicas, Madroños, Suite
Castellana, Nocturno and the Sonatina.
8. The series was aired on the British TV station Channel 4.
9. Volumes 7 and 8 were also issued together in a 50th birthday celebratory
box set in 1983.
Retaining and Revitalizing the Tradition 325

10. See, for example, Hopkinson Smith, Luys Milan: El Maestro (Astrée
Auvidis 1986) and Luys de Narvaez: Los Seys Libros del Delphín de
Música (Astrée Auvidis 1989), recorded using the vihuela.
11. The album also featured new transcription of Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3
in E major BWV 1006 (a piece better known to guitarists as the Lute Suite
No. 4).
12. For further discussion of Isbin’s Bach transcription, and Bach transcrib-
ing practice more generally, see Koplewitz (1983b, 1984).
13. The piece tends to be best known however in its orchestration by Maurice
Ravel. Prior to this only a small part of Pictures at an Exhibition had been
arranged by guitarists, most notably Segovia’s edition of the “The Old
Castle”, which appears on the Golden Jubilee album.
14. Heck had introduced the pieces to Bream in 1973.
15. See for example those written by harpsichordist Igor Kipnis for Philips
9500 513.
16. Op. 122 was here recorded for the frst time.
17. In 1983 Christensen also issued a complete recording of Henze’s Royal
Winter Music (pre-dating Tanenbaum’s revised edition made in associa-
tion with Henze in 1985).
18. With the exception of Yepes’ 1977 LP, Guitarra Romantica (DG 2530
871).
19. Jeffery also authored the defnitive biography of the composer, Fernando
Sor, Composer and Guitarist (Tecla 1977).
20. See for example Pepe Romero’s 1978 LP of Sor’s Sonatas Op. 22 and Op.
25 (Philips 9500 586).
21. Issued to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Sor’s birth.
22. Artzt, for example, programmed the rarely heard Sonata Op. 15b in C
major for this LP, and the Fantaisie on ‘Ye Banks and Braes’, Op. 40.
which provides a welcome alternative to the overplayed Op. 9 Mozart
variations.
23. All Johnson’s Sor recordings have since been made available for download
in mp3 format at: http://www.crgrecordings.com/catalog-new.html
24. This tape machine was apparently acquired in exchange for a Volkswagen!
25. Johnson was also closely associated with the Segovia network prevalent in
the US during the 1960s and 1970s, having at various times been taught
by Sophocles Papas, Christopher Parkening and Oscar Ghiglia.
26. For an interesting discussion of the zeitgeist concerning the classical gui-
tar at this time in the context of the declining infuence of Segovia, see
Read (1986).
27. Their work prepared the ground for later monographs, including Richard
Pinnell’s The Rioplatense Guitar (1993), focusing on the instrument’s his-
torical presence in Argentina and Uruguay, and more recently, Alejandro
Bruzual’s work on the guitar in Venezuela (2005).
28. Barrios is not credited however.
29. For a sense of Costanzo’s perspective on the Argentinian traditions of the
guitar see Pinnell (1993).
30. One of the frst classical guitarists to feature Morel in his recorded
programs was Eliot Fisk on his 1984 German EMI recording, Spielt
Villa-Lobos, Sojo, Morel, Barrios Mangoré (EMI 15-6757-1). An import-
ant all Morel focused recording was made in 1994 for Guitar Masters
Records by Polish guitarist Krzysztof Pelech in (GMR 102-94), which
also featured Morel in duo.
326 The Recording Model Deconstructed

31. On this album the piece is given the non-specifc title, “Dance from Vene-
zuela” and Lauro is incorrectly described as “a native of Argentina”!
32. Díaz had already recorded some of this material on Solos de Guitarra –
Venezuela/Paraguay for the Venezuelan Espiral label (1966).
33. For further discussion of Lauro’s musical style see Zea (1986).
34. A suite of harmonized folk tunes adapted for the guitar by Díaz.
35. Helguera was also a respected musicologist and author of La Guitarra en
México (1996).
36. The third included Ponce work is the Andantino variatio on a theme of
Paganini.
37. This is a re-issue of the 1965 Musica para Guitarra album (see Chapter 7).
38. Mike Ross-Trevor, John Williams’ engineer during the 1970s, confrms
(Marrington 2019a) that a distance of 6 feet was standard at this time for
recording the classical guitar.
39. Alice Artzt Plays Original Works was re-issued in 1980 as 20th Century
Music by the Hyperion label.
40. A London-based record label owned by Carl Denker which formed part
of the President Records group.
41. Smythe’s organ recordings (on his own Vista label) often included de-
tailed notes on the equipment used and the recording set-up.
42. Aubort and Nickrenz were closely associated with the US-based None-
such label. See Marrington (2020).
43. The Sheffeld Lab company for example used the AKG C24 microphone
in direct-to-disc recordings during the 1970s. See https://vintageking.
com/akg-c24-stereo-tube-microphone-698-vintage
44. This is referred to as “Meridian Studios” on the albums’ liner notes and
also happened to be a home of label co-owner Francis Loring.
45. Coincidentally Sutton was also a co-engineer of the John Williams Plays
Spanish Music LP.
46. Produced by Michael Robert Philips, the disc was recorded at 45 rpm
speed and released on 12-inch white vinyl.
47. Virtuoso Guitar (CCS8001), recorded in 1977. Crystal Clear also recorded
famenco guitarist Carlos Montoya in 1980 (Flamenco Direct vols 1 and 2).
48. Sheffeld LAB 10. Produced by Lincoln Mayorga and Doug Sax. New-
man undertook a second direct-to-disc recording for Sheffeld Lab in
1981, Italian Pleasures (LAB 16) for which he performed with the Se-
quioa Quartet.
49. The Japanese guitarist Ichiro Suzuki also made a direct-to-disc recording
for RCA at this time.
50. The album liner note refers to a “CMC-55” which is presumably an error
(there are further typos elsewhere on the sleeve).
51. Based in Hamden, CT, Levinson was at this time a developer of high-end
audio gear, including pre-amplifers. He later founded Red Rose which
re-issued his earlier Acoustic Record Series discs on SACD.
52. Others include Geraldo Ribeiro, Alexandre Lagoya, Liona Boyd and
Sharon Isbin.
13
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this penultimate chapter is to draw together some of
the key narrative threads discussed in this book and consider the ways
in which they have continued to manifest themselves in classical guitar
recordings since the 1990s. Obviously, it is not possible in a volume
of this moderate length to fully encompass the multitude of devel-
opments in classical guitar recording that have occurred during this
more recent period. The examples chosen here are thus drawn, for the
most part, from the work of those more high-profle classical guitarists
whose recorded output has been consistent and prolifc. A particular
focus is on the ways in which classical guitar recordings have continued
to refect the tensions (as outlined in Chapters 11 and 12) between the
post-Segovian agenda to persistently innovate the repertoire program
and the traditionalists’ concerns to bolster the foundations of the Sego-
vian canon. Among the key topics discussed here are the repertoire
concerns of guitarists active in Britain and America, the revival of the
classical guitarist-composer fgure, the re-vitalization of the Segovian
legacy and the global paradigm shift engendered by the emergence of
the Naxos label. Finally the chapter considers trends in classical guitar
recording practice during this period that may be regarded as an exten-
sion of the audiophile model discussed in Chapter 12.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE PROGRESSIVE PARADIGM

By late 1980s it was apparent that the Segovian repertoire paradigm had
been to a large extent supplanted by a musical outlook concerned with
foregrounding contemporary musical perspectives drawn from a wide
range of geographical contexts. As a result recordings now became in-
creasingly individualized in reference to guitarists’ specifc affliations
to particular composers and compositional idioms. Nonetheless there
remained some coherence in regard to the underlying foundations,
engendered by a continuing deference to certain of the more “pro-
gressive” works of the Bream repertoire which provided a context for

327
328 The Recording Model Deconstructed

the programming of new material of a comparably forward-thinking

character. The Britten Nocturnal, for example, is central to both Car-
los Bonell’s Twentieth Century Music for Guitar (EMI EL 27 0560 1)
and Norwegian guitarist Stein-Erik Olsen’s Blue Sonata (Simax PSC
1031), both released in 1987. On the former this is programmed with
Alberto Ginastera’s Sonata Op. 47, and on the latter, with the Sonata
for Guitar Op. 65 by Olsen’s countryman Johan Kvandal. Ginastera’s
Sonata, which had been written for Carlos Barbosa-Lima in 1976, was
among a number of progressive works that were now vying for equal
status as modern repertoire classics at this time. The Uruguayan guitar-
ist Eduardo Fernandez, recorded his own interpretation (on London
Records 414 616-2) in the same year as Bonell (here in the context of
the comparatively benign Villa-Lobos Estudos), while Barbosa-Lima
released his own version in 1993 (on Concord Concerto). Another new
work that began to attract guitarists in the late 1980s and early 1990s
was Michael Tippett’s The Blue Guitar, a composition commissioned
by Bream but not recorded commercially by him.1 Eleftheria Kotzia’s
premier recording of the piece (Pearl 1989) successfully programmed
this demanding and abstract work with Georges Delerue’s Mosaique
and several relatively “traditional” pieces by Latin American (Maximo
Diego Pujol) and Greek (Dimitri Fampas and Kiriakos Giorginakis)
composers. In the same year, Norbert Kraft offered a rather different
context for his own recording of Tippett’s piece (effectively its second
outing in disc) which he programmed with Britten’s Nocturnal and
an innovative new work by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer
entitled Le Cri de Merlin (Chandos CHAN 8784). Murray Schafer’s
piece was written in collaboration with Kraft,2 in keeping with the now
well-established credo that new guitar repertoire ideally be developed
through collaboration with non-guitarist composers, a point also em-
phasized in Duarte’s liner notes:

To bring together three works of the kind the guitar needs most:
substantial pieces, written by prominent composers who do not
or did not the play the instrument and were thus creatively unre-
stricted by undue deference to its idiosyncrasies – write the music
frst, then check its technical feasibility with the performer.
(Duarte 1989: 4)

Le Cri de Merlin adopts a wide range of extended techniques for the

guitar, at one point requiring the use of a spoon (by now a somewhat
over-cooked avant-garde cliché) to sound the strings. It also incorpo-
rates electronic music elements in the form of a pre-recorded tape of
bird sounds (created by the player), which is introduced towards the
end of the piece. In his later review of Kraft’s disc, Duarte described
Murray Schafer’s work as “a major addition to the guitar’s repertory”
(J.D. 1990: 1349).
The progressive character of Le Cri de Merlin was in keeping with
the strategies of a number of guitarists during this period, who were
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 329

now employing the album format as a vehicle for showcasing works of

an increasingly experimental nature designed to push the limits of the
guitar’s capabilities. Groundbreaking in this regard was Eduardo Fer-
nandez’s album, Avant-Garde Guitar (Decca 1993), which placed Brit-
ten’s Nocturnal alongside a broad range of compositional perspectives
– Takemitsu (All in Twilight), Brouwer (La Espiral Eterna), Luciano
Berio (Sequenza XI), and Colombian composer, Ana Torres (Mil y
una caras). Of these, Torres’ piece (composed 1988–89), is of particu-
lar interest, deriving its musical content from an underlying principle
based on fractals, or “self-replicating structures”, while at the same
time referencing traditional Colombian idioms. The album’s show-
piece, however, was Berio’s Sequenza XI, arguably the most signifcant
and challenging guitar composition to emerge from the European
avant-garde since Henze’s Royal Winter Music. This had originally
been commissioned by Eliot Fisk in 1982, who worked closely with
Berio during its composition, gave the premier in 1988, and eventually
recorded the piece for the MusicMasters label in 1994 (one year after
the Fernandez disc). In Fernandez’s words, Berio’s composition con-
stituted “a catalogue of everything that can be done with the guitar,
including some things Berio could only imagine” (Fernandez 1993),
while Fisk in the liner notes for his own recording commented that
the piece has “a breath of the Bach Ciaccona” (Fisk 1995), alluding
to the comparable scale of the work and its technical challenges for
the guitarist. At the same time the work also possessed points of ac-
cessibility for both guitarist and listener, drawing upon familiar guitar
idioms and textures (particularly famenco), and employing a musical
language which, while essentially abstract, was also frequently tonal
in implication. Further recordings of the Sequenza appeared in the
1990s, most notably on Franz Halasz’s Canzoni album (BIS CD-823,
1997), where the work was placed alongside seminal guitar composi-
tions of the Italian avant-garde, including Goffredo Petrassi’s Nunc
and Suoni Notturni. The technical and musical demands of the piece,
however, appear to have precluded widespread recording.
During the 1990s guitarists also began to turn their attention to con-
temporary guitar composers from outside the Western orbit, of whom
the most feted was Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996).
In a climate in which the Segovia repertoire was fast becoming out-
moded, guitarists seeking new perspectives on the repertoire were at-
tracted by Takemitsu’s unique coloristic approach to the instrument
(infuenced by impressionism and the avant-garde experiments of the
1960s) and its musical language, which was free of tonal clichés of the
Spanish repertoire. Takemitsu also placed an emphasis on writing for
the guitar in ensemble, which naturally added to its appeal for artists
seeking to break out of the solo repertoire context:

I almost always use the guitar when composing chamber music (not
the amplifed guitar). A very good reason I have used the guitar so
often is that the sound is soft and intimate. Sometimes composers
330 The Recording Model Deconstructed

are afraid to use the guitar because of its “small sound.” People
are not so concerned with loud sounds, but they will listen very
carefully to soft sounds. The guitar is actually a small orchestra of
colors.
(Marriott 1981: 167)

Interest in Takemitsu’s music had been building steadily during the

1970s as articles and reviews of his music began to appear in Sound-
board (see for example, Kessner 1977; Marriott 1981; Wager-Schneider
1981), with guitarists such as Leo Brouwer and John Williams being
among the frst to promote his work in their concert performances. Im-
portant early recordings were made by American guitarists, beginning
in 1984 with David Starobin’s version of Toward the Sea (for fute and
guitar) on New Music With Guitar Vol. 2 (Bridge) and David Tanen-
baum’s premier recording of All in Twilight on Acoustic Counterpoint
(1990). These were followed by John Williams’ comprehensive survey
of Takemitsu’s output (Takemitsu Played by John Williams, Sony SK
46720),3 released in 1991, which featured seminal works for guitar and
orchestra, To the Edge of Dream and Vers l’arc-en-ciel, Palma, as well
as four of Takemitsu’s twelve instrumental arrangements of popular
songs for the guitar (including music by The Beatles and Gershwin). In
1993 Bream, coming somewhat late to the table, also released record-
ings of All in Twilight (which he had commissioned in 1988) and To the
Edge of Dream (with Simon Rattle and the CBSO) while contracted to
EMI.

THE REVIVAL OF THE CLASSICAL GUITARIST-COMPOSER

During the 1990s the expansion of the classical guitar repertoire to
include an ever greater range of contemporary compositional perspec-
tives was also accompanied by an increase in the number of pieces con-
tributed by classical guitarists themselves. This in effect engendered the
extension of the classical guitar recording model to encompass a new
repertorial category – that of classical guitarists interpreting their own
music. There had of course been earlier instances of classical guitarists
who had placed a particular emphasis on recording their own works,
such as Sebastian Maroto, Siegfried Behrend, Leo Brouwer and Ste-
phen Funk Pearson. However, with the exception of guitarists active
in the more musically “fuid” classical guitar cultures of Latin Ameri-
can countries such as Argentina and Brazil, this was a relatively infre-
quent phenomenon within the culture of classical guitar performance.
It is useful to speculate on the possible reasons for re-emergence of
the guitarist-composer fgure at this time. Firstly, the increasing fo-
cus of classical guitarists on historical repertoire in the 1980s, much
of which was drawn from the nineteenth-century guitarist-composer
tradition, may have prompted contemporary players to consider mak-
ing their own contributions to a well-established tradition. This may
have been further catalyzed by the attention being given to the work
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 331

of neglected twentieth-century guitarist-composers, such as Barrios

and Lauro, who also provided potential compositional models. In
addition, guitarists’ inclinations to prioritize their own music can be
understood in terms of a reaction both to the limitations of the es-
tablished classical guitar canon and the constraints of the concert tra-
dition which had generally precluded the programming of one’s own
pieces unless they had been granted canonical status. The particular
signifcance of guitarist-composer recordings was twofold. On the one
hand, they provided an interpretative “proof of concept” for would-be
performers of the music, which was ultimately the key to their canon-
ization. Furthermore, in comparison to non-guitarist-composers, who
had been the main source of repertoire for guitarists such as Segovia,
Bream and Williams, they served to promote (provided they were able
to rise above guitaristic cliches), from an “insider” perspective, new
ideas concerning the compositional potential of the instrument.
Much of the impetus for the revival of the classical guitarist-
composer initially came from the aforementioned Eastern European
traditions of the classical guitar, associated with Štěpán Rak and Ni-
kita Koshkin. Rak, who had established a frm reputation in Europe
and North America during the 1980s as a respected concert artist and
composer, at the end of the decade released three defnitive recordings
of his music for British labels – Remembering Prague (Chandos 1988),
The Guitar of Štěpán Rak (Nimbus 1989) and Dedications (Nimbus
1990). The liner notes (written by John Duarte for all three albums)
drew attention to the signifcance of Rak’s recordings as marking the
beginning of a revival of the guitarist-composer fgure. In reference to
the Dedications album he wrote:

In former times the composer/performer was a familiar fgure –

and not only in the musical world of the guitar, but in this century
the species became almost extinct; even when the composer was an
accomplished instrument, writing the music and playing it became
two distinct, specialized functions. Within the last few decades the
tradition has undergone a revival: virtuoso guitarist/composers
have returned to the scene as propagators of their own music …
Štěpán Rak is one of this new breed.
(Duarte 1990)

Rak’s pieces are of particular interest for their improvisatory character

and their frequent exploration of unusual techniques and sonorities
on the guitar, which are often employed in response to program-
matic ideas. One of Rak’s more ambitious works in this regard is the
14-minute tone poem, Hiroshima, a compelling portrait in sound of
the atomic bomb attack of August 1945, which appears on Remem-
bering Prague. In his willingness to explore the potential of the guitar
in this manner, Rak’s work can be linked to the progressive composi-
tional perspectives espoused in the recordings of guitarist-composers
such as Behrend and Brouwer in the 1970s.
332 The Recording Model Deconstructed

After remaining in relative obscurity for many years under the So-
viet regime (Ferguson 1988), Koshkin fnally released a disc of his own
interpretations in 1997 (The Prince’s Toys) on the US label, Soundset
Recordings. This was well received by critics (described by Soundboard
reviewer James Reid (1999: 79) as, “the most successful recording
of a composer playing his own music that I have yet heard”). The
Prince’s Toys album provided a “from the horse’s mouth” overview
of Koshkin’s innovative guitar writing, which, like Rak’s often evokes
extra-musical ideas through experimentation with unusual techniques.
In addition to including defnitive readings of his most famous pieces,
The Prince’s Toys and Usher Waltz, the album included the 12-minute
Piece with Clocks (composed 1980), which in the manner of Cage’s
prepared piano, employed matchsticks under the strings, and Rain
(composed 1974), a piece at times evocative of Brouwer’s La Espiral
Eterna. Koshkin’s centrality to the classical guitar repertoire by the
2000s was underlined by the increasing interest shown in his work by
other guitarists. In 2003, for example, Elena Papandreou (a Greek gui-
tarist), following in the line of Mikulka’s classic 1983 recording of The
Prince’s Toys, released a landmark all-Koshkin album on BIS (CD-
1236), which included the premier recording of the composer’s sub-
stantial 30 minute Sonata.4 Koshkin later recorded a further disc of
his own music in 2005, entitled The Well-Tempered Koshkin, whose
standout works included The Elves and Ballads suites and the New
Orleans jazz-style parody, Parade.
Arguably the most signifcant pioneer in the revival of
composer-guitarist fgure in the 1990s was the Tunisian born French
guitarist Roland Dyens (1955–2016), a highly individualistic artist
who outright rejected the distinction between performer and composer –
“I can’t understand the divorce between composers and interpreters.
I fght against that” (Cooper 1995: 12). Dyens’ distinctive composi-
tional outlook which incorporated a wide range of musical styles, gui-
tar techniques and effects, coupled with his innovative approach to
arranging, facilitated a further expansion of the classical guitar rep-
ertoire, particularly where the absorption of popular music infuences
was concerned. His recordings, which often coincided with the pub-
lication of his compositions in sheet music form (by Editions Henri
Lemoine), provided an interpretative model that was central to the
advocacy of his often technically challenging improvisationally con-
ceived music. Dyens established his reputation as a composer and per-
former in Europe and the US during the 1980s, at which time he also
began to record. A focus of his early LPs was the music of Villa-Lobos
(for the French Arc-en-Ciel and Auvidis labels in 1982/1987), indi-
cating a sympathy with the more fuid Latin American conception
of the classical instrument. These LPs also included important early
works by Dyens, the Trois Saudades, Capricornes and the monumental
Brouwer-infuenced Hommage à Villa-Lobos. Initially Dyens’ arrang-
ing activity was focused on French popular music, as illustrated by
Hommage à Brassens (1985)5 for guitar and chamber ensemble (with
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 333

the Romanian Enesco Quatour) and Paris Guitare (1995 and 1997), the
latter comprising two volumes of French songs arranged for solo gui-
tar. With Nuages, released in 1999 on the Belgian GHA label, Dyens
moved to jazz and Brazilian music, recording innovative arrangements
of Thelonius Monk’s Round Midnight, Django Reinhardt’s Nuages
and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Felicidade (from the flm Black Orpheus),
and a number of his own pieces. A later album, Night and Day: Visite
au Jazz (2003), continued to explore in this area with arrangements
drawn both from American jazz and the Great American Songbook
(Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Strayhorn, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter and so
on). During this period Dyens also began to become well known for
his unique compositions modelled on established popular music forms,
such as the Tango en Skaï (1985) which quickly entered the repertoire
and was widely recorded.
Also relevant to the guitarist-composer context have been the oc-
casional instances of recording projects in which “creatively” minded
guitarists have attempted to re-work, in the manner of the postmod-
ernist paraphrase, elements of the existing classical guitar canon. Of
particular interest in this regard is German guitarist Kurt Schneeweiss’
ambitious seven-volume Anthology of Guitar Music issued in the mid-
1990s for the Arte Nova label (a budget classical subsidiary of BMG).
This contains a number of instances in which well-known repertoire
pieces are re-composed, elaborated and adapted, in some cases to the
extent that they are almost unrecognizable. Examples include Tárre-
ga’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra (on Volume 1) which benefts from a
new introduction and partially re-worked tremolo melody, and Pre-
lude for Antje-Marie (on Volume 2), a piece based on Sor’s Op. 35 No.
17 Etude, whose true origins become clearly revealed to the listener
towards the end.6 Naturally Schneeweiss’s approach offended pur-
ists who insisted that performers ought not interfere with established
repertoire classics, and this was undoubtedly a factor that led to the
anthology being largely ignored by the classical guitar establishment.
However, there is no doubt that the spontaneity with which Schnee-
weiss performs (often bordering on improvisation) and the audacity
with which he re-imagines these familiar pieces, contributes a fresh
perspective on a largely overplayed body of repertoire.

CLASSICAL GUITAR RECORDING IN BRITAIN SINCE

THE 1990S
During the 1990s Bream continued to remain infuential on the British
classical guitar scene, releasing four albums between 1993 and 1995
in the context of a short-term record deal signed with EMI in April
1990. These revisited the traditional repertoire that he had already re-
corded (in some cases more than once) during his career, including
Bach’s Lute Suite No. 1 in E minor, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez
and the Malcolm Arnold Concerto. His 1993 Nocturnal album was
more adventurous in its invoking the earlier progressiveness of his
334 The Recording Model Deconstructed

20th Century Guitar LP with re-recordings of Britten’s Nocturnal and

Frank Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves, which appeared alongside Leo
Brouwer’s more recent Sonata for Guitar, written for Bream in 1990,
and the latter’s own transcriptions (from piano) of folk melodies by
Witold Lutoslawski. The album Sonata (EMI 1995) included Bream’s
performing edition of the recently rediscovered Sonata (composed in
1933) of Spanish composer Antonio José (1902–1936) and, in an indi-
cation of a mellowing towards the Segovian repertoire perspective, his
frst recording of a Castelnuovo-Tedesco work, the Sonata “Omaggio
a Boccherini”.
John Williams, like Bream, also retained a strong presence as a re-
cording artist during the 1990s through his activities on the Sony Clas-
sical label (which had acquired CBS in 1990). He continued to explore
widely in his recordings, his albums often introducing new repertoire,
including concertos by Richard Harvey and Steve Gray (1996), works
for guitar and ensemble by Australian composers Peter Sculthorpe
and Nigel Westlake (From Australia 1994), as well as further forays
into “popular” territory with John Williams Plays the Movies (1997).
Also signifcant were Williams’ recordings reinstating his affliations
with Latin American music, including his second all-Barrios disc,
The Great Paraguayan (1995), the Brouwer-focused Black Decameron
(1997) and most importantly, El Diablo Suelto (2003), which offered a
succinct summation of the Venezuelan contribution to the repertoire,
surveying music by a range of composers including Antonio Lauro,
Raúl Borges, Antonio Carrillo, Ovelio Riera, Ignacio Figueredo and
Vicente Emilio Sojo (most of it arranged by Alirio Díaz). In a notice-
able departure from his previous albums, Williams’ recordings also at
this time increasingly began to feature his own music – his Aeolian
Suite for guitar and small orchestra, for example, appears on The Gui-
tarist John Williams (1998).
After leaving Sony Classical in 2006, Williams established his own
label, JCW (the letters standing for John Christopher Williams), and
began to release a series of new recordings, some of which continued
in the vein of his CBS programming, others taking a more eclectic
approach. His frst JCW release From a Bird (2008) is of particular
interest for its inclusion of more of Williams’ own compositions, here
undertaken in the context of a “library” music project (music com-
posed in reference to a specifc brief and for potential licensing use).
Composing music in this manner engendered a certain disregard for
the unity of a typical classical program in favor of a diverse mixture
of pieces, with a range of titles, some referring to animals (“Running
Dog”), some intended as tributes to friends (“Hello Francis”), and
others “simply my effort to call the pieces something less boring than
numbers” (Williams 2008). In their derivation from traditional Irish
folk music, the last fve tracks of the CD occupy a distinct musical
territory of their own. Williams has suggested that in approaching
an album in this way he is in accord with a sea change in the music
industry refected in the commissioning and packaging of music for
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 335

“compilation”, essentially meaning a disparate selection of material

that is at odds with the unifed album format:

One of the ways the recording industry is changing is that they’re

increasingly recording for compilation. All my albums have tried
to be like a good concert program, listening to forty-fve to ffty
minutes in sequence. But the recording companies are not really
interested in that now. They’re interested in compilation.
(Traviss 2014: 49)

Subsequent CDs were, however, closer to Williams’ earlier CBS ap-

proach to album programming, constituting presentations of new
music refective of current trends in contemporary composition, and
often refecting Williams’ concern with utilizing the guitar in ensemble
contexts. For example, his third CD release, entitled Concerto (JCW
3 2014) is a showcase for two new guitar concertos by Ross Edwards
and Stephen Goss (b. 1964), while JCW 5 (2018) features Goss’s The
Flower of Cities for two guitars, violin, bass and percussion and Philip
Houghton’s The Light on the Edge, a chamber work for two guitars,
harp, double bass and percussion. Goss’ piece is also of interest for
its programmatic concept, having been composed in response to Wil-
liams’ request for a composition that “celebrated the open spaces of
London” and “that particular places be portrayed” (Traviss 2013: 31),
suggesting a link to his earlier Echoes of London LP (1986).
Of the younger generation that emerged on the British scene in the early
1990s the Australian guitarist Craig Ogden has demonstrated a particular
affliation with the Bream repertoire. Originating from Perth, Ogden relo-
cated to Britain in 1990 to further his musical study at the Royal Northern
College of Music, from which he graduated an accomplished performer in
1992. With his frst recordings in 1994 and 1995, made for the pioneering
British independent labels Hyperion and Nimbus, Ogden aligned himself
directly with Bream’s British-inclined legacy. For Hyperion he recorded
as an accompanist in Benjamin Britten’s Folksong Arrangements and the
three Tippett Songs for Achilles, both works associated with Bream and
Peter Pears.7 The Blue Guitar (1995), recorded for Nimbus a label (NI
5390), was unique in its closely themed program, which was entirely de-
voted to music written for Bream by British composers, including Britten
(Nocturnal) Tippett (The Blue Guitar), Rodney Bennett (Impromptus),
Walton (Five Bagatelles) and Lennox Berkeley (Sonatina). Most of the
pieces on the album had, with the exception of the works by Rodney Ben-
nett and Tippett, already been extensively re-recorded, but not previously
gathered together en masse within a single collection. These were also
works whose defnitive interpretations, in some critics’ minds, still existed
in the essential Bream recordings of the 1960s and 1970s, as drawn atten-
tion to by John Duarte in his review of the album:

As an assemblage of these key works it is unique, but each has

alternative versions on CD, and there is the rub: a debut recording
336 The Recording Model Deconstructed

of unfamiliar music is unlikely to sell in quantity, whilst one of the

above kind invites comparisons, not least when Julian Bream has
recorded all but the “title” piece.
(J.D. 1995: 84)

Not to be put off by such comments, Ogden continued to make Brit-

ish music the subject of his recording programs. In 2001 he recorded
a disc of Bream-associated concertos (English Guitar Concertos) for
Chandos, another label with a strong British music remit. Here the
repertoire comprised Malcolm Arnold’s Guitar Concerto Op. 67 and
Serenade for Guitar and Strings Op. 50, Lennox Berkeley’s Guitar
Concerto Op. 88, and an adaptation (by Patrick Russ) of Walton’s
Five Bagatelles for guitar and orchestra, fusing the composer’s own
1975–6 orchestrations of the work (entitled Varrii Capricci) with the
solo guitar material, in effect creating a concerto-like re-imagining of
the pieces. In his liner notes for the album, Ogden, described the proj-
ect as “a celebration of the guitar itself as these works represent an
approach independent of traditionally Spanish and Latin-oriented or
inspired music, revealing the guitar in a coming of age phase” (Ogden
2001: 5). English Guitar Concertos was a well-reviewed disc, Edward
Greenfeld suggesting that it matched “in sensitivity and fair Bream’s
own vintage recordings”, and that the Walton adaptation “makes a
valuable addition to the limited range of guitar concertos, at least as
characterful as the fne works of Arnold and Berkeley” (2002: 59). In
2002 Ogden returned to Hyperion to accompany the tenor John Mark
Ainsley in Walton’s Anon in Love cycle, another work written for and
recorded by the Bream–Pears duo, and then in 2004 recorded an al-
bum for Chandos (CHAN 10261) focused on father and son compos-
ers Lennox and Michael Berkeley. The primary interest here lay in the
world premier recordings of Lennox Berkeley’s youthful Quatre Pièces
pour la guitare, written for Segovia in 1928 but not performed by him,
and Michael Berkeley’s Sonata in One Movement (1982), dedicated to
Bream and his producer James Burnett. Then in 2007 Ogden furthered
his British music interests with a new album for Nimbus – Imágenes de
España – devoted to the accessible Spanish-infected music of the rela-
tively unknown British classical guitarist and composer, Paul Coles (b.
1952). This was well reviewed by Gramophone, the critic in particular
approving of the music’s nostalgic characteristics relative to the Sego-
vian repertoire:

Coles’s attractive and often highly descriptive solo guitar music

recalls that of some of the great composers of the past – Tárrega,
Turina, Torroba, Ponce – but it rarely sounds derivative. For Coles,
famenco and the Romantic salon become two sides of the same
coin, inspiring or springing from extra-musical sources – in Coles’s
case the poems of Lorca (Imágenes de España) and Cervantes’s
Don Quixote (Las aventuras de un caballero errante).
(Yeoman 2009: 79)
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 337

Although British repertoire has clearly been central to Ogden’s re-

cording focus during the course of his career, he has no means been
defned by this perspective, his recorded output also illustrating the
extent to which the classical repertoire has diversifed during the last
few decades. Of particular signifcance to the evolution of Ogden’s re-
cording profle has been his association with the Chandos label, whose
open-minded attitude towards the nature of the repertoire enabled
him to explore far beyond his initial musical preoccupations at an
early stage of his career. His frst recording for Chandos (1996) was
of the Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu’s guitar concerto Op.
21, a three-movement work with a programmatic theme of “transfor-
mation” (the work is subtitled “Pegasus Effect”), and written in an
impressionistic language sometimes reminiscent of Takemitsu.8 This
was a somewhat unorthodox undertaking in the early stages of a re-
cording career, when the Concierto de Aranjuez and other mid-century
canonical works might have been a more likely choice for the aspir-
ing guitarist who wished to engage with the concerto format (Ogden
did, however, record the essential Rodrigo concertos to great acclaim
in 1998). Elsewhere the Chandos releases in which Ogden is the lead
artist have indicated a desire to re-think the character of the miscella-
neous recital disc. Tango Nuevo (1998), for example, whose title refers
to the modern form of the tango associated with Astor Piazzolla, ex-
plores material from Michael Praetorius to Roland Dyens, its theme
broadly being that of the dance. One of Ogden’s more unusual “con-
cept” projects has been Music from the Novels of Louis de Bernières,
recorded with mandolinist Alice Stephens in 1999. This album, which
was endorsed by de Bernières himself, successfully capitalized on the
popularity of his 1994 novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and refected
de Bernières own affliation with classical guitar music which is often
referenced in his novels. To this end the disc, conceived by Ogden as
a “soundtrack” to the books, comprised a selection of familiar pieces
by Barrios, Lauro, Llobet, Turina and Villa-Lobos, interspersed with
mandolin solos and guitar and mandolin duets. With his signing to the
Classic FM label in 2010 Ogden moved into crossover territory, issu-
ing a series of commercially oriented thematic recordings (with titles
such as Summer Guitar, Summertime, Christmas Time) whose content
drew upon popular and flm music as well as “hit” repertoire favorites
such as the Romance de Amor. In their arrangement and recording (in-
cluding multi-tracked guitars) these albums are much closer to “pop”
production values, in particular recalling the album projects of Liona
Boyd in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Recent recordings on British labels by the younger generation of
performers, such as Antonis Hatzinikolaou (Greece) and Sean Shibe
(Scotland) indicate that while existing British repertoire traditions
continue to provide the basis for recording concepts, there is a per-
sistent desire to innovate and explore beyond these. Hatzinikolaou, for
example, made a strong commitment to the British repertoire with his
2008 debut disc for Draft Records, which included Britten’s Nocturnal.
338 The Recording Model Deconstructed

This he built on further with his all-British program on Music of Mem-

ory (2013) for the British contemporary music-focused NMC label
(NMCD184). This album is perhaps most remarkable for its premier
recording of a 10-minute work by Peter Racine Fricker (1920–1990)
entitled Paseo (1969), which had originally been written for and pre-
miered by Bream (in 1970) but not subsequently recorded by him.
Hatzinikolaou also revived two previously recorded works which had
disappeared from the catalogue – John McCabe’s Canto (originally re-
corded for DGG by Siegfried Behrend) and Bayan Northcott’s Fanta-
sia for Guitar (originally recorded by David Starobin on Bridge). Here
then, Hatzinikolaou’s approach is not unlike that of Roberto Moronn
Pérez (see later in this chapter) in its aims to rejuvenate a body of work
associated with a particular branch of the classical guitar canon. Fur-
thermore, in keeping with the Bream tradition of repertoire garnering
the disc also contained three new works commissioned by Hatziniko-
laou himself, of young composers Charlotte Bray, Matthew Taylor
and Joseph Atkins.
Shibe’s recording career with Delphian also began (on Dreams and
Fancies (2017)) with a forthright indication of his affliation with
the British repertoire traditions. Here his program is a distillation of
Bream’s contribution to the literature of the classical guitar via four
major works commissioned by him – Walton’s Five Bagatelles, Mal-
colm Arnold’s Fantasy for Guitar Op. 107, Britten’s Nocturnal and
Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina. Sandwiched between these are three short
pieces by lutenist John Dowland, which suggest the deeper musical
traditions that underpin Bream’s art as his well as his contribution to
the revival of the music of this earlier period. Shibe’s second Delphian
project, softLOUD (2018), indicated a desire to evolve beyond this
foundational position, however, via an experimental juxtaposition of
classical and electric guitar. The focus of the album’s frst half is on
the classical guitar whose repertoire is Scottish in orientation, draw-
ing upon seventeenth-century lute manuscripts and pieces by compos-
ers James Oswald (1710–1769) and James MacMillan (b. 1959). The
electric guitar portion of the disc commences with Steve Reich’s Elec-
tric Counterpoint (in effect the canonic centerpiece) and is followed
by Shibe’s own arrangements of contemporary works by Julia Wolfe
and David Lang. Recording aesthetics also play an important role in
highlighting this clash of traditions – the classical guitar material is
captured within the resonant acoustic of Crichton Collegiate Church,
Midlothian, while the electric guitar pieces are recorded in the “un-
real” space of Lost Oscillation Studios in Edinburgh.

NORTH AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES AFTER 1990

Since the 1990s the recordings of classical guitarists active in North
America have continued to be characterized by allegiances to na-
tional compositional concerns, the pursuit of repertoire augmentation
through commissions from contemporary composers, and general
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 339

refection on the nature of the post-Segovian musical landscape of

the classical guitar. After the success of her scholarly recording of the
Bach lute suites, and her various crossover activities of the 1980s, Sha-
ron Isbin from the 1990s embarked on a series of recording projects
that can be regarded as bids to re-think the nature of the classical gui-
tar recital album. A number of these recordings have been designed
around concepts relating to journey, landscapes and geographic con-
texts, including Road to the Sun (1990), American Landscapes (1995),
Journey to the Amazon (1997), Dreams of a World (1999) and Journey
to the New World (2009). These concepts are often vehicles to assem-
ble established repertoire in new and meaningful ways, in many cases
with a strong Latin American emphasis. The Latin American infu-
ence, which was already to the fore in Isbin’s 1980s recordings, is given
a particular emphasis on Road to the Sun (a combination of Latin
American and Spanish repertoire) and Journey to the Amazon, Isbin’s
frst album following her signing to Teldec in 1997. The latter broke
new ground in its collaboration with Brazilian percussionist Thiago de
Mello and American saxophonist Paul Winter, subjecting established
guitar works by composers such as Sávio, Brouwer and Lauro to new
instrumental treatments. Isbin’s liner notes for the album emphasize
her affnity with Latin American music and its importance to the nar-
rative of her earlier recorded output, referencing her collaborations
in the 1980s with Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Antonio Carlos Jobim and
Laurindo Almeida. The album’s departure from the classical guitar
repertoire norms in its arrangements and performance style was sig-
nifcant enough to prompt John Duarte in his 1998 review to remark
that:

No one is currently doing more to free the guitar from its rent-a-
programme image than Sharon Isbin. She is not South American,
nor does the Amazon fow through Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela or
Paraguay, but none of this matters in the least. Others before her
have hitched rides with specialists in particular areas and sounded
like uncomfortable passengers, but Isbin has loved and felt this mu-
sic for over a quarter of a century and in the company of Thiago
de Mello and Paul Winter is entirely at home.
(J.D. 1998: 60)

Isbin also focused on contemporary music projects during the 1990s

which refected her interest in repertoire augmentation through com-
missioning. Nightshade Rounds (1994), re-asserted Isbin’s connections
with British repertoire – the Britten Nocturnal (her second recording
of the work), Walton’s Five Bagatelles, and Duarte’s English Suite –
which is situated in relation to music written for Isbin by American
composers – Bruce MacCombie’s Nightshade Rounds (also a re-
recording) and Joan Tower’s Clocks – and transcriptions of Gersh-
win preludes (by Barbosa-Lima). The MacCombie and Tower works,
with their foregrounding of musical texture and emphasis on repetitive
340 The Recording Model Deconstructed

musical gesture, place them in clear contradistinction to the British

works on the album. American Landscapes, released in 1995, featured
three groundbreaking new guitar concertos by American composers
– John Corigliano, Joseph Schwantner and Lukas Foss. All were com-
missioned by Isbin, whose conviction was that the concerto form was
an effective means of “bringing the instrument into mainstream mu-
sical life” (Reilly 1994: 23). These pieces possess distinctive contem-
porary musical languages, unusual musical structures and allude to
a range of musical infuences, including elements of early medieval
music (Corigliano), contemporary popular music (Schwantner) and
American folk music (Foss), fulflling Isbin’s aim (as emphasized in
the album’s liner notes) to move the guitar concerto beyond its estab-
lished conventions. Isbin recorded a second concerto-focused disc in
2001 (Teldec 8573–81830-2), which featured works by Chinese com-
poser Tan Dun (Yi2) and American composer Christopher Rouse (his
Concert de Gaudí).9 Dun’s piece, in particular, marked a signifcant
advancement in terms of the demands on the guitarist, requiring Isbin
to develop techniques for the emulation of Chinese pipa musical style
(Kirzinger 2001).10 Duarte, always on the look out for new departures,
commented in his review that, “These two concertos will come as a
shock to anyone who believes that guitar music is about Spanishry
and tunes to carry away in memory’s pocket, but if approached with
open ears the shock should beneft both them and the guitar”. He also
added that Isbin’s “work on behalf of the guitar’s present and future
remains unparalleled, a continuation of that of Segovia and Julian
Bream in earlier decades, supported by skill, musicality, dedication
and seemingly boundless energy” (J.D. 2001: 64).
American identity has also been central to the recording projects of
Benjamin Verdery and David Tanenbaum. Verdery’s albums for the
Newport Classic Premier label – Ride the Wind Horse: American Gui-
tar Music and Some Towns and Cities (both released in 1991) – make
American music the main priority. The former focuses on works by
late twentieth-century American composers including Lou Harrison,
guitarist David Leisner and Anthony Newman, which appear along-
side Verdery’s arrangements of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and
“Purple Haze”. Some Towns and Cities was concerned with original
compositions by Verdery, refecting his own important and ongoing
contribution to the rejuvenation of the guitarist-composer fgure. As
an essentially programmatic concept, each piece depicting a favorite
American town or city, the album’s content alludes to the picture post-
card descriptions of Albéniz’s popular transcribed Suite Española Op.
47. In addition to solo guitar works, Some Towns and Cities is also a
collaborative recording that includes guest performances from John
Williams, Paco Peña, Leo Kottke and Frederic Hand.
Like Isbin, Tanenbaum continued to acknowledge the Bream rep-
ertoire in his recordings. Acoustic Counterpoint (New Albion NA032),
released in 1990, confated Tippett’s The Blue Guitar (whose move-
ments were for the frst time recorded in their original order) and Peter
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 341

Maxwell Davies’ uncompromising Sonata for Guitar (composed 1984)

with a US perspective represented by Steve Reich’s Electric Counter-
point (in an acoustic rather than electric guitar version) and Roberto
Sierra’s Triptico for guitar and small chamber group. The album’s liner
notes succinctly encapsulate the manifesto of progressive school of
American classical guitar performance at this time:

This recording demonstrates the broad sound spectrum the guitar

can express within its limited volume. Each of these pieces creates
its own sound world. As a collection they refect some trends for
guitar music in the 80’s – a freedom from the infuence of the Span-
ish tradition; individual and disparate languages of composition;
the blurring of stylistic divisions and the increased incorporation
of the guitar in chamber music settings.
(Tanenbaum 1990)

Tanenbaum’s Great American Guitar Solo (Neuma 1993), is entirely

devoted to American composers: Curtis Curtis-Smith, Marilyn Kind
Currier, William Bolcom, Bryan Johanson and Shirish Korde (the lat-
ter also the album’s producer). American musical characteristics are
readily detectable on the album – such as the folk stylings in Bolcom’s
work (Seasons), for example, or the references to rock harmonic idi-
oms in Curtis-Smith’s piece (Great American Guitar Solo). Of the lat-
ter, Michael Lorimer in his liner notes writes,

this piece is decidedly American. It uses a full range of guitar tones

and colors-in-the-middle, where the music is mischievous and plays
hooky, you can hear even the sounds of the calliope the composer
heard in front of a tulip garden the day he conceived the Great
American Guitar Solo.
(Lorimer 1993)

Korde’s Time Grids, on the other hand occupies a rather different

sound world, utilizing tape and computer-based electronic music tech-
niques (such as sampling and FM synthesis) to modify the guitar’s
sound to evoke Far Eastern, African and Indian musical structures.
The album prompted an enthusiastic review from John Schneider who
commented that it added to “the growing store of guitar music that is
MADE IN AMERICA” (1995: 75).
With David Tanenbaum (New Albion NA095), released in 1997,
Tanenbaum engaged further with American minimalist music in a
re-working of Steve Reich’s Nagoya Marimbas (entitled Nagoya Gui-
tars) developed in consultation with the composer and double-tracked
by Tanenbaum in the recording. Also included are a short pieces by
Frank Zappa (Waltz for Guitar) and Terry Riley (Barabas), two rarely
performed sonatas by Alan Hovhaness, and a more substantial work
by Aaron Jay Kernis (Partita), whose music has been an ongoing focus
of Tanenbaum’s recording projects (see also the 1996 Kernis-focused
342 The Recording Model Deconstructed

album 100 Greatest Dance Hits, New Albion NA083). Minimalism is

also a defning feature of Y Bolanzero (2001), for which Terry Riley
was commissioned by Tanenbaum to write a piece for a large guitar
ensemble to be included in a four-day recording project with the Ju-
gendgitarrenorchester in Bronnbach (on Cadenza/Bayer-Records).
The same sessions also yielded a new live ensemble version of Steve
Reich’s Electric Counterpoint.
Verdery’s later follow-up to Ride the Wind Horse, the album Soepa
(2001), is a unique compilation of modern American music for the gui-
tar, which like Tanenbaum’s Great American Guitar Solo, pushes the
notion of classical guitar composition a considerable distance from
Euro-centric models of the repertoire. Of particular interest are the
works by Ingram Marshall (Soepa) and Jack Vees (Strummage), both
of which employ electronics in their realisations. Soepa is built from
reiterative textures, enhanced by a digital delay effect, which suggest
the infuence of minimalist works such as Reich’s Electric Counter-
point. Vees’ piece, which also uses a delay effect, employs Verdery’s
Soloette “travel” guitar, whose amplifed character providing an inter-
esting variation on the typical nylon strung guitar sound.11 Soepa is
also notable for being Verdery’s frst self-produced album, and one on
which the composers, who are all close associates of the guitarist, were
involved in the recording process (Shields 2002). This involved them
making contributions not only to the shaping of the interpretations
of their music during the recording process, but in some cases also
editing the material and vetting the fnal mixes. Taking the collabo-
rative process into the territory of the shaping of recorded artefact,
in which creation and execution are confated, is unique to the studio
age and represented a new departure for classical guitar composition.
Elsewhere Verdery’s albums are concerned with expanding the scope
of guitar transcription. Branches (2006), for example, in addition to
featuring new versions of the Bach Chaconne and Fourth Cello Suite,
includes a 10-minute-long arrangement of Strauss’s “Blue Danube”
waltz which recalls Kazuhito Yamashita in its ambitious scope.
Of particular importance to the development of classical gui-
tar recording in North America since the 1990s has been the San
Francisco-based GSP (Guitar Solo Publications) label and music pub-
lisher which has provided a unique West Coast perspective on the clas-
sical guitar recording program. Active as a record label since 1989, GSP
has become highly regarded both for the sonic quality of its classical
guitar recordings, whose production is overseen by owner-producer
Dean Kamei, and the diversity of its artist and repertoire program-
ming. One of the label’s early signings was William Kanengiser (b.
1959), who recorded two albums in the early 1990s – Rondo Alla Turka
(1991) and Echoes of the Old World (1993). The frst acknowledged
both the historical canon and Kanengiser’s American contemporar-
ies’ concerns to expand the repertoire in its combining of ambitious
transcriptions – Mozart (Sonata in A, K.331) and Handel (Suite No. 8
in G) – with modern works by Brouwer (El Decameron Negro) and
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 343

American guitarist-composer Brian Head (Sketches for Friends).

Echoes of the Old World was, by contrast, a concept album focused on
music with distinctly Eastern European leanings, including works by
guitarist-composers Carlo Domeniconi – his Turkish-inspired Koyu-
nbaba, which quickly became a repertoire standard – Dušan Bog-
danović (Six Balkan Miniatures), and British composer Oliver Hunt
(his Barber of Baghdad, which had received little attention since Robert
Brightmore’s Vista recording). GSP was also instrumental in bringing
the music of guitarist-composer Andrew York (b. 1958) to an interna-
tional audience. York frst came to prominence with his album Perfect
Sky (Timeless Records 1986) which included his most famous compo-
sition Sunburst, a piece which has since been recorded by numerous
guitarists, most notably John Williams12 who championed York’s work
on Spirit of the Guitar (1989). York’s musical style, as showcased on his
frst GSP disc, Dénouement (1993), comprises a highly accessible mix of
infuences ranging from neo-classical to folk, which at times edges into
“New Age” territory (as might be issued on the Windham Hill label),
and generally eschews more progressive trends. GSP has also played an
important role in bringing Latin American classical guitar perspectives
to the North American scene. In particular the label has been asso-
ciated with the recordings of Paulo Bellinati, now a well-established
fgure on the global classical guitar scene, and a strong proselytizing
voice for Brazilian repertoire. In the 1990s Bellinati’s recordings for
GSP continued to build upon his interest in promoting Brazilian gui-
tar music of the popular sphere (further to the success of his Garôto
album), including guitarists of the early-mid twentieth century, such as
Dilermando Reis and Armando Neves (Serenata: “Choros and Waltzes
of Brazil”, GSP 1993). His own music has also achieved global popu-
larity (via recordings such as Violaões do Brasil, Crescente 1990; Lira
Brasileira, GSP 2008), particularly his piece, Jongo, which has become
a classical guitar standard, appearing most recently on Jason Vieaux’s
Grammy winning album Play (2014).
David Starobin’s Bridge label has continued to function as the main
site of specialist contemporary classical guitar recording in North
America. The New Music with Guitar series, which is in it twelfth vol-
ume at the time of writing, has since 1990 remained strongly inclined
towards American composers, many of them major fgures: Milton
Babbitt, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Gunther Schuller, Richard
Wernick, Melinda Wagner, Michael Starobin, William Bland, Barbara
Kolb, Ronald Roxbury, Mel Powell, Tom Flaherty, Roger Reynolds,
Mario Davidovsky, Paul Lansky and Tod Machover. Starobin has also
given focused attention to individual composers, particularly George
Crumb, Paul Lansky and the Danish composer Poul Ruders (the lat-
ter’s works, for example, are a particular focus of New Music with Gui-
tar Volume 11). While solo guitar pieces are regularly featured, the
series has also continued to showcase the guitar in a range of ensemble
contexts, including guitar and voice, guitar and fute, guitar and vio-
lin, guitar and piano, guitar duo and guitar and orchestra. It has also
344 The Recording Model Deconstructed

been notable for the inclusion of a number of substantial composi-

tions featuring the guitar with percussion, a combination largely un-
explored since Siegfried Behrend’s groundbreaking DGG recordings
in 1970. Among the most signifcant pieces in this regard have been
Crumb’s Mundus Canis (Volume 6, 2004), featuring Crumb himself
on percussion, Poul Ruders’ New Rochelle Suite (on Volume 7 “Family
Album”, 2007) and Paul Lansky’s Partita (on Volume 8, 2013).13 The
series has also included works that experiment with the guitar in com-
bination with electronics written by established composers in this feld
including Tod Machover (Bug-Mudra) and Mario Davidovsky (Syn-
chronisms #10) on volumes 4 and 5 respectively. While the New Music
with Guitar series has continued to admit much guitar music of an ex-
perimental and “high modernist” nature, many of the works included
are also in recognizably tonal languages, refecting the eclecticism of
the post-1990s American musical landscape.
After occasional forays into more progressive repertoire territory in
his recordings of the 1980s,14 Eliot Fisk emerged in the 1990s as an
important force in the promotion of contemporary guitar music by
major American composers. Of particular signifcance was his record-
ing of George Rochberg’s Caprice Variations (1994), a project closely
related to Fisk’s 1991 disc of the Paganini Caprices (again Ruggiero
Ricci was a catalyst). Here Fisk transcribed Rochberg’s epic set of
variations on Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, originally composed for vi-
olin in 1970. According to Rochberg’s liner notes Fisk achieved, “no
less than a ‘recomposition’. Besides producing an unbelievable exten-
sion of guitar technique, he has at the same time explored and utilized
every conceivable expressive possibility of the instrument”. The work
comprises a theme and 50 variations, the latter being programmed on
the CD using a mathematical scheme:

The number 24 plays an important role in the structuring of the

variations heard here. Since Paganini has precisely 24 Caprices in
his Op. 1, I thought it would be nice to refect this fact somehow.
So I ordered the Rochberg Variations as eight suites of six varia-
tions, separated in the middle and punctuated at the end by single
variations: 24 (= 4 × 6) + 1 + 24 (= 4 × 6) + 1…. (These days,
however, there’s no reason why listeners can’t program their CD
players and make their own versions!).
(Fisk 1994b)

Another American composer prioritized in Fisk’s more recent record-

ings is Robert Beaser (b. 1954), a postmodernist writing in an accessi-
ble neo-tonal style whose music Fisk had frst recorded as early as 1987
(on his Mountain Songs “cycle of American folk music” for the Musi-
cal Heritage Society). In 2017 Fisk recorded Beaser’s Guitar Concerto
for the Scottish Linn Records label, a work whose musical eclecticism
(infuences of lute music, the Baroque, Andalusian and bluegrass) sug-
gests affnities with the concertos of Isbin’s American Landscapes disc.
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 345

Also included on this disc is a much earlier work for solo guitar, Notes
on a Southern Sky, composed for Fisk in 1980, which is characterized
by repetitive musical gestures (described in Beaser’s liner notes as “ale-
atoric loops”) suggesting the infuence of Latin American music (while
Beaser cites Venezuela as the source, the music appears more reminis-
cent of Leo Brouwer).
Eclecticism of repertoire programming has also been a strong fea-
ture of the recordings of the younger American guitarist Jason Vieaux,
who since the 2000s has been concerned to explore widely beyond the
classical music remit. In 2005 he took the bold step to transplant the
single-composer recording model to the jazz feld, recording 13 ar-
rangements of pieces by guitarist Pat Metheny (Images of Metheny
Azica ACD 71233). The album’s liner notes quote Metheny who states
that that Vieaux “has used these pieces as a kind of musical precipice
from which to launch a new idea, a new way of hearing what these
tunes mean” (Vieaux 2005). In practice this meant fnding ways to re-
think the music to work effectively in a solo classical guitar context,
and in relation to the musical traditions associated with the instru-
ment. Hence, in one of the album’s most innovative sequences Vieaux
explicitly applies a classical framework, arranging fve of the pieces as a
Baroque suite using standard period forms such as the Chaconne, Alle-
mande, Gavotte and Double. Vieaux recalls that even in 2005 his choice
of repertoire still raised eyebrows: “I remember the reaction from some
people who thought it was crazy for an established classical guitarist
to do an entire record of one jazz artist” (Fingerstyle Guitar Journal
2017: 10). More recently in 2015 Vieaux won a Grammy for his album
Play (2014). This was essentially a revival of the traditional miscellany
recital disc, which summarized the eclecticism of the contemporary
classical guitar repertoire in its blend of evergreen repertoire standards
– Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Capricho Arabe etc – with more
recently canonized modern classics such as York’s Sunburst, Myers’ Ca-
vatina and Dyens’ Tango en Skaï.

POPULAR MUSIC AND THE CANONIZATION OF THE

BEATLES
As the recordings of Jason Vieaux, and other guitarists such as Ro-
land Dyens and Benjamin Verdery, indicate, popular music forms –
specifcally, earlier American songwriting traditions, American jazz
and more recent rock-derived styles – have remained an important
source of repertoire for recorded programs since the 1990s. Another
area of the popular music literature that classical guitarists have con-
tinued to be drawn to repeatedly has been the music of The Beatles.
Takemitsu’s transcriptions have continued to be a mainstay, being
recorded in whole or part by a number of classical guitarists, in-
cluding Williams (his 1991 all-Takemitsu album), Manuel Barrueco
(on Plays Lennon and McCartney, 1994) and Göran Söllscher (Here
There and Everywhere, 1995). On the latter Söllscher expanded upon
346 The Recording Model Deconstructed

the Takemitsu versions with his own arrangements and several dis-
tinctive contributions by Börje Sandquist (his re-working of “Across
the Universe” in particular engages in a compelling 8-minute tex-
tural re-imagining which dramatically transforms the original song).
Barrueco’s album features three of the Takemitsu arrangements and
Brouwer’s “Fool on the Hill” duet (played with David Tanenbaum)
but he also expands beyond solo material into more sophisticated
guitar and string ensemble/orchestra arrangements by Brouwer and
Jeremy Lubbock. Likewise Söllscher’s second Beatles-themed album,
From Yesterday to Penny Lane (2000), includes adventurous ensem-
ble arrangements for guitar and bandoneon (“Come Together”, “I
Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Help!” feature) with two extended
works for larger forces – George Martin’s Three American Sketches
and Leo Brouwer’s From Yesterday to Penny Lane (both for guitar
and strings). Eric Hansen’s album Across the Universe (2005) uses
multi-track facilities to create complex arrangements featuring intri-
cately voiced part-writing unplayable on a single guitar. By extension
of The Beatles’ association, John Williams has worked with producer
George Martin on two signifcant recording projects – the In My Life
tribute album (1998), for which he performed Martin’s arrangement
of “Here Comes the Sun” for guitar and orchestra, and a 1997 Classic
FM-sponsored project with the Medici Quartet on which he played
Martin’s composition, Three American Sketches.
Classical guitarists’ rationale for appending The Beatles’ songs to
their repertoires has often been expressed in terms of their being com-
parable to classical music in their substance. Söllscher remarks, for ex-
ample, in the liner notes to Here, There and Everywhere, that “while
working on this project I realized more and more that, for me at least,
The Beatles music after 25 years is just as classical as any other mu-
sic” (Sollscher 1995: 3). This is also implied in individual guitarists’
approaches to arranging and presenting Beatles’ material. Barrueco’s
adapted solo arrangements (by John Bayless) of “Lucy in the Sky
with Diamonds” and “A Hard Day’s Night”, for example, are essen-
tially baroque pastiche re-contextualizations suggestive of the music
of Domenico Scarlatti. Carlos Bonell’s collection, Magical Mystery
Guitar Tour (Musical Concepts 2011) includes arrangements in which
excerpts from the established classical guitar repertoire are juxtaposed
with The Beatles’ music. “Blackbird”, for example, is preceded by the
frst few bars of the famous Bourrée from Bach’s Lute Suite No. 1 in
E minor, which appears designed to suggest a comparability of mu-
sical pedigree, while “Penny Lane” is preceded by an arrangement of
a Elizabethan era piece, “Kemp’s Jig”. More recently on the album
Blackbird (2016) Miloš Karadaglić located an alternative strategy for
presenting the now well-established Beatles’ classical guitar “genre” by
expanding beyond solo performance to include singers and musicians.
Also, in a bid to impart a certain sonic authenticity, the album was
recorded at Abbey Road Studios using microphones featured on the
original Beatles’ sessions.
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 347

THE CANON UPHELD: THE RECORDINGS OF

DAVID RUSSELL
So far this chapter has discussed trends in recording practice that have
been concerned with innovating the recorded classical guitar program,
typically via sourcing new repertoire, and embracing a wider range of
musical aesthetics not necessarily considered “classical”. These trends
can be seen as the outcome of a strong desire for performer individu-
alism, a sentiment which is often at odds with entrenched notions of
“tradition” where the repertoire is concerned. At this point the focus
moves to a consideration of particular areas of recording practice that
foreground the ongoing concern of classical guitarists with upholding
the received canon. This is exemplifed in particular by the career of
David Russell, whose recordings since the mid-1990s (on the US-based
Telarc label), have been characterized by a persistent exploration of
the heritage of the historical classical guitar repertoire, its canonical
composers and traditions of transcribing from non-guitar sources.
Russell emerged in the early 1970s (graduating from the Royal Acad-
emy of Music in 1974) and began to record towards the end of the
decade, like many of his generation initially working with small inde-
pendent labels on a range of different repertoire projects. His debut,
Something Unique (Overture 1979), represented a bid for distinctive-
ness relative to the usual guitarist’s frst recording, being based around
untypical repertoire by composers such as Sojo (foreshadowing his
burgeoning interest in Latin American music), and Hans Haug, whose
Prélude, Tiento et Toccata is announced in the liner notes as a “signif-
cant recent addition to the repertoire”. Russell’s Lauro album, released
a year later on the British Guitar Masters label was, as discussed in
Chapter 12, a landmark recording of collected works by the Venezue-
lan composer. He also collaborated on two LPs with Scottish composer
and double bass player, Dennis Milne (a Royal Academy of Music col-
league), who contributed arrangements for double bass and guitar duet
(a relatively unexplored combination) and his Guitar Concerto. Other
recordings of interest during this period include two duo discs with
Belgian guitarist Raphaëlla Smits, one notably featuring selections
from Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Les Guitares Bien Temperés Op. 199 and a
(now hard to fnd) recording of the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez in
Poland for Polskie Nagrania (1989). The most signifcant recordings of
the frst phase of his career, which pre-empt his work for Telarc, were
his 1986 albums for the Guitar Masters and the Belgian GHA label of
Baroque and nineteenth-century music and his landmark 1991 record-
ing for Opera Tres of the complete works of Francisco Tárrega.
With his signing to Telarc in 1995 Russell was fnally able to
gain the label support necessary to stabilize the development of his
recording career, resulting in a highly productive period of work in
which he released an album almost every year for nearly two decades.
The resultant discography demonstrates a close alignment with tra-
ditional repertoire perspectives derived from European and Latin
348 The Recording Model Deconstructed

American narratives of the classical guitar. In addition, album content

has often been defned by a focus on particular composers, including
discs devoted respectively to Barrios, Torroba, Rodrigo, Albéniz, Gi-
uliani and Bach. On Spanish Legends (2005), which surveys arrange-
ments and compositions by Regino Sainz de la Maza, Miguel Llobet,
Emilio Pujol and Segovia, Russell directly acknowledges the early
twentieth century pioneers of the Spanish classical guitar. Russell’s
affnity with the Spanish repertoire is deeply rooted in his early de-
velopment as a guitarist, during which Segovia’s recordings played an
important role, and he has been resistant to the notion that this mu-
sic constitutes a defunct tradition that should be ignored in favor of
progress (Clinton 1978b: 19).15 At the same time, Russell’s focus on
Barrios, together with the Grammy winning Aire Latino (2004) and
the later Sonidos Latinos (2010), recognizes the important counterbal-
ance of Latin American guitar culture to the Spanish perspective. As
well as a focus on cornerstone repertoire classics, a number of Russell’s
recordings also refect a concern to refne and develop the art of tran-
scription within clearly delineated stylistic contexts. This is apparent
in the several recordings he has made that are defned by musical era –
Renaissance Favorites for Guitar (2006), Air on a G String: Baroque
Masterpieces (2008) and Grandeur of the Baroque (2012). With the ex-
ception of occasional albums, most notably For David (2009) focusing
on pieces written for him by guitarist-composers, Russell has shown
less interest in recording progressive contemporary guitar music, al-
though he has frequently performed such music in concert. Occasional
deviations from the received canon are found in the album Message of
the Sea (1998), focusing on arrangements of Celtic music, as well as in-
dulgence in the miscellany type album with Art of the Guitar (2007), es-
sentially a collection of popular crowd pleasers, including Sor’s Op. 9
Mozart variations, arrangements of classics such Debussy’s La Fille
aux Cheveux de Lin and Stanley Myers’ Cavatina.
The fact of Russell’s recording for a single label over an extended
period of time has also meant a certain consistency of sonic presen-
tation, engendered by Telarc’s prioritization of an audiophile record-
ing aesthetic which, like other labels such as BIS, has been founded
(since the late 1970s) on minimal microphoning technique and the
use of resonant halls and churches (Humphreys 1988).16 To this end
Russell’s recordings have beneftted from the exemplary acoustics of a
range of venues including the American Academy of Arts and Letters
in New York, the Peggy and Yale Gordon Center for the Performing
Arts in Maryland, Mabel Shaw Bridges Hall of Music (Claremont,
CA), Mechanics Hall (Worcester, MA) and Clonick Hall at the Ober-
lin Conservatory of Music (Ohio). Russell’s recordings have, like
those of Segovia, Bream, Yepes and Williams, also beneftted from a
dedicated recording team that has included producers Elaine Martone
and Rosalind Ilett and the renowned engineer, Thomas J. Knab. In
true audiophile fashion the liner notes for Russell’s Telarc recordings
provide copious information concerning the recording sessions and
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 349

technology employed. Most have involved the use of two or three mi-
crophone types, of various brands, including ribbon (particularly the
Coles 4038 but also the Beyer M160), and for many recordings the
Sennhesier MKH-20/MKH-30 omni-directional microphones which
are well suited to recording solo instruments.17 Album liner notes
indicate that Russell’s sessions for each Telarc album have typically
occupied little more than a three to four day recording period, a tes-
tament to his capacity to lay down fnished performances quickly and
in long-take form.

THE SEGOVIAN PARADIGM REINSTATED

The interest of guitarists in re-recording the Segovian repertoire
during the 1990s was also complemented by the reactivation of Sego-
via’s recorded legacy within the marketplace. While in the early 1980s
Segovia had remained a strong presence on the international concert
scene, his representation in recorded form had become almost neg-
ligible. This was largely due to MCA’s decision in the early 1970s to
move away from classical music, which had caused Segovia’s seminal
recordings of the 1950s and 1960s to go out of print (Duarte 1998).
The frst signifcant step towards reviving Segovia’s recorded legacy
had been EMI’s decision to remaster the early HMV recordings to LP
in 1980. Then, following Segovia’s death in 1987, MCA, in the spirit of
celebrating his life and career, began re-issuing his post-1950s Amer-
ican Decca recordings to the emerging CD marketplace. As MCA’s
project (comprising nine volumes released between 1987 and 1991)
dealt with a catalogue covering two decades of evolving recording aes-
thetics, Segovia’s long-time producer Israel Horowitz, who oversaw
the project, took pains to ensure that the original masters were used
rather than later tapes on which the recordings had often been ren-
dered to “fake” stereo, or been subject to added reverberation effects.
As Horowitz observes in the liner notes for each CD:

In all cases the earliest available tapes were sought out and digi-
tally remastered to retain the sound as originally captured. In a few
cases, minor faws, due to tape deterioration were accepted rather
than use later copies…As near as the craft of recording was able
to refect his remarkable communicative powers, this is how the
Master sounded.
(Horowitz 1987)

Interestingly, however, Horowitz chose not to reinstate the program

structures of the original albums on CD, rather he compiled mate-
rial from across Segovia’s discography on the basis of either composer
(Bach, Ponce, Castelnuovo-Tedesco) or era (Five Centuries of the Span-
ish Guitar, The Baroque Guitar, The Romantic Guitar) which meant
that recordings made in different decades were frequently combined.
This resulted in a plethora of contrasting mono and stereo recording
350 The Recording Model Deconstructed

aesthetics on a single CD, as can be heard on the frst volume for ex-
ample, which mixes mono recordings from the early to mid-1950s with
stereo recordings of the early and late 1960s. Each issue also employed
a cover drawn from the artwork for Segovia’s American Decca LPs, al-
though this did not necessarily correspond with the musical content of
the original discs. Hence, although the project had the beneft of mak-
ing Segovia’s recordings widely available via the new digital medium,
it unfortunately did not accurately represent the evolution of Segovia’s
artistry on record. Rather, the Segovia re-issues were compiled to take
advantage of the expanded recording length of the Compact Disc and
facilitate classifcation of their content within record stores. This ap-
proach was typical in the early era of digital re-mastering – for exam-
ple, the reissue of Julian Bream’s RCA back catalogue by BMG in the
early 1990s (the Julian Bream Edition) was also conducted in a similar
manner, with only certain volumes corresponding to the programming
of the original LPs.
During the 1990s Segovia’s legacy also continued to be revisited by
guitarists who had maintained strong connections with the maestro in
their earlier years. Christopher Parkening and Eliot Fisk, for example,
each issued “tribute” style recordings that served to reinstate Segovia’s
presence in an era in which the progressive repertoire paradigm had be-
come dominant. Parkening’s A Tribute to Segovia (Angel/EMI 1991), in
an echo of his frst Angel recordings, assembled a number of repertoire
favorites associated with maestro. The CD’s liner notes provided a de-
tailed biography, placing emphasis on the oft-quoted tenets of Sego-
via’s mission for the classical guitar and reiterating Parkening’s close
association with Segovia during his early career. The recording was
also interest for its having been undertaken using one of Segovia’s own
concert guitars which, in consultation with José Ramirez III, had been
shipped from a guitar museum in Madrid. Fisk’s 1996 album, Segovia:
Canciones Populares (MusicMasters) was issued to coincide with the
tenth anniversary of Segovia’s passing. Undertaken in collaboration
with Segovia’s widow, Madame Emilia Segovia, it featured a number
of world premier recordings of Segovia compositions, at the center of
which were the 22 Canciones Populares de distintos Paises (folksongs
from various countries) completed during his time in Montevideo in
1941. Also included were a number of transcriptions made famous by
Segovia in his American Decca recordings (for example, Narváez’s Can-
ción del Emperador and Haydn’s Minuet & Trio from String Quartet Op.
76 No. 1) and well-known pieces composed for him by Ponce, Milhaud
and Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Fisk’s program note indicates that the CD’s
structure – balancing transcriptions with original works by a wide range
of composers spanning a number of eras – was intended to compensate
for the aforementioned MCA strategy of re-issuing Segovia’s recordings
to CD without reference to the original American Decca recordings:

In the process of transferring these recordings to CD format,

which allows for an uninterrupted fow of more than 70 minutes,
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 351

the original Segovia discs have been reordered and recombined ac-
cording to composer and genre. While this simplifes the cataloging
process for libraries and record stores, it alters the artistic effect.
The present recording, although necessarily in CD form, attempts
to imitate the effect (and affect!) of those old 33s.
(Fisk 1996)

Fisk also advocates strongly for Segovia’s legacy in his accompanying

liner notes, remarking that, “It has been said that all philosophy is
but a footnote to Plato. I like to think of all classical guitar playing
as a footnote to the work of Andrés Segovia y Torres (1893–1987”.
The recordings themselves capture a sense of Segovia’s performance
style (which Fisk understood deeply), his timbral nuance, and at times
even allude to the acoustic ambience of the original American Decca
recordings.
More recently, a new recording perspective has emerged that has
promised to rejuvenate Segovia’s contribution to the classical guitar in
a way which avoids obvious reference to the established canon of Sego-
via repertoire pieces. Since 2013 the Spanish guitarist Roberto Moronn
Pérez has undertaken a series of recordings for the US-based Refer-
ence Recordings label entitled “Andrés Segovia Archive”, the latter
referring to the substantial holdings (in Linares) of music written for
Segovia during the course of his lifetime which he did not have capac-
ity or inclination to perform or commit to record. To date Pérez has is-
sued three CDs, which have grouped selections of these pieces together
by nationality, beginning with Spanish and French composers (2013
and 2014), and most recently, works from multiple countries (2017).
The frst CD was issued in consultation with the Italian guitarist and
publisher Angelo Gilardino, currently Scholar and General Editor of
the Andrés Segovia Archive, who also provided liner notes. Another
important contributor to the project was Thomas Frost, co-producer
of Segovia’s American Decca recordings prior to the arrival of Israel
Horowitz. In his comments in the liner notes for the frst disc, Frost
recollects working with Segovia, recalling in particular the latter’s per-
fectionist one-take approach to recording and preference for minimal
edits. His comments in reference to Pérez also draw attention to the
fact that the Andrés Segovia Archive project is as much a marketing
concept devised for the promotion of Pérez’s recording career as it is a
scholarly curatorial endeavor:

It turned out that some pieces had never been recorded and those
that had were handicapped by poor visibility in the marketplace
and limited distribution. This realization sparked the thought that
here was an opportunity: a series of recordings organized around
the nationalities of the composers in the Segovia Archive. At that
point we realized we had found the idea which would provide the
necessary boost that Roberto’s recording career needed.
(Frost 2013)
352 The Recording Model Deconstructed

Recent recorded guitar programs by the emerging younger generation

have also indicated that while the mainstream Segovian, and more
broadly Spanish perspectives, continue to inform repertoire program-
ming, particularly in the early stages of a career, there is still scope to
innovate within this feld. In the case of French guitarist Thibaut Gar-
cia’s debut album, Leyendas (Erato 2016), his deference to the essential
Spanish repertoire (Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Albéniz’s As-
turias and Rodrigo’s Invocación y danza) is more than tempered by the
substantial Aire vasco Op. 19 of Antonio Jiménez Manjón and Astor
Piazzolla’s Estaciones Porteñas. His follow-up, Bach Inspirations (Er-
ato 2018), while still based in these musical aesthetics, is more con-
sidered. Here Garcia utilizes a Bach “tribute” concept as a means of
bringing together a range of material by Bach, Tansman, Barrios and
Villa-Lobos. Garcia’s focus on the Bach Chaconne (in his own arrange-
ment), Tansman’s Inventions (hommage à Bach), and Villa-Lobos’s
Prelude No. 3, in particular points towards an affliation with the Sego-
vian position, but this is counterbalanced by the distinctive Eastern
European stylings of Dušan Bogdanović’s recently composed Suite
Brève I-V (2017). The album’s concept, in addition to enabling a new
synthesis of material, encourages (as did Segovia’s frst Bach record-
ings) refection on the role of Northern European musical perspectives,
here distilled via a range of geographical contexts, in the construction
of identity of the classical guitar in the early twentieth century.

THE REPERTOIRE DOCUMENTED: THE NAXOS GUITAR

COLLECTION
Undoubtedly the most important infuence on classical guitar record-
ing since the 1990s, particularly where the historical traditions of the
repertoire are concerned, has been the Naxos label, which has also
offered the most signifcant challenge to the entrenched major label
“house” guitarist recording model. Founded in 1987 as a budget classi-
cal label by Hong Kong based German entrepreneur Klaus Heymann,
and coinciding with the rapidly expanding marketplace for recorded
classical music on CD, Naxos was unique for its recording philosophy,
which from the outset was defned by the purposeful avoidance of the
star system of classical music marketing in favor of “obscure orches-
tras, conductors and instrumentalists” (Vittes 1991). As the high cost
of recording big name artists came, according to Heymann, at the ex-
pense of the music (Laurance 1993), he therefore made repertoire the
label’s primary focus, pursuing an ambition for Naxos to become “an
‘encyclopedia’ of all classical music anyone could even want” (Cun-
ningham 2000). A 1997 Naxos advertisement in Gramophone offered a
succinct summary of the Naxos model:

While the major labels desperately search for the next “Three Ten-
ors”, and reduce their “hard” classical issues to a bare minimum,
Naxos has demonstrated that it’s possible to sell Stamitz, Spohr,
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 353

and Berwald, and to do so in quantity. In ten years, the label has

created a catalogue which is second to none in depth of repertoire
and it stays in print. All releases come with intelligently written,
well researched sleeve notes. In fact, Naxos regularly puts the “ma-
jors” to shame both in the imaginativeness of the repertoire chosen
and the way it is presented on disc. It’s easy to postulate that the
label’s success is merely a function of price, but that’s only part of
the story. The price certainly makes risk-taking attractive to the
record buying public, but it’s the repertoire that provides the at-
traction in the frst instance. No label has shown as much devotion
to chamber music of the Romantic period. No other label has had
the vision to explore systematically such neglected avenues as the
pre-classical symphony.
(Naxos 1997)

This approach to repertoire programming was of particular impor-

tance for the classical guitar. Firstly, as the “historical” composer re-
cording LPs of the 1980s had shown, there was still much scope for
documenting the instrument’s historical legacy. However, there had
been little will to delve into such areas on the part of the major labels
due to entrenched notions of what constituted marketable classical
guitar music, a situation which had led guitarists such as Lawrence
Johnson to initiate their own independently self-funded projects in the
1980s. Secondly the label’s eschewing of the star system meant that a
large number of classical guitarists who had been unable to attain long
term contracts as house guitarists, now had an outlet for their record-
ing ambitions and could bring new perspectives to the classical guitar
repertoire model.
The frst Naxos classical guitar recordings were made by Hong
Kong born guitarist Gerald Garcia (b. 1949) in the late 1980s. Garcia
was an active concert artist who had recorded for small labels such
as Psyche and Meridian in the mid-1980s, mostly focusing on guitar
in ensemble, including guitar and fute duets and chamber music rep-
ertoire by Haydn and Wenzel Thomas Matiegka. He was also briefy
signed to Heymann’s HK Marco Polo label for which he recorded
an album of Chinese music for violin and guitar in 1985.18 Garcia’s
frst Naxos disc (Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez 1989), recorded with
the relatively unknown CSSR State Philharmonic orchestra (from the
East Slovakian town of Košice), included, in addition to the iconic
Rodrigo work, a selection of imaginative guitar and orchestra ar-
rangements (by the orchestra’s conductor, Peter Breiner) of familiar
pieces by Granados and Albéniz. These musical choices were emi-
nently suited to Heymann’s objective to offer new perspectives on
well-known repertoire, functioning, as Garcia wrote in his liner notes,
to “enhance and expand the literature for guitar and orchestra and in
doing so return to the roots of this music”. Garcia released further
themed albums (of solo guitar music) in the early 1990s – Latin Amer-
ican Guitar Festival and Brazilian Portrait (both 1991) – capitalizing
354 The Recording Model Deconstructed

on the growing interest in Latin American guitar music, and Roman-

tic Guitar Favourites (1992) comprised of arrangements of music by
Mendelssohn, Schubert and Paganini. He also continued to explore
the guitar–orchestra combination on Romantic French Music (1992)
and Baroque Guitar Favourites (1993).
Garcia’s recordings set the scene for Naxos Guitar Collection, ini-
tiated by Heymann in 1993 and overseen by guitarist Norbert Kraft
(together with his wife, keyboardist Bonnie Silver). In line with
Heymann’s repertoire recording ambitions, this had the aim of de-
veloping a comprehensive catalogue of guitar music from the Renais-
sance to the present day, that in Kraft’s words, “will really represent
the entire tangible guitar repertoire” (Naxos 2009). Kraft, who was
once described by Duarte as one of a handful of guitarists who “are
not of ‘household’ status but, who, nevertheless are of world class”
(J.D. 1992: 79), was uniquely placed to develop the Guitar Collection.
Of Austrian origin but based in Canada from 1954, he had frst come
to public attention in 1979 as Grand Prize Winner of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation Young Artist Competition after which he
had launched successful concert and broadcasting career. Before his
arrival at Naxos he had made recordings for the British Chandos label
encompassing a wide range of repertoire, including (as discussed ear-
lier) contemporary works by Britten, Tippett and Murray Schafer and
albums of the stock material - Spanish and South American Works for
Guitar (CHAN 8857) and Romantic Works for Guitar (CHAN 9033),
released in 1990 and 1992. Kraft made his frst recordings for Naxos in
1993 – concertos of Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos and Castelnuovo-Tedesco –
followed by a series of discs which further demonstrated his command
of the mainstream historical repertoire (19th Century Guitar Favour-
ites (1994), Guitar Favourites (1997) and Villa-Lobos Complete Music
for Solo Guitar (2000)).
The Naxos Guitar Collection (which today numbers more than 150
CDs) has at its heart a number of large-scale repertoire recording
projects, organized in terms of various categories, enabling the classi-
fcation of particular repertoire areas. The “Complete Works” series,
for example, includes extensive recordings of Sor, Coste, Giuliani,
Torroba, Ponce, Lauro and others, while the “Favorites” series (es-
tablished with Garcia’s recordings) encompasses popular repertoire
from across the existing canon. A more recent category, the “Na-
tional” series, aims to present “music indigenous to various coun-
tries, mostly Latin America”. In addition early music – both for lute
(including a substantial body of music by Dowland and Weiss), and
other period instruments such as the Baroque guitar – has been re-
corded extensively. To achieve its goals the development of the Naxos
Guitar Collection has necessitated the engagement of a large num-
ber of classical guitarists from around the globe, typically sourced
from the younger generation of players born from the 1960s onwards.
These players in effect have constituted a kind of recording labor force
that has been mobilized in an “all hands on deck” fashion to realize
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 355

the label’s large-scale repertoire projects. Among the guitarists who

have contributed to the Fernando Sor edition, for instance, are Jef-
fery McFadden, Nicholas Goluses, John Holmquist, Adam Holzman,
Marc Teicholz, Jason Vieaux and Kraft himself. These same guitarists
have also participated in recording projects associated with related
composers. McFadden for example, has been particularly versatile in
the nineteenth-century period, having recorded Coste’s work (together
with Pavel Steidl and Frédéric Zigante), and Giuliani’s (together with
Marco Tamayo and Ricardo Gallén).
With the exception of certain composers whose catalogs were exten-
sive and wide-ranging (such as Rodrigo and Ponce), the only area of
repertoire to which the encyclopedic approach did not naturally lend
itself was the twentieth century due to its being constituted of a large
number of isolated works by many different authors. To accommodate
this, in 1994 Kraft initiated the “Laureate” category, essentially a ve-
hicle for reviving the miscellaneous recital disc format which allowed
for the inclusion of established and more recent contemporary works.
In an echo of the earlier Erato Panorama de la Guitare project, these
discs were typically recorded by up and coming guitarists sourced via
the major annual guitar competitions, including the Tárrega competi-
tion (Spain), the Guitar Foundation of America competition (United
States) and the Pittaluga Competition (Alessandria, Italy). By this
means Naxos secured an ongoing supply of recording talent for the
development of its catalog, in return for which the label functioned as
a globally-situated career launching platform. This has enabled the la-
bel to remain closely integrated with the evolution of the international
classical guitar scene, with the result that the national profle of its re-
cording artists naturally refects the changing geographical emphases
of classical guitar activity. For example, during the 2000s the profle
of Laureate series was characterized by a strong Eastern European
and Russian identity as a result of the successes of guitarists such as
Artyom Dervoed (Russia), Dimitri Illarionov (Russia), Petrit Çeku
(Croatia), Goran Krivokapić (Serbia), Ana Vidović (Croatia) and
András Csáki (Hungary). Diversity of cultural background has also
given rise to some innovative and unusual recording programs, such
as Dervoed’s 2007 Laureate recording, Russian Guitar Music, which
is focused on an all-Russian selection of works by Valery Biktashev,
Sergei Orekhov, Sergei Rudnev and Nikita Koshkin. Once proven
in their debut recitals, Laureate artists often proceeded to contrib-
ute further recordings to the Naxos catalogue, sometimes prolifcally
(Jeffrey McFadden, the label’s frst Laureate artist is again signifcant
in this regard). At the time of the writing the Naxos Laureate guitar
series numbers more than 60 individual recital discs, encompassing a
repertoire that no major label house guitarist could expect to match
even over the course of a recording career of the length of John
Williams or Julian Bream.19
In addition to its innovations in repertoire recording, the Naxos
Guitar Collection has also been distinguished by its consummate
356 The Recording Model Deconstructed

“audiophile” production aesthetic, which again is largely attributed

to Kraft, this time in his capacity as recording engineer. The Naxos
sound is defned in particular by the consistent use of one venue, St.
John’s Chrysostom Church in Newmarket, Canada, a building Kraft
describes as a “magical church” with which he has become so famil-
iar that he has developed an inventory of prime microphone locations
within it tailored to player sound, guitar type and repertoire era (Naxos
2009).20 Furthermore, as a producer of the Naxos recordings sessions,
Kraft’s background as a classical guitarist has enabled him to coach
guitarists from the perspective of his own performance experience al-
lowing him to “bring musical aspects … having thought about music
from the inside” (Naxos 2009). In this capacity Kraft often assists with
ideas concerning interpretation during a recording session, and acts as
a surrogate audience member offering feedback to coax a good per-
formance. In interview Kraft has indicated that he possesses an open-
minded attitude towards the production process and is not averse to
the employment of the micro-edit when necessary (Naxos 2009).

THE EMERGENCE OF THE SPECIALIST CLASSICAL

GUITAR RECORDIST
Kraft is among the handful of specialist classical guitarist record-
ists who have become central to the maintenance and refnement of
high-end classical guitar production values since the 1990s. Today
these individuals occupy a status almost resembling that of the iconic
engineer-producer in the popular music sphere, being sought after for
their capacity to consistently achieve exemplary recorded results within
a defned feld of production practice. In the independent sphere one
of the most distinguished fgures in this regard is John Taylor, who
has been active since the 1980s as an engineer, editor and producer of
classical guitar recordings for a wide range of artists, including Fabio
Zanon, Eliot Fisk, Raymond Burley, Xuefei Yang, Simon Dinnigan,
Tom Kerstens, Paul Galbraith, Eleftheria Kotzia and David Russell.
Fisk21 in particular has worked with Taylor repeatedly since the 1990s
on MusicMasters/MHS albums such as Paganini: 24 Caprices (1992),
Bell’Italia: Four Centuries of Italian Music (1993), Rochberg, Caprice
Variations (1994), Sequenza! (1995), Segovia, Canciones Populares
(1996), Bach: The Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (2001), as well
as more recent discs, The Red Guitar and Ein Kleines Requiem (2010),
recorded for the Wildner Records label (based in Germany).
As a classical guitarist Taylor is best known for his work with the
Omega Quartet in the 1970s and early 1980s, whose recordings he
engineered.22 He is also recognized for his highly infuential book,
Tone Production on the Classical Guitar (1978), which gives a detailed
account of the theory and practice of sound production on the in-
strument. This has enabled Taylor to bring both a classical guitar-
ist’s unique perspective to the recording process as regards musical
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 357

matters, and a profound understanding of the guitar’s behavior as

an instrument, the latter being of particular value where questions
of sound capture are concerned. Like Kraft (and audiophile record-
ists in general), Taylor has a preference for recording the classical
guitar in specifc locations possessing distinctive acoustic charac-
teristics, which he has over time come to understand intimately. A
considerable number of his recordings, for example, have been made
in the Parish Church of Holy Trinity, at Weston in Hertfordshire,
England (most of Fisk’s recordings were made in this location).23
He has a preference for minimal microphone set-up, since the 1980s
favoring the use of a spaced pair of matched omni mics (14 inches
apart) positioned (in the context of the Weston church) at about 65
inches from the player and slightly to the guitarist’s right, favoring
the bridge (Classical Guitar Magazine 2018). Central to Taylor’s aes-
thetic is that the instrument ought to be recorded in relation to the
space that it is actually in and he places a stress on the importance of
the balance between the guitar’s direct sound and the ambient sound.
His stance, as articulated in an interview with Blair Jackson in 2018,
is essentially the antithesis of the earlier close sound trend advocated
by John Williams:

It’s a mistake to imagine that the instrument has an inherent sound

that can be picked up by a close mic, or an array of close mics,
unrelated to the space around it. In real life we don’t put our ears
near the bridge, or over the soundhole, or close to the fngerboard.
We listen to the whole instrument, at a comfortable distance, in a
room where the sound travels in all directions and reaches our ears
at slightly different times from all these directions.
(Jackson 2018: 34)

At the same time Taylor recognizes the value of studio tools for the
manipulation of certain aspects of the fnal recorded product. For ex-
ample, he has admitted that he will on occasion add reverb to a record-
ing, even when the guitar has already been recorded in a reverberant
environment (Horowitz occasionally did the same with Segovia in the
1960s and Wildhagen with Yepes in the 1970s). In addition Taylor is
open to multiple take based editing in the service of achieving an ide-
alized performance, although he prefers to avoid overzealous micro-
scopic editing for tiny faws (Jackson 2018).24

NEW CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CLASSICAL

GUITAR SOUND
Alongside the increasing refnement of audiophile aesthetics in clas-
sical guitar recording practice the 1990s also saw the beginnings of
a new critical approach to assessing the sonic quality of classical
guitar recordings. This can be traced to the work of John Schneider
358 The Recording Model Deconstructed

in particular and his “Just for the Record” review column in Sound-
board, which represented a landmark in the development of a ded-
icated vocabulary for the evaluation of classical guitar recordings.
In his frst column (Summer 1994) Schneider wrote a lengthy in-
troduction in which he refected on the role that recordings had
played in the dissemination of the classical guitar, concluding that
“recordings are without doubt the single most important medium
for today’s guitarist and, as such, they deserve a more rigorous treat-
ment in our press” (Schneider 1994a: 44). In a bid to refne critical
approaches to evaluating classical guitar recordings Schneider in-
troduced a rating system which included, in addition to information
about the artists, the guitar being played, and the quality of the per-
formance, the criterion “Recording”, whose purpose was to convey
to the reader something of the sound and potential recording set-up
using certain terms and adjectives. Typical evaluative remarks in
this regard (taken from the Fall 1996 Winter 1997 issues of Sound-
board) include:

“Middle-distance miking, medium room”

“Excellent clarity with crisp detailing, medium bloom”
“Stunning clarity, close-miked guitar, good balance”
“Sumptuous chapel acoustics, good clarity & bloom”
“Good presence & clarity, 75/25 source/refection ambience”.

Problematic recordings elicited comments such as “Good balance,

image is too dry, room too small” or “Smallish room, brittle sound”
and often merited a more detailed response, as in the case of Schnei-
der’s review of Reiner Stutz’s Abendlied (1997: 81): “Slightly un-
even: medium distant, medium room sound, lacking in detail for
most – good dynamic range, though some cuts clearly hotter than
others (different sessions?)”. Schneider also critiqued CD reissues
of older LP recordings, illustrating the ways in which tastes had
changed as production aesthetics had evolved. In his inaugural col-
umn, for example, he reviewed the digitally remastered David Rus-
sell LP, Plays Antonio Lauro, originally issued by Guitar Masters
in 1980, condemning the recording as: “Too dry & close-miked,
virtually strangling dynamic range: resultant sound is boxy & un-
attractive” (1994a: 45). He even went as far as to suggest that the
Guitar Masters label should have attempted to artifcially modify
the remaster with digital reverb, which “would have gone a long way
towards transforming this from a mere historical document into a
truly marvelous recording” (1994a: 45). Although a relatively short-
lived column (lasting until 1998), Schneider’s “Just for the Record”
critiques played an important role in cementing a language for de-
scribing the perceptible elements of classical guitar sound, engen-
dering a heightened listener consciousness in regard to the essential
properties of classical guitar recordings, which in turn fed back into
classical guitarists’ own expectations of how they might ideally be
portrayed on record.
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 359

EXTENSIONS OF THE AUDIOPHILE RECORDING

AESTHETIC
One of the more fascinating areas of audiophile classical guitar record-
ing in recent years has been the recital disc whose principal objective
is to explore the sound of a particular iconic classical guitar. Funda-
mentally this is an extension of period performance practice, with the
added draw of the association of the instruments in question with
iconic performers (particularly Segovia) and seminal classical guitar
repertoire. A notable early example is Isao Kitaguchi’s CD, The Soul of
Antonio de Torres “1867”, recorded in 1995 by the Japanese audiophile
recording company, Cosmo Village. Here Kitaguchi employs an orig-
inal Torres guitar, whose sound is captured using a very high digital
sampling rate (88.2KHz), in performances of stylistically appropriate
repertoire favorites by Tárrega and Barrios. More recently, guitarists
have released recordings designed to showcase instruments associated
with the sound of Segovia. John Mills’ Segovia – The Ramirez Years
(2013) features a 2012 Ramirez 1a, intentionally built for the purposes
of commemorating in recorded form the centenary of Segovia’s frst
acquisition of a Ramirez guitar in 1912. Here the recording’s focus is
on music written for Segovia by his favorite composers – Tansman,
Duarte, Ponce and Torroba – together with a number of associated
transcriptions of music by Purcell, Rameau, Bach, Mendelssohn,
Schumann, Grieg and Albéniz. Scott Tennant’s The Segovia Sessions,
recorded in 2016 for the recently established Guitar CoOp label, is not
unlike Roberto Moronn Pérez’s Segovia-related projects for Refer-
ence Recordings, here with an emphasis on compositions by Segovia
himself. This recording was made using a 1969 José Ramirez guitar
previously owned by Segovia and loaned from a private collector for
the project. In the case of Andrew York’s album, The Hauser Sessions
(Maijan Music 2006), the instrument was a cedar top guitar made by
Hermann Hauser I for Segovia in 1931. In this instance, however, the
repertoire bears no relationship to the Segovia tradition, comprising a
selection of York’s own compositions.
Other instrument-specifc recording projects have been conceived
as unique tie-ins with books whose subject matter is concerned with
the history of classical guitar luthierie. These include Sheldon Urlik’s
recent re-issue of his book, A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from
Torres to the present (2015), which presents a survey of representa-
tive instruments of all the major makers from Torres and Ramírez to
Greg Smallman and Thomas Humphrey. The book is accompanied
by a recital disc style CD of performances of canonical repertoire
by Kenton Youngstrom with each guitar captured in identical acous-
tic conditions enabling convenient comparisons to be made between
instruments. Of particular interest here is the 1888 “SE114” Torres
guitar previously owned by Tárrega, on which Youngstrom performs
the defnitive Tárrega solo, Capricho Arabe. Also in this vein is Brian
Whitehouse’s The Ramirez Collection: History and Romance of the
Spanish Guitar (2009), whose accompanying CD was recorded using a
360 The Recording Model Deconstructed

wide range of instruments associated with the Museum Collection of

the José Ramirez family. In addition to the book’s commentary on the
instruments themselves, specifc attention is given to recording process
and repertoire programming strategy relative to instrument.

NOTES
1. Although The Blue Guitar was written for Bream and premiered by him
on 9 November 1983, he did not record it for any of his commercial LPs.
However, a broadcast performance of the piece was recorded by the BBC
and later issued on Testament SBT 1333 (2005).
2. Kraft gave work’s premier in 1987.
3. Williams had performed one major Takemitsu work, Vers, l’arc-en-ciel,
Palma in 1984 with the CBSO under Simon Rattle (which he also com-
mitted to record in 1991).
4. Papandreou has made a feature of performing works by guitarist-
composers.
5. Georges Brassens, French singer-songwriter and poet (1921–1981).
6. Schneeweiss also credits himself as author of this piece.
7. The Britten Folksongs had received their premier recording by the duo on
the album Music for Voice and Guitar (1965), while Tippett’s songs had
been performed by the duo but not recorded by them.
8. Yoshmitasu originally composed the piece for Kazuhito Yamashita, for
whom he has also written other guitar works, including Wind Color Vec-
tor (1995).
9. This was a live recording.
10. The pipa is a lute-like instrument.
11. Electronic music was not new territory for Verdery, who had made one of
his earliest forays into this area with Craig Peyton on Emotional Velocity
(1989), an album of co-authored compositions for guitar and synthesiz-
ers, not unlike Boyd’s earlier Persona album in style.
12. York re-recorded Perfect Sky for GSP in 1996 to mark the tenth anniver-
sary of its issue.
13. Crumb, Ruders and Lansky are composers that Starobin has focused
upon frequently in the series.
14. For example, Fisk recorded Frank Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves for the
Gitarre & Laute label in 1982.
15. See also Cullingford (2005).
16. Formed by Jack Renner and Robert Woods in 1977. Like other audio-
phile companies such as Sheffeld Lab and Crystal Clear Records, Tel-
arc initially entered the marketplace with direct-to-disc recordings before
embracing early digital recording techniques using the emerging Sound-
stream technology (Humphreys 1988).
17. An anomaly is Russell’s Message of the Sea recording (1998) which uses a
Neumann KU-100. This is of particular interest because it is a “dummy
head” microphone designed for binaural recording, enabling an immer-
sive 3D experience. This may have been an experimental recording with
the technology.
18. This label preceded Naxos and specialized in rare and unusual repertoire.
19. More recently the Brilliant Classics label has emerged as a major rival to
Naxos in terms of the scope of its classical guitar recording projects and
their focus upon un-recorded repertoire.
Narrative Threads Since the 1990s 361

20. Kraft’s inventory of microphone placements can be discerned in the

many published video-clips of past Naxos guitar competitors who have
been flmed during the process of making their recordings for the Laure-
ate series.
21. Fisk has worked with many fne recordists, including Mark Levinson
(for his debut LP), David B. Hancock (the engineer for David Starobin’s
Bridge Records) and Frederick J. Bashour on the various records he made
for the Musical Heritage Society during the 1980s. Fisk has also recorded
with Segovia’s producer Israel Horowitz (Guitar Fantasies, MHS 1990), a
choice coherent with his professed affliation with the Segovia aesthetic.
22. See the LP, Omega Guitar Quartet (Musical New Services G131 1982).
23. Fisk’s more recent Wildner albums, The Red Guitar (2010) and Ein Kleines
Requiem (2010) were recorded at Potton Hall, Westleton, Suffolk.
24. For further discussion of Taylor’s recording approach see Taylor (2010).
14
Two Contemporary “House” Guitarists
and the Future of Classical Guitar
Recording Practice

INTRODUCTION
By way of a conclusion, this chapter offers further refection upon the
ways in which particular repertoire constructs have continued to per-
meate classical guitar recordings since the 2000s. Here two profles are
presented of contemporary “house” guitarists of the post-2000 period –
Xuefei Yang and Miloš Karadaglić – both of whom have enjoyed long-
term recording careers with major labels through which they have ac-
quired international status. These artists have been selected, not only
on the basis of their considerable presence on the global classical gui-
tar scene, but because their recording careers have, in contrasting ways,
been concerned with the pursuit of narratives founded in recording
paradigms discussed in this book. Both guitarists are also of interest
from the perspective of their particular national identities – respectively
Chinese and Montenegrin – and the interaction of these with the indi-
vidual perspectives on the repertoire they represent in their recordings.

XUEFEI YANG
Xuefei Yang (b. 1977) emerged in the late 1990s as a pioneer of clas-
sical guitar in China, being the frst student to graduate in the in-
strument from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2000
(Summerfeld 2002; Cullingford 2010). Her frst recording, made for
the Chinese Shine Horn label in 1999, was a proving ground in which
she essayed a wide range of established repertoire from the Baroque to
the twentieth century, including the Bach Chaconne and Italian com-
poser Carlo Domeniconi’s then-popular virtuoso showpiece, Koyun-
baba. Yang began to come to international prominence in the early
2000s, assisted by the advocacy of John Williams who brought her
to the attention of Western record labels, leading to the release of
her second album, Si Ji (Four Seasons), on the San Francisco-based
GSP label in 2005. This album’s program was unique in its focus upon
arrangements of Chinese music or compositions inspired by various

362
Contemporary and Future Recording Practice 363

aspects of Chinese culture, such as the I-Ching and Chinese flm.

The recording included some material arranged by Yang herself (of
pipa and Chinese classical piano music), but in the main it drew on
contributions from her growing network of composers and arrang-
ers based outside China, including Dietmar Ungerank, Carlo Dome-
niconi, Stephen Funk Pearson, Gerald Garcia, Thierry Rougier and
Stephen Goss. Yang’s strategy of re-situating her Chinese identity in
relation to Western compositional perspectives provided a foundation
for her future recordings in which she continued to explore links with
her own culture while addressing an international audience steeped in
entrenched classical guitar repertoire paradigms.
With her signing to EMI in 2006, Yang released Romance de Amor,
an album which reverted to the risk-free miscellany style repertoire
compilation necessary to introduce a new classical guitarist to a large
Western audience on a major label. Amongst the pieces included were
Romance de Amor, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Cavatina and Asturias,
with a smaller amount of material representing Yang’s Chinese reper-
toire affliation (such as Gerald Garcia’s arrangement of Yu-Xian Deng
and Lin Qiu Li’s Spring Breeze). However, this quickly gave way to a
more imaginative strategy on her next EMI recording, 40 Degrees North
(2008), which was to artfully balance the Chinese musical focus with
established repertoire paradigms drawn from late nineteenth-century
Spanish music in particular. Here further arrangements of Chinese mu-
sic by Yang and Gerald Garcia, together with a new piece by Stephen
Goss (The Chinese Garden) sit alongside Yang’s own arrangements
of well-known works by Albéniz (Sevilla and two pieces from Cantos
de España) and Granados (Valses Poéticos). The album’s liner notes
suggest that 40 Degrees North was intended to be a concept album,
the rationale for the confation of repertoire perspectives being deter-
mined by “the line of latitude that roughly connects the capital cities
of China and Spain on the world map” (Anon 2008). Of the works on
the disc, Goss’s composition is notable in its seeking to avoid guitar-
istic cliches, instead pointing directly towards Yang’s cultural origins
by drawing upon notions of “resonance in various Chinese and Japa-
nese forms of traditional music” (Traviss 2013: 30). An accomplished
guitarist in his own right,1 Goss (b. 1964) has been one of the most
important fgures in the development of new repertoire for guitarists
since the 2000s, his work having been recorded by performers as varied
as John Williams (see Chapter 13), David Russell, Miloš Karadaglić,
and Jonathan Leathwood. He can be described as a stylistically eclectic
composer-designer, a developer of music for professional performance
who frequently works in a collaborative capacity with artists to gener-
ate compositions uniquely suited to their musical inclinations. As Yang
remarked of The Chinese Garden, “He not only writes accessibly, but
with my personality in mind” (Anon 2008). One of Goss’s core beliefs
is that collaboration admits the potential authorship of the performer
he is composing for (Traviss 2013). In this sense he is aligned with the
364 The Recording Model Deconstructed

tendency that has dominated classical guitar repertoire development

since Segovia, for composers to allow guitarists to participate to vary-
ing degrees in the shaping of the musical work.
Yang formed a particularly close association with Goss on her next
EMI album, Concierto de Aranjuez (2010), for which he contributed a
signifcant new work for guitar and orchestra, the Albéniz Concerto.
The idea for this particular project had originally come from Yang
herself who, noting that Albéniz had written no music whatsoever for
the guitar, all of it existing only in transcriptions from the piano, spec-
ulated on what a concerto for guitar by the composer would sound
like (Culllingford 2010). Yang’s idea was approved by EMI Classics
vice-president, Stephen Johns, who suggested Goss as the composer,
based on the previous work he had undertaken with her, in effect con-
stituting a repertoire commission whose express purpose was to fulfl
a recording brief. The result was a four-movement composition whose
material was drawn from the well-known Albéniz piano works, El Al-
baicín and Evocación (from Iberia) and Cataluña and Aragón (from
the Suite Española Op. 47). Discussing the project in Classical Guitar
(Traviss 2011), Goss explained that the concerto was in the tradition
of the “counterfeit” pieces that had constituted an important facet of
the Spanish classical guitar repertoire, to which end he adopted a har-
monic language and orchestration that would be believable to a listener
as Albéniz. In effect the concerto was an essentially “postmodern”
work whose compositional aesthetics were coherent with the idioms of
the music that had formed the bedrock of the early twentieth-century
classical guitar concert program. This was something that was made
more apparent by its programming alongside Rodrigo’s Concierto de
Aranjuez, a piece which similarly highlighted the tensions between
the counterfeit and the genuine where musical “Spanishry” was con-
cerned. Goss has continued to reference classical guitar repertoire
tropes in his most recent composition for Yang, The Book of Songs, a
cycle for voice and guitar which she recorded for her album Songs from
our Ancestors (2016) with tenor Ian Bostridge. Again the work refects
Yang’s continuing preoccupation with marrying Chinese and Western
infuences, comprising settings of texts by ancient Chinese poets in a
musical idiom which evokes the Bream–Pears recordings of the 1960s
and 1970s, and in particular Britten’s Songs from the Chinese Op. 58.2

MILOŠ KARADAGLIC´
Since the late 2000s one of the most high-profle recording classical
guitarists has been Miloš Karadaglić (b. 1983), a performer who has
received much media attention and beneftted considerably from major
label support (Deutsche Grammophon and later Decca) in the market-
ing of his classical guitar persona. Karadaglić, who originates from
Montenegro in the former Yugoslavia, initially developed his concept
of the classical guitar in relation to the recordings of the “big three” –
Segovia, Bream and Williams. He frst became attracted to the guitar
Contemporary and Future Recording Practice 365

after hearing a recording of Segovia performing Albeniz’s Asturias be-

fore being drawn to John Williams (his CDs were popular in Montene-
gro) who provided an illustration of the technical standards that it was
possible to reach on the instrument (Traviss 2009). His interest then
moved to Julian Bream, whose “recordings were inspirational on every
level” (Church 2011). At 16 years of age Karadaglić relocated to En-
gland to study at the Royal Academy of Music, a move which exposed
him to the prevailing Euro-centric classical guitar narrative. A 2009
interview reveals him to be an advocate of the Bream-style quest for
new material – “I think the instrument’s future lies in commissioning
new works” – adding that “Bream has been extremely successful in this
respect and to some degree we all need to inherit his position” (Traviss
2009: 14). Here he cites the Britten Nocturnal as well as other extended
guitar works such as the sonatas of Ginastera and Antonio José, as
the standard to aim for. Karadaglić also alludes to the two main issues
that preoccupied classical guitarists in the early twentieth century – a
concern with the problem of the musical status of the guitar relative
to other instruments, and the debate concerning the guitar’s capacity
to play in large concert halls (advocating Williams’ position on the use
of amplifcation). The question of the classical guitar’s musical status
is revived in the marketing for Karadaglić’s frst album for Deutsche
Grammophon, Miloš: The Guitar (2011, also issued under the name
Mediterraneo). In a short promotional video Karadaglić remarks to
the camera that “people stopped believing in the guitar as an equal
concert instrument”, “they say there is too little repertoire”, “they say
it is not a real concert instrument” (Deutsche Grammophon 2011).
In effect Karadaglić resurrected a theme that was central to Segovia’s
self-publicity in his earlier career (one that few informed critics would
of course fnd applicable to the situation of the classical guitar today)
which became confated with the narrative of his own personal journey
from humble beginnings in Montenegro to global success.
In keeping with his Segovian “mission”, the trajectory of Karadaglić’s
early recording career, in terms of the repertoire chosen and its the-
matic context, is also a carefully managed construct which defers to
earlier recording models. Miloš: The Guitar, for example, is in part,
a by-the-book re-treading of the classic twentieth-century Spanish-
derived miscellany program associated with Segovia (Albeniz’s As-
turias, Granados’s Spanish Dance No. 5, Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la
Alhambra) together with the “hit” Romance de Amor, arranged for gui-
tar and orchestra. The album’s broad theme is announced as “explor-
ing the Mediterranean”, which justifes the programming of more up
to date material including Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba, a work of
Turkish character, which Karadaglić identifes closely with his Monte-
negro homeland, and two pieces from the Four Epitaphs for Solo Gui-
tar by Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, “A Day in May” and “You
Have Set My Star” (perhaps infuenced by John Williams’ 1971 record-
ings). Koyunbaba, whose four movements make it the most substantial
single work on the album, is clearly the album’s centerpiece, although
366 The Recording Model Deconstructed

it is a certain distance from the more “cerebral” contemporary reper-

toire that Karadaglić was advocating in reference to Bream. Naturally
the album’s derivative character was immediately remarked upon by
the critics. William Yeoman (2011), for example, wrote:

a whole bunch of guitar favourites the world’s surely heard a mil-

lion times over. Yes, it’s a good job he’s such a wonderful guitarist,
because his choice of repertoire isn’t exactly going to set the world
on fre. Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Albéniz’s Asturias,
Llobet’s El testament de n’Amelia – even the loathsome Spanish
Romance gets an airing with a super-schmaltzy arrangement for
guitar and strings. I mean, come on.
(Yeoman 2011: 75)

The album that followed – Latino (2012) – is presented as a “natural

next step”, a project whose aim (playing on certain stereotypical notions
of Latin American music) is to take a more “free” approach to rep-
ertoire by uniting “popular and cultivated traditions all the way from
Argentina to Mexico” and explore the “innermost feelings and musical
desires” evoked by such music (Chalmers 2012). The tango, for example,
is a feature of the album – Gardel’s Por una cabeza and two pieces by
Astor Piazzolla – the latter for Karadaglić representing an “escape from
the rigours of classical training”. The importance of Segovia is cited
in the liner notes and works associated with him – Villa-Lobos’s Pre-
lude No. 1 and Ponce’s Chanson, Andante from Sonata III (Karadaglić
was “blown away by the emotional impact” of a video of Segovia’s
performance of the latter) provide the grounding connection to the
mainstream classical guitar traditions. Stephen Goss also contributes a
number of arrangements to the album, as does Sérgio Assad, on whom
Karadaglić later relied for his Beatles-focused Blackbird disc in 2016.
After Latino Karadaglić released Aranjuez (2014), a mainly
Rodrigo-focused disc which featured the latter’s Concierto de Aran-
juez, Fantasía para un Gentilhombre and the popular solo guitar piece,
Invocación y Danza. Karadaglić’s purpose here was to demonstrate
his credentials by tackling two of the most iconic works of the con-
certo repertoire (“it’s an album towards which I was going ever since
I started my recording career in 2007” (Falconer 2014)), an obvious
response to the recorded classical guitar canon given that both have
featured prominently in the recorded output of the most well-known
classical guitarists since the 1960s. Aware of this recorded legacy – he
notes John Williams’ version as a particular infuence (Jackson 2015)
– in discussing the Concierto de Aranjuez, Karadaglić has emphasized
the ways in which he has personalized his interpretation by, for exam-
ple, taking the fnal movement at the “correct” speed, which according
to Karadaglić, many guitarists do not (Karlin 2018):

If you play it at the speed that’s been indicated, it just turns into
the most effervescent, exciting piece of writing, with lines running
Contemporary and Future Recording Practice 367

from one string to the other in the guitar and scales and every-
thing. You can bring it to a very sparkling ending to the piece, after
that very thoughtful and sombre second movement.

In contrast to Xuefei Yang, a factor that has been consistent through-

out Karadaglić’s career is the use of pop-star style marketing aesthet-
ics to underpin his image. In particular this can be seen in the music
video-like trailers that accompany the release of each new album, as well
as the specially created biographical clips narrativizing Karadaglić’s
artistic life. The expanded edition of his debut CD, for example, in-
cludes a DVD which contains an emotive 25-minute long documen-
tary account of the story of Karadaglić’s rise from humble beginnings
in Montenegro to success on the international stage. The album’s mu-
sic frequently provides the backdrop to Karadaglić’s narration and we
also see footage of his audition video for the Royal Academy of Music
which facilitated his departure from Montenegro. The DVD presenta-
tion which accompanies Karadaglić’s Latino album (“Gold” extended
edition, 2013) features the documentary Heartstrings, which takes a
similar approach, combining home movie footage, clips of concert per-
formances and scenes of the artist travelling, underpinned by a “rags
to riches” style narrative of the challenges experienced by the guitarist
on his journey to success. In the case of Karadaglić’s Aranjuez album,
the disc’s content is promoted using on-location style pop music style
videos depicting the guitarist in the (presumably Spanish) countryside
while performing the slow movement of the Concierto de Aranjuez and
Falla’s Danza del Molinero. Deutsche Grammophon’s promotional
materials also indicate a concern to convey the idea of Karadaglić as
a serious recording artist, typically through depictions of him at work
in the studio. This can be seen, for example, in a sequence in the flm
which accompanies Karadaglić’s debut disc showing him recording a
section of Granados’ Spanish Dance No. 5 at Air Studios and drawing
attention to his self-critical and detailed approach to the production
process. Another video created to promote the original 2012 Latino
disc contains footage of Karadaglić recording in St Mary’s Church,
Chilham (situated in a remote part of Kent), which appears designed
to suggest a discerning “audiophile” ambition for the album. Promo-
tional material for the Aranjuez disc features brief segments focused on
the recording sessions at Abbey Road Studio No. 1, including clips of
Karadaglić in the control room discussing interpretative decisions with
conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
With Blackbird (2016), and his most recent album, Sound of Silence
(2019), recorded after a fallow period following an injury, Karadaglić
made the decision to move beyond the “classical” repertoire into the
popular music covers sphere. To put it another way, Karadaglić was
switching to another well–established classical guitar narrative – that
of the crossover artist (evoking the earlier strategies of John Williams
and Liona Boyd), in a kind of staged rebellion against institutionalized
classical guitar practice. Both albums are notable for their expansion
368 The Recording Model Deconstructed

beyond the solo classical guitar context to incorporate a range of en-

semble combinations. On Blackbird, for example, Karadaglić performs
arrangements of iconic Beatles’ songs both as a soloist and in duet with
singers (Gregory Porter and Tori Amos) and musicians (cellist Steven
Isserlis and sitar player Anoushka Shankar). Sound of Silence, which
features a number of arrangements that incorporate strings and piano,
is more eclectic, branching out into a wider range of songs by artists
as diverse as Paul Simon, Portishead, Radiohead and Dido. Amongst
these are woven a small number of solo classical guitar miniatures,
including Tárrega’s two late pieces, Endecha and Oremus, and Leo
Brouwer’s Canción de cuna. Karadaglić’s most recent activities have
indicated an interest in expanding the repertoire by commissioning
new guitar concertos from high profle contemporary composers Joby
Talbot (known for his association with the band The Divine Com-
edy) and flm composer Howard Shore, which are likely to form the
content of forthcoming recordings. Rather than attempting to push
musical boundaries, however, these are accessible “atmosphere” pieces
(entitled, respectively, Ink Dark Moon and The Forest), suggesting that
Karadaglić remains committed to the mainstream popularity he has so
far garnered with great success.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
The examples of Yang and Karadaglić serve to illustrate the ways
in which the particular “narratives” of the classical guitar identifed
in this book continue to operate within guitarists’ recorded presen-
tations. A dependence upon a particular repertoire legacy typically
informs the debut classical guitar recording, for example, which
highlights a certain affliation – a position statement on the classical
guitar and its identity. After demonstrating mastery of the domain in
question, the strategy then is typically to effect an evolution beyond
this starting point. In Yang’s recordings this evolution appears to be
concerned with reconciling her own specifc cultural position with
the bequeathed “Spanish”, as well as later European traditions of
the repertoire. In her explorations in collaboration with a wide range
of musicians and composers, of the possibilities of the classical gui-
tar repertoire in relation to her own musical identity, she is closely
aligned with the recording patterns of a number of the guitarists dis-
cussed in this book. Karadaglić has also evolved his recording career
in reference to received repertoire perspectives, but his own cultural
position, while often evoked in biographical contexts, has largely not
fgured in his recording profle, which has instead been concerned with
emulating established repertoire paradigms. Karadaglić’s albums in
essence represent the classical guitar “in quotation marks”, in their
paraphrasing by turns the Segovia-oriented Spanish perspective, the
free-spirited Latin American diversion, the anticipated “milestone”
concerto recording and the Williams-esque anti-institutional foray
into the popular music domain. While Yang’s recording career has
Contemporary and Future Recording Practice 369

appeared to chart an evolving artistry in relation to a central ques-

tion concerning identity, Karadaglić’s recording career, by contrast,
has been characterized by the juxtaposition of a series of well delin-
eated classical guitar constructs. In Karadaglić’s case this can per-
haps be understood as a natural response to the strong gravitational
pull of the classical guitar’s recorded legacy which today provides
many models of possible narratives for the construction of a classical
guitar career. Indeed the “knowing” harnessing of such constructs
in the postmodern world of the classical guitar arguably constitutes
a creative statement in its own right. However, as the recordings of
Yang, and many guitarists of the emerging younger generation, such
as Roberto Moronn Pérez, Sean Shibe, Thibaut Garcia have indi-
cated, there also remains a strong commitment to using received rep-
ertoire paradigms as starting points for the development thereafter
of an increasingly distinctive artistic persona. Hence, rather than be-
ing a context within which repertoire traditions are simply restated,
the classical guitar recording continues to offer much potential for
the development of an individualized take on the classical guitar and
its musical identity.
In conclusion, it appears that the ongoing “tug of war” between tra-
dition and innovation in classical guitarists’ repertoire programming,
as refected in their recordings, will be key to the instrument’s survival
in the future. Moreover, the capacity of the classical guitar to feld a
wide range of musical perspectives is likely to ensure that it remains
resistant to subsumption within the plethora of competing musical
aesthetics that have accompanied the guitar’s proliferation on a global
scale during the last few decades. When “outside” infuences (for ex-
ample, popular music forms) threaten the integrity of the classical gui-
tar canon, these have typically been absorbed into it, ultimately serving
to re-vitalize and extend the instrument’s musical scope. At the same
time, as the remarkable success of Miloš Karadaglić has illustrated,
there remains a core audience for the instrument that seems unlikely to
tire, any time soon, of hearing the “meringues and lollipops” (as Julian
Bream once described them) of the Segovian repertoire. As for the cul-
ture of the classical guitar itself, this continues to remain vibrant in the
United States, Latin America and Europe, ensuring a healthy supply of
performers to the concert platform (and subsequently the recording in-
dustry), whose technical assurance becomes more profound with each
generation. Naturally the experience of the classical guitar recording
will continue to be conditioned by technological developments, in-
cluding those which shape the media formats for the consumption of
recorded music and those which determine how recordings are made.
Online platforms for music consumption, for example, have done
much to compromise the integrity of the recorded musical artefact
whose experience in terms of the intangible streamed soundbite has
engendered the elevation of the instrument’s most popular miniatures
at the expense of the more unique and substantial. This has implica-
tions, certainly, for the continued relevance of the album program as
370 The Recording Model Deconstructed

a viable medium for representing a distinctive and coherent position

on the classical guitar repertoire. Visual media for music consump-
tion, such as YouTube, which are in effect re-situating the high-quality
classical guitar recording in the virtual concert hall, may offer interest-
ing solutions in this regard, as indicated by the success of the recently
founded Guitar CoOp project. Technologies such as the Digital Au-
dio Workstation will no doubt increasingly determine the aesthetics of
classical guitar production, perhaps even leading guitarists away from
location-based recording in select venues to the substitution of such
environments for artifcial ones constructed via the means of software
effects, and encouraging the over-perfection of their performances us-
ing precision editing tools. However, while guitarists continue to favor
the concert hall aesthetic, and place importance upon the spontaneity
of the live performance situation, there is likely to be resistance to such
conveniences. Whatever the situation in the future, the classical guitar
has certainly proven itself readily adaptable to the changing cultural,
technological and environmental conditions of musical practice, and
its recordings, whatever form they may take, will continue to provide a
potent document of its evolving identity.

NOTES
1. Best known for his work with the Tetra Guitar Quartet.
2. Yang had also recorded Britten’s Song of the Chinese with Bostridge in
2013.
Archives and Bibliography

ARCHIVES CONSULTED
Acervo Digital do Violão Brasileiro: https://www.violaobrasileiro.com.br/
Arxiu del Museu de la Música de Barcelona (Miguel Llobet holdings): https://
arxiu.museumusica.bcn.cat/fons-miquel-llobet
Belfer Cylinders Digital Collection (Syracuse University Libraries): https://
library.syr.edu/scrc/collections/digitalasset/cylinders.php
Biblioteca de Catalunya, Catàlegs Discogràfcs: https://mdc.csuc.cat/digital/
collection/discografc
Biblioteca Digital Hispánica: http://www.bne.es/es/Catalogos/BibliotecaDigital-
Hispanica/Inicio/index.html
Biblioteca Virtual de Aragón: http://bibliotecavirtual.aragon.es/
Charm: AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded
Music: https://charm.rhul.ac.uk/
Discography of American Historical Recordings: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/
Eresbil: Archivo vasco de la música: https://www.eresbil.eus/web/catalogos-
discografcos/presentacion.aspx
IGRA Liner Notes Database (Oviatt Library Digital Collections): https://
digital-library.csun.edu/IGRA-notes
Internet Archive: https://archive.org/
Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Record-
ings: http://frontera.library.ucla.edu/
UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aguado, D. (2004) New Guitar Method. Edited by B. Jeffery. Translated by
L. Bigwood. London: Tecla. Originally published as Nuevo Método para
Guitarra (1843).
Aguilar, José María – Discography of American Historical Recordings (n.d.)
Available at: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/
detail/113577/Aguilar_Jos_Mara (Accessed: 12 September 2020).
A.H. (1966) ‘Cesar Leon makes guitar solo debut’, New York Times, 9 May,
p. 49.
Aikin, J. (1972) ‘The selling of classical guitar’, Guitar Player, September,
pp. 18, 36–37, 43.
A.K. (1979) Review of Michael Newman, Michael Newman Classical Guitarist
and Kazuhito Yamashita, Romance de Amor, High Fidelity, November,
pp. 116, 119–120.

371
372 Archives and Bibliography

Alcázar, M. (ed.) (1989) The Segovia–Ponce Letters. Translated by P. Segal.

Columbus: Editions Orphée.
Alcázar, M. (2000) Obra complete para guitarra de Manuel M. Ponce. Mexico:
Conaculta.
Altamira, I. R. (2017) Historia de la guitarra y los guitarristas españoles. San
Vicente (Alicante): Editorial Club Universitario.
Amis, J. (1972) “Julian Bream talks to John Amis” (Liner notes for The Art of
Julian Bream RCA SER 5638-42). RCA.
Amorim, J. (1958) Liner notes for Dilermando Reis: Sua Majestade O Violão
(Continental LPP 3009). Continental.
Anon (n.d.) Liner notes for Maria Luisa Anido: Maria Luisa Anido, Solo
de Guitarra (Odeon BSOA/E4516B). Industrias Electricas y Musicales
Odeon.
Anon (1906) ‘Making records in Cuba’, Edison Phonograph Monthly, April,
p. 10.
Anon (1909) ‘New Mexican masters’, Edison Phonograph Monthly, August,
p. 8.
Anon (1927a) ‘Concerts’, Gramophone, March, p. 430.
Anon (1927b) ‘Trade winds and idle zephyrs’, Gramophone, February, p. 384.
Anon (1928) Review of Segovia: Turina, Fandanguillo and Tárrega, Tremolo
Study (V-6767), Phonograph Monthly Review, April, p. 272.
Anon (1930a) Review of Segovia: Bach, Prelude, Allemande and Fugue
(V-7176), Disques, March, p. 30.
Anon (1930b) Review of Segovia: Bach, Prelude, Allemande and Fugue
(V-7176), Phonograph Monthly Review, March, p. 207.
Anon (1930c) Review of Segovia: Torroba, Fandanguillo and Prelude
(V-1487), Disques, December, p. 433.
Anon (1932) Review of Segovia: Ponce, Folies D’Espagne (V-DB1567 and
V-DB1568), Disques, August, p. 271.
Anon (1935) ‘Noticias’, Biblioteca Fortea, Revista Musical, (4 & 5), p. 10.
Anon (1949a) ‘Distinguished visitor’, BMG, July, p. 213.
Anon (1949b) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: Andrés Segovia Guitar Solos
(DL 8022). American Decca.
Anon (1952a) Liner notes for Luise Walker: Guitar Recital (N 00640 R).
Philips.
Anon (1952b) ‘Music as written: Decca signs pact with Segovia’, Billboard,
29 March, p. 44.
Anon (1953a) Liner notes for Luise Walker: Concertino for Guitar and Orches-
tra (N 00626 R). Philips.
Anon (1953b) Liner notes for Gustavo Zepoll: Concert Guitar (Cook LP
1024). Cook Laboratories.
Anon (1956a) ‘Enter the dark and secret world of the Spanish Guitar’
(Advertisement), High Fidelity, April, p. 73.
Anon (1956b) Liner notes for Bill Harris: Bill Harris (EmArcy MG 36097).
EmArcy/Mercury.
Anon (1958a) ‘A sound refection!’ (Advertisement), Gramophone, June, p. 20.
Anon (1958b) Liner notes for Laurindo Almeida: Contemporary Creations for
Spanish Guitar (P8447). Capitol.
Anon (1959) ‘Maria Angélica Funes – Programa’. Concert Programs Tell a
Story (Oviatt Library). Available at: https://library.csun.edu/SCA/Peek-
in-the-Stacks/ConcertPrograms (Accessed: 3 May 2020).
Archives and Bibliography 373

Anon (1961) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: Boccherini-Cassadó (DL

710043). American Decca.
Anon (1962a) Liner notes for Laurindo Almeida: Reverie for Spanish Guitars
(Capitol SP 8571). Capitol.
Anon (1962b) Liner notes for Narciso Yepes: Rodrigo, Fantasía para un Gen-
tilhombre/Ohana, Tres Gráfcos (London CS 6356). Decca.
Anon (1965a) Liner notes for Leo Brouwer: Musica para Guitarra (LPA 5001)
Areito.
Anon (1965b) Liner notes for Jesús Silva: Virtuoso de la Guitarra (RCA Victor
Mexico MKL 1642). RCA.
Anon (1966a) Liner notes for Laurindo Almeida: Villa-Lobos, Concerto for
Guitar and Small Orchestra (SP 8638). Capitol.
Anon (1966b) Liner notes for Siegfried Behrend: Guitarra Olé: Spanische Im-
pressionen (Horzu SHZE 383). Hörzu/EMI Electrola.
Anon (1970) Liner notes for Julian Bream’s Greatest Hits (WGM-8106).
Westminster.
Anon (1971) Liner notes for Manuel López Ramos: Anthology of the Guitar
Vol. 3 (RCA VICS 1541). RCA.
Anon (1976) ‘Rodrigo successes’, Gramophone, May, p. 1822.
Anon (1977) Liner notes for Charlie Byrd: Charlie Byrd (CCS 8002). Crystal
Clear Records Inc.
Anon (1979) Liner notes for Liona Boyd: First Lady of the Guitar (CBS
M35137). CBS Masterworks.
Anon (1981a) Liner notes for Douglas Niedt: Virtuoso Visions (Antigua
S-2000). Antigua Records.
Anon (1981b) Liner notes for Charles Postlewate: Dual Image (ST 8101).
Prism.
Anon (1982) ‘Gallery of guitarists: Neil Smith’, Soundboard, 9(1), pp. 60–61.
Anon (1997) ‘Obituary: Jesús Silva (1914–1996)’, Soundboard, 23(3), p. 8.
Anon (2008) Liner notes for Xuefei Yang: 40 Degrees North (EMI 2 06322
2). EMI.
Antunes, G. (2002) Américo Jacomino Canhoto e o desenvolvimento da arte
solística do violão em São Paulo. Masters. University of São Paulo.
A.P. (1953) Review of Andrés Segovia: An Andrés Segovia Recital (DL 9633/
AXTL 1005), Gramophone, March, p. 261.
Appleby, D. P. (1983) The Music of Brazil. Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press.
Appleby, W. (1946a) ‘The Spanish guitar’, BMG, September, pp. 227–228.
Appleby, W. (1946b) ‘The Spanish guitar’, BMG, August, pp. 203–204.
Appleby, W. (1947) ‘The Spanish guitar’, BMG, September, p. 223.
Appleby, W. (1948) ‘The Spanish guitar’, BMG, March, pp. 111–112.
Appleby, W. (1949a) ‘The Spanish guitar’, BMG, April, pp. 140–141.
Appleby, W. (1949b) ‘The Spanish guitar’, BMG, February, pp. 101–102.
Arai, S. (1985) ‘Kazuhito Yamashita interviewed by Shiro Arai’, Classical
Guitar, September, pp. 11–14.
Arce, J. (2003) ‘Hispavox (Spain)’, in Shepherd, J., Horn, D., Laing, D., Oli-
ver, P., and Wicke, P. (eds), Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of
the World, Volume 1: Media, Industry, Society. London and New York:
Continuum Books, p. 727.
Arriaga, G. (1982) ‘Un Manuscrito Mexicano de Música Barroca’, Revista de
Musicología, 5(1), pp. 111–126. doi: 10.2307/20794827.
374 Archives and Bibliography

Artzt, A. (1979a) Liner notes for Guitar Music by Francisco Tárrega (Merid-
ian E77026). Meridian.
Artzt, A. (1979b) ‘Silence, recording in progress’, Soundboard, 6(3), pp. 82–84.
Atkins, C. (1967) Liner notes for Chet Atkins: Class Guitar (RCA LSP-3885).
RCA.
Atkins, C. and Cochran, M. (2003) Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars. Milwau-
kee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation.
Atkins, C. and Neely, B. (1975) Country Gentleman. New York: Ballantine
Books.
Balmer, P. (2003) Julian Bream: My Life in Music (DVD). Surrey: Music on
Earth Productions.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1992) ‘The guitar in Latin America: A personal view (Part
2)’, Soundboard, 19(2), pp. 13–17.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1994) ‘How I came to the guitar (as told to Peter Dan-
ner)’, Soundboard, 21(1), pp. 5–10.
Bartlett, P. (1982) Walton at 80 (Documentary). London: BBC.
Batten, J. (1956) Joe Batten’s Book: The Story of Sound Recording. London:
Rockliff.
Bay, W. (1995) Masters of the Plectrum Guitar. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay
Publications.
Bazzana, K. (1997) Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work: A Study in Per-
formance Practice. Oxford and New York: OUP.
Béhague, G. (1979) Music in Latin America, an Introduction. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Béhague, G. (1994) Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Search for Brazil’s Musical Soul.
Austin, TX: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at
Austin.
Behrend, S. (1971) Liner notes for Siegfried Behrend: Castelnuovo-Tedesco,
Romancero Gitano Op. 152/Bussotti, ultima rara/Hartig, Perché Op. 28
(DGG 2530 037). Deutsche Grammophon.
Bellinati, P. (1991) The Guitar Works of Garôto Vol 1. San Francisco, CA:
GSP.
Bellow, A. (1970) The Illustrated History of the Guitar. New York: Franco
Colombo.
Bennett, S. W. (1963) Liner notes for Alirio Díaz: Masterpieces of the Spanish
Guitar (Vanguard VRS 1084). Vanguard.
Beranek, L. (2003) Concert Halls and Opera Houses. New York: Springer.
Berger, M. (1958) ‘About New York: College moving into Pythian Temple
fnds eerie heritage of fraternal trinkets’, New York Times, 20 January,
p. 17.
Bieger, H. (2014) Studio Stories: Estudios Areito, Havana, Sound on Sound,
April. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/
estudios-areito-havana (Accessed: 12 May 2020).
Billboard (1968) ‘Seventy sound years: The secret of that Deutsche Grammo-
phon Quality – Diligence’, Billboard, 4 May.
BIS (1989) ‘BIS lets the music speak for itself’, Gramophone, October, p. 634.
Blas Vega, J. (1995) ‘La discografía antigua del Flamenco (1890–1953)’, in
Catálogo de Discos de 78 y 80 rpm en el Centro de Documentación Musical
de Andalucía. Seville: Junta de Andalucía Consejería de Cultura, pp. 41–48.
Blyth, A. (1968) ‘Julian Bream talks to Alan Blyth’, Gramophone, July, p. 142.
Blyth, A. (1970) ‘John Williams talks to Alan Blyth’, Gramophone, July, p.
151.
Archives and Bibliography 375

Bobri, V. (ed.) (1975) ‘Recordings by Andrés Segovia’, in The Guitar Review

Volume 1. New York: Society of the Classic Guitar, p. 94.
Bone, P. J. (1972) The Guitar and Mandolin: Biographies of Celebrated Players
and Composers. London: Schott.
Bonner, D. (2008) Revolutionizing Children’s Records: The Young People’s
Records and Children’s Record Guild Series, 1946–1977. Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press.
Borud, R. (1978) Liner notes for Sharon Isbin: Sharon Isbin Classical Guitar
Vol. 1 (Sound Environment Recording Corp. TR-1010). Sound Environ-
ment Recording Corp.
Borud, R. (1980) Liner notes for Sharon Isbin: Sharon Isbin Classical Guitar
Vol. 2 (Sound Environment Recording Corp. TR-1013). Sound Environ-
ment Recording Corp.
Borwick, J. (1976) ‘Audio commentary: Direct disc recordings’, Gramophone,
February, pp. 1393–1394.
Boyd, L. (1977) Liner notes for Liona Boyd: Miniatures for Guitar (Boot BOS
7181). Boot Records.
Boyd, L. (1998) In My Own Key: My Life in Love and Music. Toronto:
Stoddart.
Boyd, L. (2002) ‘My favorite guitar player’, Guitar Player, September, p. 28.
Bream, J. (1961) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Guitar Concertos (RCA LSC-
2487). RCA.
Brouwer, L. (1982) La música, lo cubano y la innovación. La Habana, Cuba:
Editorial Letras Cubanas.
Brown, R. (1974) ‘Williams at work’, Guitar, January, p. 5.
Brown, R. and Clinton, G. (1974) ‘Together again … Julian Bream, George
Clinton, Ron Brown’, Guitar, April, pp. 24–25.
Bruzual, A. (2005) The Guitar in Venezuela: A Concise History to the End of
the 20th Century. Saint-Nicolas, Quebec: Doberman-Yppan.
Buek, F. (1926) Die Gitarre Und Ihre Meister. Berlin: Robert Lineau/Vormals
Sclesinger.
Burtnieks, J. A. (1956) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (19), pp. 31–32.
Burtnieks, J. A. (1957) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (21), pp. 34–36.
Button, S. (1989) The Guitar in England, 1800–1924. New York: Garland Pub.
Button, S. (2006) Julian Bream: The Foundations of a Musical Career. West-
port, CT: Bold Strummer.
C.J. (1928) Review of Segovia: Tárrega, Recuerdos de la Alhambra and Turina,
Fandanguillo (HMV D.1305), Gramophone, May, p. 500.
Cañardo, M. (2009) ‘Max Glücksmann and Odeon Records in Argentina’,
in Gronow, P. and Hofer, C. (eds), The Lindström Project: Contributions
to the History of the Record Industry Beitrage zur Geschichte der Schall-
plattenindustrie Vol. 3. Wien: Gesellschaft für Historische Tonträger,
pp. 40–49.
Caputo, F. (1998) ‘The guitar situation in Argentina’, Soundboard, 25(2),
pp. 61–62.
Carlevaro, A. (2006) My Guitar & My World. Heidelberg: Chanterelle Verlag.
Carpentier, A. (2001) Music in Cuba. Minneapolis, MN: University of Min-
nesota Press.
Carroll, N. (1954) ‘This month’s cover portrait (Siegfried Behrend)’, BMG,
June, p. 227.
Castro, O. A. C. (2007) Canarios en la música Cubana. Spain: Ediciones
IDEA.
376 Archives and Bibliography

CBS Records (1972) ‘The April Newsletter from CBS Records’, Gramophone,
April, pp. 1706–1707.
Cerchiari, L. (2012) ‘Decca (USA)’, in Grove Music Online. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2224217
Chalmers, K. (2012) Liner notes for Miloš Karadaglić: Latino (DGG 479
0514). Deutsche Grammophon.
Chappell, H. (1976) A Life in the Country (Documentary). London: BBC.
Chase, G. (1962) A Guide to the music of Latin America. Washington DC: Pan
American Union.
Church, M. (2011) Liner notes for Miloš Karadaglić: Miloš The Guitar (DGG
00289 477 9693). Deutsche Grammophon.
Clark, W. A. and Krause, W. (2013) Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life
in Three Acts. New York: Oxford University Press.
Classical Guitar Magazine (2018) ‘Recording classical guitar: More from John
Taylor, Norbert Kraft, and Ricardo Marui’, Classical Guitar, 3 May.
Available at: https://classicalguitarmagazine.com/recording/ (Accessed:
13 August 2020).
Clinton, G. (1973) ‘The guitar doesn’t need great players: John Williams inter-
viewed by George Clinton’, Guitar, August, pp. 20–22.
Clinton, G. (1974) ‘Alirio Díaz’, Guitar, September, pp. 24–25.
Clinton, G. (1978a) Andrés Segovia: An Appreciation. London: Musical New
Services.
Clinton, G. (1978b) ‘David Russell: Young Scottish virtuoso’, Guitar, Novem-
ber, pp. 19–22.
Clinton, G. (1983) ‘Liona Boyd: Canada’s frst lady of the guitar’, Guitar,
March, pp. 22–26.
Clinton, G. (1987) ‘Letters to the Editor’, Soundboard, 14(4), p. 225.
Coelho, O. (1957) ‘The guitar in Brazil … and some reminiscences’, Guitar
Review, (21), pp. 16–18.
Coelho, V. A. (2003) ‘Picking through cultures: A guitarist’s music history’, in
Coelho, V. A. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–12.
Cogan, J. and Clark, W. (2003) Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording
Studios. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
Cohn, A. (1961) The Collector’s Twentieth-century Music in the Western
Hemisphere. Philadelphia, PA and New York: Lippincott.
Columbia Graphophone Company (1930) Catálogo General de Discos “Re-
gal”. San Sebastián: Columbia Graphophone Company Sociedad Anón-
ima Española.
Compañía del Gramófono (1929) Catálogo General de Discos marca “La Voz
de su Amo” Enero 1929. Barcelona: Compañía del Gramófono.
Compañía del Gramófono (1930) Catálogo General de Discos marca “La Voz
de su Amo” Julio de 1930. Barcelona: Compañía del Gramófono.
Cook, N. (2009) ‘Method for analysing recordings’, in Cook, N., Clarke, E.,
Leech-Wilkinson, D., and Rink, J. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to
Recorded Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 221–245.
Cooke, D. (1982) Vindications: Essays on Romantic Music. London: Faber
and Faber.
Cooper, C. (1984a) ‘John Schneider: Polymath’, Classical Guitar, August,
pp. 17–21.
Cooper, C. (1984b) Liner notes for Maria Isabel Siewers: Maria Isabel Siewers
Plays the Music of Argentina (GMR 1003). Guitar Masters Records.
Archives and Bibliography 377

Cooper, C. (1984c) Review of Stephen Funk Pearson: Hudson River Debut

(Kyra 1001), Classical Guitar, September, p. 61.
Cooper, C. (1984d) Review of Michael Newman: Michael Newman Classical
Guitarist, Classical Guitar, August, p. 64.
Cooper, C. (1995) ‘The sound and the silence: Colin Cooper talks to Roland
Dyens’, Classical Guitar, March, pp. 11–15.
Cooper, C. (2002) ‘Guitar music: Getting it on tape’, in Morrish, J. (ed.),
The Classical Guitar: A Complete History. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat
Books, p. 113.
Cooper, C. and Hudis, N. (1984) ‘Stephen Funk Pearson talks to Classical
Guitar’, Classical Guiitar, November, pp. 17–19.
Copeland, P. (1991) Sound Recordings. London: British Library.
Cottrell, S. (2010) ‘The rise and rise of phonomusicology’, in Recorded Music:
Performance, Culture and Techonology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, pp. 15–36.
Country Music Hall of Fame (2012) Chet Atkins: Certifed Guitar Player.
Nashville, TN; Enfeld: Hal Leonard/Backbeat.
Crimp, B. (1981) ‘John Williams and Peter Hurford’, Gramophone, December,
pp. 856, 860.
Cullingford, M. (2005) ‘The expert’s expert – guitarists: Andrés Segovia’,
Gramophone, July, pp. 44–45.
Cullingford, M. (2010) ‘A conversation with Xuefei Yang’, Gramophone, No-
vember, p. 21.
Cullingford, M. (2016) ‘Outside the box’, Gramophone, April, pp. 20–21, 23.
Cunningham, J. (2000) ‘Music: Cheap thrills: Budget label Naxos used to
be sniffed at by purists, but now it’s being taken seriously’, Guardian, 31
May, p. 16.
D.A. (1973) Review of Julian Bream: The Woods so Wild (RCA SB6865),
Gramophone, February, p. 1534.
Day, T. (2002) A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Dearling, R., Dearling, C., and Rust, B. (1984) The Guinness Book of Re-
corded Sound. Enfeld, Middlesex: Guinness Books.
Delgado, A. R. (2017) Elias Barreiro: The Man Behind the Guitar. Translated
by M. G. Bush. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Dellheim, P. (1953) ‘The fne art of recording’, The Saturday Review, 12 De-
cember, pp. 34–35.
Dellheim, P. (1979) Liner notes for Julian Bream and John Williams Live
(RCA ARL2-3090). RCA.
DeRoche, B. (2004) ‘Raphaëlla Smits interviewed by Brad DeRoche’, Sound-
board, 30(4), pp. 73–78.
Deutsche Grammophon (2011) Trailer zum Album Mediterráneo. Avail-
able at: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/milos/videos/
trailer-zum-album-mediterraneo-256316 (Accessed: 13 August 2020).
Dickinson, P. (2003) The Music of Lennox Berkeley. Woodbridge, Suffolk,
UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press.
Digby, N. (1956) Liner notes for Chet Atkins: Chet Atkins in Three Dimen-
sions (RCA LPM-1197). RCA.
Discos Odeon (1930) Odeon: suplemento no 11 al Catálogo general Enero
de 1930: noviembre 1930. Discos Odeon. Available at: https://mdc.csuc.
cat/digital/collection/discografc/id/367/rec/5 (Accessed: 5 November
2020).
378 Archives and Bibliography

Discos Odeon (1931) Catálogo General de Discos Odeon 1931. Barcelona:

Discos Odeon.
Discos Odeon (1932) Recopilación de los discos publicados en los supplementos
de Julio 1931 a Diciembre 1932 inclusive. Barcelona: Discos Odeon. Avail-
able at: https://mdc.csuc.cat/digital/collection/discografc/id/428
Discus (1952) ‘The guitar on wax’, BMG, December, pp. 81–82.
Discus (1954) ‘The guitar on wax’, BMG, October, pp. 17–18.
Discus (1955) Review of Andrés Segovia: An Evening with Andrés Segovia
(DL9733/AXTL1070), BMG, December, p. 85.
Discus (1958) ‘The guitar on wax’, BMG, August, pp. 276–278.
Discus (1964) Review of Andrés Segovia: Granada (DL710063/AXA 4512),
BMG, March, pp. 204–205.
Discus (1966) ‘The guitar on wax’, BMG, May, pp. 261–262.
Dixon, R. M. W. and Godrich, J. (1970) Recording the Blues. New York: Stein
and Day.
Donahue, T. (ed.) (2018) Benjamin Verdery: A Montage of a Classical Guitar-
ist. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books.
Doreste, L. (2006) Genio y fgura de Víctor Doreste. Las Palmas de Gran Ca-
naria: Lorenzo Doreste Suárez.
Drennen, M. (1965) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Music for Voice and Guitar
(LSC 2718). RCA.
Duarte, J. (1951a) ‘Historic recording’, BMG, October, pp. 18–19.
Duarte, J. (1951b) ‘Laurindo Almeida’, BMG, July, pp. 216–217.
Duarte, J. (1969) ‘Siegfried Behrend’, BMG, June, pp. 285–287.
Duarte, J. (1970a) Liner notes for Alirio Díaz: Guitar Music of Spain and
Latin America (EMI HQS 1175). EMI.
Duarte, J. (1970b) ‘Weiss – fction and fact’, BMG, September, pp. 386–387.
Duarte, J. (1971a) Liner notes for Alice Artzt: Classic Guitar (GME 1018).
Gemini Records.
Duarte, J. (1971b) Liner notes for Alirio Díaz: Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gui-
tar Quintet/Ponce, Sonata Romántica; Suite Antique (EMI HQS 1250).
EMI.
Duarte, J. (1971c) Liner notes for René Bartoli: René Bartoli (RCA LSB
4032). RCA.
Duarte, J. (1979a) Liner notes for Alice Artzt: English Guitar Music (Meridian
E77037). Meridian.
Duarte, J. (1979b) Review of Eric Hill: Guitar Music of Torroba (SAGA
5462), Gramophone, July, p. 234.
Duarte, J. (1980) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: The Art of Segovia: the
HMV Recordings 1927–39, The HMV Treasury, His Master’s Voice (RLS
745). EMI.
Duarte, J. (1981) Review of John Williams and Peter Hurford play Bach (CBS
37250), Gramophone, December, p. 895.
Duarte, J. (1982a) ‘Gramophone perspective: Julian Bream’, Gramophone,
April, p. 1356.
Duarte, J. (1982b) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Dedication (RL 25419). RCA.
Duarte, J. (1982c) Review of Alfonso Moreno: Rodrigo, Concierto de Aran-
juez, Gramophone, July, p. 136.
Duarte, J. (1983a) ‘Andrés Segovia: The maestro and tone’, Guitar Player,
October, pp. 77–78, 81, 141.
Duarte, J. (1983b) Liner notes for Angel Romero: Giuliani Guitar Concertos
(Angel S-37967). Angel.
Archives and Bibliography 379

Duarte, J. (1983c) Liner notes for Vladimir Mikulka: Vladimir Mikulka Plays
East European Guitar Music by Nikita Koshkin and Štěpán Rak (BIS LP-
240). BIS.
Duarte, J. (1983d) Review of Kazuhito Yamashita (arr.) Mussorgsky, Pictures
at an Exhibition (Zen-On Guitar Library 1981), Soundboard, 10(1), p. 99.
Duarte, J. (1983e) ‘To amplify or not to amplify?’, Soundboard, 10(4),
pp. 380–382.
Duarte, J. (1987) ‘Bridge building’, Gramophone, August, p. 266.
Duarte, J. (1989) Liner notes for Norbert Kraft: Tippett/Britten/Schafer:
Works for Guitar (CHAN 8784). Chandos.
Duarte, J. (1990) Liner notes for Štěpán Rak: Dedications (Nimbus NI 5239).
Nimbus.
Duarte, J. (1994) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: The Complete 1949 London
Recordings. Testament.
Duarte, J. (1998) Andres Segovia, As I Knew Him. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay
Publications.
Dumigan, C. (2017) ‘The Erwich Barrios transcriptions’, Classical Guitar,
pp. 18–19.
Duncan, C. (1977) ‘The Segovia sound: What is it?’, Guitar Review, (42),
pp. 25–31.
Dunn, D. (1945) ‘On the records’, The Capital Times, 1 April, p. 11.
D.W. (1938) Review of Andrés Segovia: Ponce, Mazurka and Petite Valse
(HMV DA 1552), Gramophone, March.
Eastwood, T. (1973) Liner notes for Julian Bream: ’70s (ARL1-0049). RCA.
E.G. (1965a) Review of Narciso Yepes: Guitar Recital Vol. 2 (GLB1023),
Gramophone, June, pp. 21–22.
E.G. (1965b) Review of Narciso Yepes: Guitar Recital Vol. 3 (GLB1024),
Gramophone, June, pp. 21–22.
E.G. (1968) Review of Alirio Díaz: Four Centuries of Music for the Classic
Spanish Guitar (VSL 11010), Gramophone, August, p. 260.
E.G. (1970) Review of Narciso Yepes: Concierto de Aranjuez (DGG 139440),
Gramophone, April, p. 1592.
E.G. (1975) Review of John Williams: Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez (CBS
76369), Gramophone, January, p. 1354.
Elwood, P. (1990) Liner notes for Laurindo Almeida: Virtuoso Guitar (1990
CD Re-issue). Laserlight Digital.
Escande, A. (2005) Abel Carlevaro: un nuevo mundo en la guitarra. Montevi-
deo: Aguilar.
Escande, A. (2012) Don Andrés and Paquita: The Life of Segovia in Montevi-
deo. Translated by C. Postlewate and M. H. Postlewate. Milwaukee, WI:
Amadeus Press.
Estephan, S. (2018) Abismo de rosas: Vida e obra de Canhoto. 1 edition. São
Paulo: Edições Sesc SP.
Evans, M. (2017) Vinyl: The Art of Making Records. London: New Burlington.
Falconer, D. (2014) Miloš Karadaglić exclusive interview, Female
First. Available at: https://www.femalefrst.co.uk/music/interviews/
milos-karadaglic-exclusive-interview-423159.html (Accessed: 22 October
2019).
Ferguson, J. (1983) ‘Andrés Segovia, Part 3’, Guitar Player, December, pp. 30,
32, 34–35, 37–42, 44, 46, 48–50, 154.
Ferguson, J. (1986) ‘Classical virtuoso David Tanenbaum’, Guitar Player,
September, pp. 88–97.
380 Archives and Bibliography

Ferguson, J. (1987) ‘Canadian Guitar Summit’, Guitar Player, July, pp. 70–
77, 86–96.
Ferguson, J. (1988) ‘Guitar in the USSR’, Guitar Player, December, pp. 87–
103, 161.
Fernandez, E. (1993) Liner notes for Eduardo Fernandez: Avant-Garde Guitar
(Decca 433 076-2DH). Decca.
Ferrara, L. (2012) ‘Kazuhito Yamashita interviewed by Lawrence Ferrara’,
Soundboard, 38(1), pp. 65–67.
Fingerstyle Guitar Journal (2017) ‘Jason Vieaux’, Fingerstyle Guitar Journal,
pp. 5–18.
Fischer, T. (2012) Interview with Miloš Karadaglić, Tokaf. Available at: http://
www.tokaf.com/15questions/interview-milos-karadaglic/ (Accessed: 22
October 2019).
Fisk, E. (1978) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: Eliot Fisk Plays Scarlatti and Bach
8.30 Tonight. Mark Levinson Acoustic Recordings Ltd.
Fisk, E. (1982) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: American Virtuoso (MHS 4640).
Musical Heritage Society.
Fisk, E. (1983) ‘Segovia the performer’, Guitar Review, (52), pp. 9–11.
Fisk, E. (1987) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: Latin American Guitar Music (CDC
7 47760 2). EMI.
Fisk, E. (1994a) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: Paganini: 24 Caprices (MHS
513555Y). Musical Heritage Society.
Fisk, E. (1994b) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: Rochberg: Caprice Variations
(MusicMasters Classics 01612-67133-2). MusicMasters Inc.
Fisk, E. (1995) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: Sequenza! (MusicMasters 5185937).
MusicMasters Inc.
Fisk, E. (1996) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: World Première Recording: Segovia
Canciones Populares (MMD 67174). MusicMasters Inc.
Fleming, S. (1961) ‘Segovia: The classical guitar’s veteran champion looks to
the future’, High Fidelity, July, pp. 10,12,14.
Fleming, S. (1967) ‘A master of the solo guitar in music of modern masters’,
High Fidelity, November, p. 89.
Fleming, S. (1970) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: Castles of Spain
(DL710171). American Decca.
Fleming, S. (1976) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: Intimate Guitar 2 (RCA
ARL1-1323). Movieplay/RCA.
Fleming, S. (1978) Liner notes for Baltazar Benitez: Latin American Music for
the Classical Guitar (Nonesuch H-71349). Nonesuch.
Forbes, B. (1968) Liner notes for Deadfall Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
(S4203). 20th Century Fox Records.
Ford, J. S. (1999) The Estudio de Arte Guitarrístico of Manuel López Ramos.
PhD. Texas Tech University.
Foreman, L. (1999) ‘Obituary: Bob Auger’, Independent, 4 February. Avail-
able at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-bob-
auger-1068562.html (Accessed: 2 April 2017).
Fortey, M. (2001) ‘Decca’, in Grove Music Online. Available at: https://doi.
org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.48393
Fox, T. (1986) In the Groove: The People Behind the Music. New York: St.
Martin’s Press.
Francisco Salinas Vellalva (instrumentalist: guitar) – Discography of American
Historical Recordings (n.d.). Available at: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.
Archives and Bibliography 381

php/talent/detail/19604/Salinas_Vellalva_Francisco_instrumentalist_
guitar (Accessed: 14 April 2020).
Frost, T. (2013) Liner notes for Roberto Moronn Pérez: Andrés Segovia Ar-
chive: Spanish Composers (Reference Recordings FR-705). Reference
Recordings.
Funk Pearson, S. (1996) Liner notes for Stephen Funk Pearson: Hudson River
Debut (GSP 1001CD). GSP.
Funk Pearson, S. (2007) Stephen Funk Pearson. Available at: http://www.stephen
funkpearson.com/bio.html (Accessed: 12 September 2020).
Gaisberg, F. W. (1942) The Music Goes Round. New York: The Macmillan
Company.
Garcia, G. (1989) Liner notes for Gerald Garcia: Rodrigo, Concierto de Aran-
juez (Naxos 8.550220). Naxos.
Gardner, M. (2002) ‘Musicraft’, in Grove Music Online. 2nd edn. New York:
Grove’s Dictionaries Inc, p. 856. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/
gmo/9781561592630.article.J319700.
Gelatt, R. (1958) ‘Pangs of progress’, High Fidelity, January, pp. 39–41, 131.
Gelatt, R. (1977) The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877–1977. New York: Collier
Books.
GFA (n.d.) Industry Leadership Award 2014 – Dean Kamei, Guitar Founda-
tion of America. Available at: https://www.guitarfoundation.org/page/
HoFDKamei (Accessed: 13 August 2020).
Gilardino, A. (ed.) (2007) Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Sonata (‘Omaggio a
Boccherini’) per Chitarra. Ancona Italy: Bèrben (The Andrés Segovia
Archive).
Ginn, E. M. (1935) ‘L’Anthologie Sonore: A synthesis of the musical Arts
XIV to XVIII Centuries’, Gramophone, April, p. xix.
Goldmark, P. C. (1973) Maverick Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS. New
York: Saturday Review Press.
Gollin, J. (2001) Pied Piper: The Many Lives of Noah Greenberg. Hillsdale,
NY: Pendragon Press.
Gould, G. (1966) ‘The prospects of recording’, High Fidelity, April, pp. 46–63.
Gowers, P. (1972) Liner notes for John Williams: Gowers, Chamber Concerto
for Guitar/Scarlatti Six Sonatas (SBR 235641). CBS.
Gracyk, T. (1994) ‘The frst solo guitar recording?’, Victrola and 78 Journal,
(3), pp. 10–11.
Gracyk, T. and Hoffmann, F. (2000) Popular American Recording Pioneers:
1895–1925. New York: Haworth Press.
Gray, M. H. (n.d.) Westminster’s Natural Balance. Available at: https://www.
deutschegrammophon.com/de/album/westminster-legacy/natuerliche-
balance.html (Accessed: 27 July 2018).
Greene, T. J. (2011) Julian Bream’s 20th Century Guitar: An Album’s Infu-
ence on the Modern Guitar Repertoire. Master of Arts. UC Riverside.
Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rg2n57t (Accessed: 13
September 2020).
Greenfeld, E. (1969) ‘Madrid: DGG in Spain’, High Fidelity, August, p. 20.
Greenfeld, E. (2002) Review of Craig Ogden: English Guitar Concertos
(CHAN 9963), Gramophone, April, p. 59.
Gronow, P. and Saunio, I. (1998) An International History of the Recording
Industry. London and New York: Cassell.
Grubb, S. R. (1986) Music Makers on Record. London: H. Hamilton.
382 Archives and Bibliography

G.S. Jr (1955) Review of Narciso Yepes: Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez

(London TW 91019), High Fidelity, June, p. 64.
Guitar News (1952) ‘Contemporary guitarist No. 5’, Guitar News, May,
pp. 1–2.
Guitar News (1965) ‘French T.V. and radio’, Guitar News, June, p. 26.
Guy, R. (1968) Liner notes for Christopher Parkening: In the Classic Style
(Angel S-36019). Angel.
Guy, R. (1969) Liner notes for Christopher Parkening: Romanza (Angel
S-36021). Angel.
Guy, R. (1976) Liner notes for Christopher Parkening: Parkening and the
Guitar (Angel S-36053). Angel.
Hackl, S. (2011) Die Gitarre in Österreich: Von Abate Costa bis Zykan. Inns-
bruck: StudienVerlag.
Hall, D. (1961) Liner notes for Laurindo Almeida: The Spanish Guitars of
Laurindo Almeida (1961). Capitol.
Hambourg, M. (1923) ‘Piano recording’, Gramophone, April, pp. 4–5.
Harrison, J. S. (1961) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Popular Classics for Span-
ish Guitar (RCA RB6593). RCA.
Harvith, J. and Harvith, S. E. (1987) Edison, Musicians, and the Phonograph:
A Century in Retrospect. New York: Greenwood Press.
Hastings, M. C. (1957) Liner notes for José Rey da la Torre: Plays Classical
Guitar (LC 3418). Epic.
Heck, T. F. (1970) The birth of the classic guitar and its cultivation in Vienna,
refected in the career and compositions of Mauro Giuliani. PhD. Yale,
New Haven, CT.
Heck, T. F. (1977) ‘Reconstructing the Rossiniane of Giuliani/Bream: A fea-
ture record Review’, Soundboard, 4(2), pp. 47–48.
Helguera, J. (1996) La guitarra en México. Mexico: Editorial Torre de Lulio.
Heller, S. (1994) ‘The incomparable Alex Steinweiss’, Affche, pp. 69–75.
Heller, S. (2004) ‘Erik Nitsche: The reluctant modernist’, Typotheque. Avail-
able at: https://www.typotheque.com/articles/erik_nitsche_the_reluc-
tant_modernist (Accessed: 23 July 2018).
Helmholtz, H. (1954) On the Sensations of Tone. New York: Dover
Publications.
Henahan, D. (1968a) ‘Segovia: Glad to steal the young away from the Beat-
les’, New York Times, 18 February, p. 103.
Henahan, D. (1968b) ‘The classic guitar: Here come the younger men’, New
York Times, 22 December, p. 23.
Henke, M. (1988) Liner notes for Manuel Barrueco: Manuel Barrueco plays
Mozart and Sor (DCD 7 49368 2). EMI.
Hernández Ramírez, F. E. (2010) La Obra Compositiva de Emilio Pujol
(1886–1980): Estudio Comparativo, Catálogo y Edición Crítica. Universi-
tat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Herrera, F. (2011) Enciclopedia de La Guitarra. Edited by M. Weber and V.
Pocci. Valencia: Piles, Editorial de Música.
H.G. (1960) Review of José Rey de la Torre: Music for Two Guitars/Music for
One Guitar (Epic LC3674/BC1073), High Fidelity, October, p. 96.
H.G. (1962) Review of Laurindo Almeida: Reverie for Spanish Guitars
(Capitol SP 8571), High Fidelity, January, p. 76.
Hickmann, E. (1977) Liner notes for Narciso Yepes: Gitarrenmusik des 20.
Jahrhunderts (DGG 2530 802). Deutsche Grammophon.
Hodel, B. (1983a) ‘Jorge Morel’, Classical Guitar, April, pp. 13–14.
Archives and Bibliography 383

Hodel, B. (1983b) Review of Carlos Barbosa-Lima: Carlos Barbosa-Lima

Plays the Music of Antonio Carlos Jobim and George Gershwin, Classical
Guitar, April, p. 49.
Hodel, B. (1984) ‘Spotlight on Luiz Bonfá’, Guitar Review, (56), pp. 1–4.
Horowitz, I. (1978) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: Reveries (RCA RL12602).
RCA.
Horowitz, I. (1987) Liner notes for Andrés Segovia: The Legendary Andrés
Segovia in an All-Bach Program (MCAD-42068). MCA.
Hausemann, H. S. (1970) Liner notes for Siegfried Behrend: Guitar and Per-
cussion (DGG 2530 034). Deutsche Grammophon.
Huber, J. (1994) The Development of the Modern Guitar. Westport CT: Bold
Strummer.
Hughes, R. (1979) ‘Easy listening’, Gramophone, September, p. 526.
Humphreys, I. (1988) ‘A decade of digits’, Gramophone, October, pp. 540–541.
Irving, D. (1985) ‘Ernesto Bitetti in New York’, Guitar, April, pp. 12–15.
Isaka, H. (1978) Liner notes for Kazuhito Yamashita: Romance de Amor
(RDCE-8). RCA Japan.
Isbin, S. (1989) Liner notes for Sharon Isbin: J.S. Bach Complete Lute Suites
(VC 7 9017-2). Virgin Classics.
Iznaola, R. (2013) ‘Sainz de la Maza (y Ruiz), Regino’, Grove Music Online.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.43108
(Accessed: 10 September 2020).
Jackson, B. (2015) ‘Joaquín Rodrigo’s journey to Concierto de Aranjuez’,
Classical Guitar, Summer, pp. 22–29.
Jackson, B. (2018) ‘Recording classical guitar: Sage advice from three top
engineers’, Classical Guitar, Summer, pp. 30–36.
Jaffee, K. (1970) Liner notes for John Williams: Plays Spanish Music (SBR
235 393). CBS.
J.D. (1980) Review of Liona Boyd: First Lady of the Guitar (CBS 73829/
M35137), Gramophone, January, p. 1172.
J.D. (1981) Review of John Williams: Echoes of Spain (CBS 36679), Gramo-
phone, November, p. 720.
J.D. (1982a) Review of Alice Artzt: Romantic Virtuoso Guitar Music, Gramo-
phone, June, p. 61.
J.D. (1982b) Review of Angel Romero: Torroba, Homenaje a la Seguidilla
(HMV ASD4171), Gramophone, August.
J.D. (1982c) Review of Alfonso Moreno: Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez
(HMV ASD 4159), Gramophone, July, p. 136.
J.D. (1983a) Review of Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition arranged
by Kazuhito Yamashita (Zen-On Guitar Library), Soundboard, 10(1),
p. 99.
J.D. (1983b) Review of Kazuhito Yamashita: Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Ex-
hibition (RCA ARC1-4203), Gramophone, March, p. 1072.
J.D. (1984a) Review of Eliot Fisk: American Virtuoso (ASV reissue ALH
945), Gramophone, April, p. 1196.
J.D. (1984b) Review of Vladimir Mikulka: Vladimir Mikulka Plays East Eu-
ropean Guitar Music by Nikita Koshkin and Štěpán Rak (BIS LP-240),
Gramophone, May, pp. 1299–1300.
J.D. (1984c) Review of Pepe Romero: Rodrigo, Concierto para una festa
(Philips 411 133-1PH), Gramophone, July, pp. 124–127.
J.D. (1990) Review of Norbert Kraft: Tippett/Britten/Schafer: Works for Gui-
tar (CHAN 8784), Gramophone, January, p. 1349.
384 Archives and Bibliography

J.D. (1992) Review of Starobin: Giuliani Guitar Works (BCD 9029), Gramo-
phone, March, p. 79.
J.D. (1995) Review of Craig Ogden: The Blue Guitar (Nimbus NI5390), Gram-
ophone, June.
J.D. (1998) Review of Sharon Isbin: Journey to the Amazon (Teldec 0630-
19899-2), Gramophone, July, p. 60.
J.D. (2001) Review of Sharon Isbin: Rouse and Dun Guitar Concertos (Teldec
8573-81830-2), Gramophone, May, p. 64.
Jeffery, B. (ed.) (1977) Fernando Sor: Complete Works for Guitar, Facsimile
Edition. New York: Shattinger International Music Corp.
Jellinek, G. (1959) Liner notes for José Rey de la Torre: Virtuoso Guitar (LC
3479). Epic.
Jerome, D. (2005) ‘Towards a biography of Dilermando Reis’, Soundboard,
31(1), pp. 13–25.
J.F.I. (1955) Review of Andrés Segovia: Andrés Segovia Plays (DL 9734/
AXA4504), High Fidelity, April, p. 66.
J.M.C. (1953) Review of José Rey de la Torre: Twentieth Century Music for the
Guitar (Philharmonia PH106), High Fidelity, February, p. 63.
Johnson, D. (1960) Liner notes for José Rey de la Torre: Music for Two Gui-
tars/Music for One Guitar (LC 3674/BC 1073). Epic.
Jolly, J. (2014) ‘Miloš Karadaglić talks about Aranjuez’ (Gramophone
Podcast). Available at: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-
music-news/article/milos-karadaglic-features-in-the-latest-gramophone-
podcast.
Jones, A. C. (1998) ‘The judgement of Paris: Part 5 Pujol’s article in Lavig-
nac’s Encyclopedia’, Classical Guitar, December, pp. 24, 26–28.
Jones, M. R. (2016) ‘Pearson, Stephen Funk’, Grove Music Online. Available
at: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2289211 (Ac-
cessed: 12 September 2020).
Julio J. Otermín (instrumentalist: guitar) – Discography of American Histori-
cal Recordings (n.d.). Available at: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/
talent/detail/11061/Otermn_Julio_J._instrumentalist_guitar (Accessed:
30 April 2020).
Julio Martinez Oyanguren (instrumentalist: guitar) – Discography of Amer-
ican Historical Recordings (n.d.). Available at: https://adp.library.
ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/124380/Martinez_Oyanguren_Julio_
instrumentalist_guitar (Accessed: 30 April 2020).
Karlin, D. (2018) ‘Guitar in the danger zone: Miloš Karadaglić’, Bachtrack.
Available at: https://bachtrack.com/interview-milos-karadaglic-
august-2018 (Accessed: 22 October 2019).
Kerstens, T. (1990a) ‘Alexandre Lagoya interviewed by Tom Kerstens Part II’,
Classical Guitar, January, pp. 35–38.
Kerstens, T. (1990b) ‘Alexandre Lagoya interviewed by Tom Kerstens Part
III’, Classical Guitar, February, pp. 35–37.
Kessner, D. (1977) ‘Contemporary guitar music’, Soundboard, 4(1), p. 17.
Kirby, F. (1966) ‘Classical guitar disks ride high with string of big sales victo-
ries’, Billboard, 9 July, pp. 48–49.
Kirzinger, R. (2001) ‘The timeless music of the present: an interview with
Guitarist Sharon Isbin and Teldec Director of Marketing Timothy Koto-
wich about Teldec’s new line’, Fanfare, July, pp. 26, 28–30.
K.K. (1929) Review of Andrés Segovia: Bach, Courante and Torroba, Sona-
tina (HMV E.475), Gramophone, August, p. 117.
Archives and Bibliography 385

Koegel, J. (2002) ‘Crossing borders: Mexicana, Tejana, and Chicana Musi-

cians in the United States and Mexico’, in Clark, W. A. (ed.), From Te-
jano to Tango: Essays on Latin American Popular Music. New York and
London: Routledge.
Kohl, R. (2011) ‘Octaviano Yáñez’, Soundboard, 37(3), pp. 24–31.
Koplewitz, L. (1983a) ‘Carlos Barbosa-Lima: Transcriptionist, arranger, clas-
sical virtuoso’, Guitar Player, April, pp. 50–62.
Koplewitz, L. (1983b) ‘Bach in performance practice’, Guitar Review, (54),
pp. 19–20.
Koplewitz, L. (1984) ‘Bach in performance practice part II’, Guitar Review,
(56), pp. 17–19.
Kozinn, A. (1978a) ‘Andrés Segovia interviewed by Allan Kozinn’, Guitar
Player, June, pp. 26, 27–28, 104, 106, 110.
Kozinn, A. (1978b) ‘Israel Horowitz: Recording Segovia’, Guitar Player,
June, pp. 28, 54, 58, 60.
Kozinn, A. (1979) ‘The guitar enters music’s mainstream’, New York Times,
18 February, pp. 19, 26.
Kozinn, A. (1980a) ‘Michael Newman: Rising New York classical artist’, Gui-
tar Player, February, pp. 54–58.
Kozinn, A. (1980b) ‘Segovia’s frst recordings’, High Fidelity, July, pp. 54,
57–58.
Kozinn, A. (1981) ‘Narciso Yepes and his 10-string guitar’, New York Times,
22 November, pp. 21–22.
Kozinn, A. (1982a) ‘John Williams reinterprets Albéniz’, New York Times, 5
September, p. 13.
Kozinn, A. (1982b) ‘Young guitarists show some pluck’, High Fidelity, May,
pp. 42–44, 80.
Kozinn, A. (1983a) ‘John Williams’, in Guitar Player Magazine (ed.), The
Guitar Player Book. New York: Grove Press, pp. 287–294.
Kozinn, A. (1983b) ‘Julian Bream stretches with contemporary music’, New
York Times, 20 November, pp. 21–22.
Kozinn, A. (1985a) Liner notes for Eliot Fisk: Eliot Fisk Performs Works by
Baroque Composers (Music Masters MMD 20090M). Music Masters.
Kozinn, A. (1985b) ‘The guitar on record’, Guitar Review, (63), pp. 34–35.
Kozinn, A. (1986a) ‘David Starobin: A leading light of new music, he is also
New York’s top freelancer’, Guitar Player, May, pp. 64–76.
Kozinn, A. (1986b) ‘Guitarist with a taste for new frontiers’, Guitar Review,
(66), pp. 26–28.
Kozinn, A. (2009) ‘Israel Horowitz, 92, a record producer’, New York Times,
12 January, p. B9.
Krick, G. (1940) ‘Julio Martínez Oyanguren’, Etude, June, pp. 422–423.
Lacasse, S. (2000) ‘Listen to my voice’: the evocative power of vocal staging in
recorded rock music and other forms of vocal expression. PhD. University
of Liverpool.
LaFay, H. (1956) Review of Laurindo Almeida: Guitar Music of Latin Amer-
ica (P8321), High Fidelity, May, p. 79.
Laird, R. (2001) Brunswick Records: Chicago and Regional Sessions. West-
port, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Lam, B. (1976) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Lute Music of John Dowland
(RCA ARL1-1491). RCA.
Laurance, B. (1993) ‘Sounds of fury at the price of music’, Guardian, 10 April,
p. 32.
386 Archives and Bibliography

Lawrence, M. (2004) Aaron Shearer: A Life with the Guitar (Documentary).

Michael Lawrence Films.
Layton, R. (1979) Review of John Williams: Plays Manuel Ponce (CBS
76730), Gramophone, May, p. 1844.
Lehmann-Haupt, J. (2002) ‘Segovia in the recording studio’, in The Segovia
Collection (accompanying booklet). Deutsche Grammophon, pp. 21–24.
Levy, A. (2000) ‘Beyond Segovia: John Williams shepherds classical guitar
into the 21st Century’, Guitar Player, October, pp. 67, 69–70, 72, 74.
Linn, K. (1994) That Half-barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular
Culture. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Livingston-Isenhour, T. E. and Garcia, T. G. C. (2005) Choro: A Social His-
tory of a Brazilian Popular Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press.
Loriente, H. (1998) 80 notas de tango. Montevideo: Ediciones de la Plaza.
Lorimer, M. (1993) Liner notes for David Tanenbaum: Great American Gui-
tar Solo (Neuma 450-84). Neuma.
Louis, R., Soveaux, T., and Boruchowitch, O. (2009) Deutsche Grammophon:
State of the Art: Celebrating Over a Century of Musical Experience. New
York: Rizzoli.
L.S. (1950) Review of Andrés Segovia: Torroba, Arada and Danza/Turina,
Fandanguillo (Columbia LX1248), January, p. 145.
L.S. (1951) Review of Felix Argüelles: Classic Guitar Recital (SMC 506 and
507), Gramophone, April, pp. 250–251.
L.S. (1954) Review of Narciso Yepes: Música Española para Guitarra (LXT
2974), Gramophone, December, p. 311.
L.S. (1955) Review of Laurindo Almeida: Guitar Music of Spain (CTL 7089),
Gramophone, November, p. 228.
L.S. (1961) Review of Julian Bream: The Art of Julian Bream (RCA RB16239),
Gramophone, May, pp. 592–593.
L.S. (1969) Review of Konrad Ragossnig: Bondon, Concerto de Mars (VICS
1367), Gramophone, February, pp. 1146, 1151.
L.S. (1972) Review of Narciso Yepes: Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez (Decca
SXL 2091), Gramophone, November, p. 919.
Lynn, T. A. (1957) ‘Vicente Gómez’, Guitar News, December, pp. 3–4.
MacKenzie, C. (1927) Review of Segovia: Bach, Gavotte and Sor, Thème
Varié (HMV D.1255) (August records by the Editor), Gramophone, Sep-
tember, pp. 130–137.
MacKenzie, C. (1949) ‘Editorial’, Gramophone, May, pp. 187–188.
MacKenzie, C. (1950) ‘Editorial’, Gramophone, April, pp. 195–196.
MacKenzie, J. (2006) The Guitar Works of Stephen Dodgson. Newport: Ca-
denza Music.
Mairants, I. (1967) ‘Regino Sainz de la Maza’, BMG, July, pp. 324–325.
Mairants, I. (1973) Review of John Williams: The Height Below (Cube HiFly
16), Guitar, July, p. 36.
Mairants, I. (1980) My Fifty Fretting Years. Summerfeld, Tyne and Wear:
Ashley Mark Publishing Co.
Mangado, J. M. (1998) La guitarra en Cataluña, 1769–1939: con especial refer-
encia a los guitarristas José Ferrer (1835–1916), Sor, Brocá, Vinãs, Bosch,
Costa, Más, y otros. London: Tecla.
Mari, D. (1976) ‘Maria Livia São Marcos: European classical standout’, Gui-
tar Player, January, pp. 12, 41–42.
Archives and Bibliography 387

Maria Luisa Anido (instrumentalist: guitar) – Discography of American His-

torical Recordings (n.d.). Available at: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.
php/talent/detail/13142/Anido_Maria_Luisa_instrumentalist_guitar
(Accessed: 30 April 2020).
Marillia, A. (2005) Ida Presti: Sa Vie, Son Art; Her Life, Her Art. Ancona:
Bèrben.
Marrington, M. (2017a) Interview with John Lehmann-Haupt. 2 November.
Marrington, M. (2017b) Interview with Paul Baily. 10 October.
Marrington, M. (2019a) Interview with Mike Ross-Trevor. 14 April.
Marrington, M. (2019b) Interview with Craig Ogden. 8 May.
Marrington, M. (2020a) Interview with Alice Artzt. 4 June.
Marrington, M. (2020b) ‘Women in music production: A contextualized his-
tory from the 1890s to the 1980s’, in Hepworth-Sawyer, R., King, L.,
Hodgson, J., and Marrington, M. (eds), Gender in Music Production.
New York: Focal Press.
Marriott, D. F. (1981) ‘Interview: Toru Takemitsu’, Soundboard, 8(3),
pp. 167–168.
Martland, P. (2013) Recording History: The British Record Industry, 1888–
1931. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Maslowski, I. B. (1954) ‘Letter from Spain’, Gramophone, August, pp. 97–98.
McCardell, C. (1987) ‘A different strummer’, Washington Post, 1 Febru-
ary. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/
style/1987/02/01/a-different-strummer/126f0f33-bb98-4d70-b29b-
971ce0aa0cc5/ (Accessed: 27 December 2018).
McClellen, J. and Bratić, D. (2007) The Magnifcent Guitar of Jorge Morel: A
Life of Music. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay Publications.
McConnell, D. (1988) ‘Lawrence Johnson, Guitarist with a Mission’. (Gui-
tar International), 16(187). Available at: https://www.crgrecordings.com/
interview.htm.
McCreadie, S. (1980) ‘Rosalyn Tureck and Sharon Isbin on the Bach Lute
Suites’, Guitar, September, pp. 26–29.
McK. Houston, A. (1946) ‘The new Segovia records’, BMG, February, p. 82.
McKenna, C. (1987) ‘Vladimir Bobri 1898–1986’, Guitar Review, (68),
pp. 8–16.
McLellan, J. (1980) ‘Andrés Segovia’, Washington Post, 2 March. Available
at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/03/02/andres-
segovia/df4b8cef-6e39-42c8-9dc2-ab1a5f48ac6e/ (Accessed: 17 July 2018).
Mead, D. (1994) ‘Modern classic: John Williams’, Guitarist, pp. 88–106.
Meadmore, W. S. (1928) ‘More Gramophone personalities’, Gramophone, De-
cember, pp. 336–240.
Medeiros, A. R. de (2007) Sua Majestade, O Violinista e Compositor Diler-
mando Reis (1916–1977). Bachelor of Arts Undergraduate Monograph.
Federal University of Paraná – UFPR.
Mello, J. (2015) Gente humilde: Vida e música de Garôto. São Paulo: Edições
Sesc.
M.E.O. (1981) Review of Alice Artzt: Twentieth Century Guitar Music (Hype-
rion A66002), Gramophone, January, p. 970.
M.H. (1971a) Review of René Bartoli: René Bartoli (RCA LSB 4032), Gram-
ophone, September, p. 474.
M.H. (1971b) Review of Siegfried Behrend: English Guitar Music (DGG
3300103), Gramophone, September, pp. 473–474.
388 Archives and Bibliography

M.H. (1972a) Review of Alirio Díaz: Four Centuries of Music for the Classical
Spanish Guitar (Vanguard VSD-71135), Gramophone, October, p. 759.
M.H. (1972b) Review of Konrad Ragossnig: Guitar Recital (Supraphon 1 11
1040), Gramophone, May, p. 1914.
M.H. (1972c) Review of Leo Brouwer: Leo Brouwer Gitarre (DGG Début
2555 001), Gramophone, August, p. 360.
M.H. (1972d) Review of Siegfried Behrend: Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Romancero
Gitano Op. 152/Bussotti, ultima rara/Hartig, Perché Op. 28 (DGG 2530
037), Gramophone, August, p. 352.
M.H. (1974) Review of Christopher Parkening: Parkening Plays Bach
(HQS1316/ Angel S-36041), Gramophone, July, p. 226.
Millard, A. J., Hay, D. and Grassick, M. (1995) Edison Laboratory: Historical
Data and Furnishing Plan. Harpers Ferry, WV: Division of Historic Fur-
nishings, Harpers Ferry Center, National Park Service.
Miller, C. (1959) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (23), p. 32.
Miller, C. (1960) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (24), pp. 28–29.
Miller, C. (1962) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (26), pp. 22–23.
Miller, C. (1966) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (29), p. 25.
Miller, C. (1969a) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (31), pp. 35–36.
Miller, C. (1969b) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (32), pp. 33–34.
Miller, C. (1971) ‘The guitar on discs’, Guitar Review, (35), pp. 30–31.
M.M. (1952) Review of Andrés Segovia: Crespo, Norteña (Columbia LB130),
Gramophone, November.
M.M. (1953) Review of Andrés Segovia: An Andrés Segovia Concert (DL
9638/AXTL 1010), Gramophone, September, p. 104.
M.M. (1954) Review of Andrés Segovia: An Andrés Segovia Program (DL
9647/AXTL 1060), Gramophone, November, p. 260.
M.M. (1955) Review of Andrés Segovia: An Evening with Andrés Segovia
(DL9733/AXTL1070), Gramophone, May, p. 531.
M.M. (1957) Review of Laurindo Almeida: Guitar Music of Latin America
(P8321), Gramophone, July, p. 67.
M.M. (1958) Review of Laurindo Almeida: New World of the Guitar (P8392),
Gramophone, May, p. 498.
M.M. (1959) Review of John Williams: Guitar Recital, First Album (Delysé
ECB3149), Gramophone, March, p. 463.
M.M (1960) ‘Bach, Guitar Recital’, Gramophone, July, p. 74.
M.M. (1963) Review of Andrés Segovia: Granada (DL710063/AXA4512),
Gramophone, June, p. 16.
M.M. (1965a) Review of John Williams: Virtuoso Music for Guitar (MS 6696),
Gramophone, September, p. 156.
M.M. (1965b) Review of Julian Bream: Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar
(RCA RB6593), Gramophone, January, p. 339.
M.M (1965) Review of Masters of the Guitar Vol. 2 (RCA RB6599), Gramo-
phone, February, p. 387.
M.M. (1966) Review of Julian Bream: J.S. Bach Lute Suites (RB6684), Gram-
ophone, November, p. 268.
M.M. (1967a) Review of Julian Bream: 20th Century Guitar (RB6723), Gram-
ophone, November, p. 267.
M.M. (1967b) Review of José Rey de la Torre: Rey de la Torre Classical Guitar
(HMV CLP 3607), Gramophone, May, pp. 590–591.
M.M. (1967c) Review of Siegfried Behrend: Siegfried Behrend (DGG 139167),
Gramophone, April, p. 533.
Archives and Bibliography 389

M.M. (1969) Review of Sebastian Maroto: Guitar Recital (Polydor 583720),

Gramophone, April, p. 1451.
M.M. (1970) Review of Alirio Díaz: Guitar Music of Spain and Latin America
(HMV HQS 1175), Gramophone, April, p. 1617.
M.M. (1972) Review of Julian Bream and John Williams: Together (RCA
SB6862), Gramophone, September, p. 512.
M.M. (1976) Review of Konrad Ragossnig and Walter Feybli: Music for Two
Guitars (SAGA 5412), Gramophone, January, p. 1215.
M.M. (1979) Review of Julian Bream and John Williams Live (RCA ARL2-
3090), Gramophone, May, pp. 1912–1913.
Molina, C. (1988a) ‘Guitarists of Cuba’, Guitar Review, (74), pp. 12–19.
Molina, C. (1988b) ‘The guitar in Cuba’, Guitar Review, (72), pp. 1–5.
Molina Júnior, S. J. (2006) O violão na era do disco: interpretação e desleitura na
arte de Julian Bream. PhD. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo.
Montejano, M. G. (2005) El fonografo en España: cilindros españoles. Madrid:
Industrias Gráfcas Caro S.L.
Montes-Baquer, J. (1975) Narciso Yepes Portait d’un guitariste. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEU8mriZVtU.
Moore, G. (1983) Furthermoore: Interludes in an Accompanist’s Life. London:
Hamish Hamilton Ltd.
Moreda Rodríguez, E. (2017a) ‘Inventing the recording’, The Public Domain
Review. Available at: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/inventing-
the-recording (Accessed: 31 October 2017).
Moreda Rodríguez, E. (2017b) ‘Prefguring the Spanish recording diva: How
gabinetes fonográfcos (phonography studios) changed listening prac-
tices, 1898–1905’, in Rowland, D. and Barlow, H. (eds), Listening to Mu-
sic: People, Practices and Experiences. Milton Keynes: Open University
Press. Available at: http://ledbooks.org/proceedings2017/#sec_192_h1
(Accessed: 31 October 2017).
Morrish, J. (ed.) (2002) The Classical Guitar: A Complete History. San Fran-
cisco, CA: Backbeat Books.
Morse Jones, I. (1930) Review of Andrés Segovia: Bach, Prelude, Allemande
and Fugue (V-7176), Los Angeles Times, 30 March, p. 38.
Murray, K. (2013) Spanish Music and its Representations in London (1878–
1930): From the Exotic to the Modern. PhD. University of Melbourne.
Naxos (1997) ‘Why NAXOS was voted Label of the Year at the 1997 Cannes
Classical Awards …’ (Advertisement), Gramophone, July.
Naxos (2009) An Interview with Norbert Kraft – Artistic Director of the Naxos
Guitar Collection (Guitar Heroes). Naxos (Guitar Heroes). Available at:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002OU4HXA/ref=dm_ws_tlw_trk48.
Neale, C. S. (1951) ‘The Decca Long-Playing record’, Gramophone, April,
pp. 260–261.
Neri, L., Castillo, B. P. and Yepes, I. (2015) Narciso Yepes. Una chitarra tra
passato e futuro. Milano: Curci.
Newton, G. (1983) ‘A conversation with Julian Bream’, Classical Guitar, June,
pp. 17–20.
Nixon, A. (1984) ‘Father O’Flaherty’, Son of Cliché (Radio Broadcast). Lon-
don: BBC Radio 4.
Noonan, J. (2008) The Guitar in America: Victorian Era to Jazz Age. Jackson,
MI: University Press of Mississippi.
Noonan, J. (2009) The Guitar in American Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar Period-
icals, 1882–1933. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc.
390 Archives and Bibliography

Nott, C. (1979) ‘Eric Hill’, Gramophone, July, pp. 176–177.

Nott, C. (1980) ‘Here and there: Liona Boyd’, Gramphone, January,
pp. 1133–1134.
Nupen, C. (1968) Liner notes for Alirio Díaz: Alirio Díaz Plays Bach (EMI
HQS 1145). EMI.
Nupen, C. (1971) John Williams at Ronnie Scott’s. Allegro Films.
Nystel, D. J. (1985) Harmonic Practice in the Guitar Music of Manuel M.
Ponce. Master of Arts. North Texas State University.
Ogden, C. (2001) Liner notes for Craig Ogden: English Guitar Concertos
(CHAN 9963). Chandos.
Oliver, M. (1974) ‘Here and there: Christopher Parkening’, Gramophone, July,
p. 186.
Oller, G. (n.d.) Liner notes for Elias Barreiro: Guitar Classics Vol. 2 (SMC
1112). SMC.
Oller, G. (1956) Liner notes for Anatole Malukoff: Paganini and Carcassi
(SMC Pro-Arte 1019/1020). SMC.
Olmello, O. (2008) ‘Abel Fleury, Un músico entre dos culturas.’, Revista Ar-
gentina de Musicología, (9), pp. 127–148.
O’Neil, T. (1999) The Grammys. New York: Perigee Books.
Ophee, M. (1987) ‘Toronto report’, Soundboard, 14(3), p. 208.
Ophee, M. (1988) ‘Letters to the Editor’, Soundboard, 15(2), pp. 95–96.
Orosco, M. T. dos S. (2001) O Compositor Isaías Sávio e suas obras para vi-
olão. Masters. University of São Paulo.
Orovio, H. (2004) Cuban Music from A to Z. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press.
Otermín, Julio J. – Discography of American Historical Recordings (n.d.).
Available at: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/de-
tail/207545/Otermn_Julio_J (Accessed: 12 September 2020).
Otero, C. (1980) ‘The guitar in Mexico’, Guitar, September, pp. 16–17.
Otero, C. (1983) Manuel M. Ponce and the Guitar. Translated by J. D. Roberts.
Shaftesbury, Dorset: Musical New Services.
Otero, C. (1999) Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: His Life and Works for the Gui-
tar. Newcastle upon Tyne: Ashley Mark.
O’Toole, M. (2019) John Williams: Changing the Culture of the Classical Gui-
tar: Performance, Perception, Education and Construction. Abingdon,
Oxon: Routledge.
Ottaway, H. (1974) Review of Julian Bream: ’70s (RCA SB 6876/ARL1-0049),
Musical Times, 115(1571), p. 43.
Päffgen, P. (1984) Liner notes for Göran Söllscher: Johann Sebastian Bach
(DGG 413 719-1). Deutsche Grammophon.
Palmer, T. (1983) Julian Bream: A Life on the Road. New York: Franklin
Watts.
Parkening, C. and Tyers, K. (2006) Grace like a River. Carol Stream, IL: Tyn-
dale House Publishers.
Parlophon (1929) Parlophon Electric Suplemento No. 2 Abril de 1929. Bar-
celona: Parlophon Electric. Available at: https://www.eresbil.eus/web/
uploads/archivosGeneradorWeb/ARCHIVOS/PARLOPHON-1929abr_
v.pdf
Parlophon-Electric (1929) Catálogo resumen de Parlophon: los mejores discos,
agosto de 1929. Barcelona: Parlophon. Available at: http://bdh.bne.es/
bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000143272
Archives and Bibliography 391

Parsonage, C. T. (2005) The Evolution of Jazz in Britain, 1880–1935. Alder-

shot: Ashgate.
Partridge, J. (1974) ‘Every great artist is self-taught: Christopher Parkening
talks to Joan Partridge’, Guitar, May, pp. 23–25.
Partsch, E. W. (1994) Karl Scheit: Ein Porträt. Wien: Doblinger.
Pastore, J. (1974) Liner notes for Liona Boyd: The Guitar (Boot BMC 3002).
Boot Records.
Peek, K. (1982) Liner notes for Sky: Sky 4 Forthcoming (Ariola ASKY4).
Ariola.
Philip, R. (1992) Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in In-
strumental Performance, 1900–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Piburn, B. (2002) ‘Liona’s Latin’, Fingerstyle Guitar, September, pp. 29–38.
Pinnell, R. (1993) The Rioplatense Guitar. Westport, CT: Bold Strummer,
Limited.
P.L. (1927) Review of Andrés Segovia: Bach, Gavotte and Sor, Thème Varié
(HMV D.1255), Gramophone, August, p. 102.
Postlewate, C. (1981) ‘Andrés Segovia: A living legend’, American String
Teacher, 31(1), pp. 28–32.
Potter, T. (2008) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Julian Bream plays Dowland
and Bach: The Westminster Recordings. Deutsche Grammophon.
Poveda, A. L. (2009) Andrés Segovia: vida y obra (2 vols). 1 edition. Jaén: Ed-
itorial Universidad de Jaén.
Prat, D. (1934) Diccionario de guitarristas. Buenos Aires: Romero y Fernández.
Pro Arte Musical on its 95th Anniversary (2013) IPS Cuba. Available at:
https://www.ipscuba.net/english-version/spaces/padura-en/pro-arte-
musical-on-its-95th-anniversary/ (Accessed: 7 August 2020).
P.S. (1976) Review of Irma Costanzo: Turina/Villa Lobos (HMV SXLP
30215), Gramophone, August, pp. 319–320.
Pujol, E. (1960) The Dilemma of Timbre on the Guitar. Translated by D. Gow
and E. L. Giordan. Buenos Aires: Ricordi Americana.
Purcell, R. (1972) ‘Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and the guitar’, (37), pp. 2–4.
Purcell, R. (1975) Andrés Segovia: Contributions to the World of Guitar. New
York: Belwin Mills.
Purcell, R. (1989) Miguel Llobet Guitar Works. Heidelberg: Chanterelle
Verlag.
Purcell, R. (2008) Liner notes for Miguel Llobet: The Complete Guitar Re-
cordings 1925–1929 (CHR 001). Chanterelle Verlag.
Rachmaninoff, S. (1931) ‘The artist and the gramophone’, Gramophone,
April, pp. 525–526.
Radio Museum (n.d.) 33 BG Radio Crosley Radio Corp.; Cincinnati OH,
build, Radio Museum. Available at: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/cros-
ley_33bg.html (Accessed: 12 September 2020).
Rady, S. (1954) ‘Classical and Kidisks are musts for catalog’, Billboard, 28
August, pp. 36, 52.
Rae, C. (2000) The Music of Maurice Ohana. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Rauchhaupt, U. von (1973) The Symphony. London: Thames and Hudson.
R.D.D. (1969) Review of Andrés Segovia: The Unique Art of Andrés Segovia
(DL 710167), High Fidelity, November, pp. 123, 128.
R.E. (1954a) Review of Andrés Segovia: An Evening with Andrés Segovia
(DL9733/AXTL1070), High Fidelity, December.
392 Archives and Bibliography

R.E. (1954b) Review of Luise Walker: Guitar Recital (LC 3055), High Fidel-
ity, December, pp. 77–78.
R.E. (1956a) Review of Julian Bream: Guitar Music of Villa Lobos and Tor-
roba (XWN 18137), High Fidelity, December, p. 98.
R.E. (1956b) Review of Julian Bream: Spanish Guitar Music (XWN 18135),
High Fidelity, October, pp. 106, 108.
R.E. (1956c) Review of Maria Luisa Anido: A Spanish Guitar Recital
(P18104), High Fidelity, October, p. 106.
R.E. (1957a) Review of Julian Bream: A Bach Recital for the Guitar (XWN
18428), High Fidelity, August, p. 51.
R.E. (1957b) Review of Andrés Segovia: Segovia and the Guitar (DL 9931),
High Fidelity, September, p. 83.
R.E. (1959) Review of Renata Tarragó: Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez
(ML5345), High Fidelity, September, p. 76.
R.E. (1960) Review of Renata Tarragó: The Music of Francisco Tárrega
(ML5454), High Fidelity, October, p. 92.
Read, O. and Welch, W. L. (1976) From Tin Foil to Stereo: Evolution of the
Phonograph. Indianapolis, IN: H.W. Sams.
Read, P. (1986) ‘Is classical guitar dead?’, Guitar Player, November, pp. 8–10.
Reagan, K. and Heller, S. (2011) Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern
Album Cover. Köln: Taschen.
Reid, J. (1999) Review of Nikita Koshkin: The Prince’s Toys (Soundset),
Soundboard, 25(3), pp. 78–79.
Reilly, P. (1994) ‘Passing notes: Risky business’, Gramophone, July, pp. 23–24.
Reno, D. (1963) Liner notes for Juan Mercadal: Juan Mercadal at Vizcaya
(Artrec CLP 62/1001-S). Artrec.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1985) ‘Miguel Llobet: El Mestre’, Guitar Review, (60),
pp. 22–32.
Ribeiro, G. (2014) Biografa | Geraldo Ribeiro – Violonista | www.geraldoribeiro.
com, Geraldo Ribeiro: Biografa. Available at: http://geraldoribeiro.com/
biografa.php (Accessed: 20 April 2020).
Ribeiro, G. (n.d.) ‘Geraldo Ribeiro Biography’, CD Baby. Available at: https://
store.cdbaby.com/artist/GeraldoRibeiro (Accessed: 15 December 2019).
Riera, J. (1974) Emilio Pujol. Lérida: Instituto de Estudios Ilerdenses de
la Excma. Diputación Provincial de Lérida, Patronato de Estudios
Locales José M.a Quadrado del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científcas.
Robichaud, E. (2013) Guitar’s Top 100: Classical Guitar’s Most Recorded Mu-
sic. Quebec: Enrique Robichaud.
Rodríguez, A. (1992) María Luisa Anido: una vida a contramano. La Habana,
Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas.
Rodríguez, M. (2009) The Art and Craft of Making Classical Guitars. Milwau-
kee, WI: Hal Leonard.
Romanillos, J. L. (1997) Antonio de Torres, Guitar Maker: His Life and Work.
Westport, CT: Bold Strummer.
Ronald, L. (1922) Variations on a Personal Theme. London: Hodder and
Stoughton Limited.
Ross-Trevor, M. (1980) ‘The recording engineer’, in Gammond, P. and Hor-
ricks, R. (eds), The Music Goes Round and Round: A Cool Look at the
Record Industry. London: Quartet Books, pp. 117–134.
Ruda, R. (1975) Liner notes for Mario Abril: Classics of American Music
(Hansen MM114). Hansen Records.
Archives and Bibliography 393

Ruppli, M. (1996a) The Decca Labels: A Discography: 2 –The Eastern &

Southern sessions (1934–1942). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Ruppli, M. (1996b) The Decca Labels: A Discography: 3 – The Eastern Ses-
sions (1943–1956). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Ruppli, M. (1998) The MGM Labels: Additional Recordings. Greenwood
Press.
Russell, C. H. (1981) Santiago de Murcia: Spanish Theorist and Guitarist of
the Early Eighteenth Century. University of North Carolina. Available at:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/23690034 (Accessed: 28 February 2019).
Sackville-West, E. (1950) ‘A quarterly retrospect: January to March 1950’,
Gramophone, May, pp. 217–218.
Salazar, M. (2002) Mambo Kingdom: Latin Music in New York. New York:
Schirmer Trade Books.
Sallis, J. (1996) The Guitar in Jazz. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Salsidua, M. B. (2013) ‘Discos Regal. Aproximación a la historia de un sello
discográico pionero en España (1923–1935)’, Musiker, (20), pp. 143–166.
Santos, T. (1985) Heitor Villa-Lobos and the Guitar. Bantry, Co. Cork, Ire-
land: Wise Owl Music.
Schmidt, P. W. (1998) Acquired of the Angels: The Lives and Works of Master
Guitar Makers John D’Angelico and James L. D’Aquisto. Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press.
Schmidt-Horning, S. (2013) Chasing Sound: Technology, Culture, and the Art
of Studio Recording from Edison to the LP. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press.
Schneider, J. (1983a) ‘Conversation with Narciso Yepes’, Soundboard, 10(1),
pp. 66–68.
Schneider, J. (1983b) ‘David Tanenbaum on Hans Werner Henze: An inter-
view with John Schneider’, Soundboard, 10(3), pp. 266–269.
Schneider, J. (1985) The Contemporary Guitar. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Schneider, J. (1994a) ‘Just for the record’, Soundboard, 21(1), pp. 44–49.
Schneider, J. (1994b) Review of Andrew York: Denouement (GSP 1007),
Soundboard, 21(2), pp. 71–72.
Schneider, J. (1995) Review of David Tanenbaum: Great American Guitar
Solo (Neuma 450-84), Soundboard, 21(4), pp. 74–75.
Schneider, J. (1997) ‘Just for the record’, Soundboard, 23(3), pp. 77–84.
Schudel, M. (2007) ‘The “quiet strength” of powerful duo in D.C.’s world
of books and music’, Washington Post, 25 November. Available at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/24/
AR2007112401213.html (Accessed: 22 May 2018).
Schwarz, M. (1990) ‘Konrad Ragossnig and the unknown factor X’, Classical
Guitar, September, pp. 11–17.
Scotland, T. (2010) Lennox and Freda. Norwich: Michael Russell Publishing
Ltd.
Seghatoleslami, M. (2018) Bus Driving Guitarist Looks Back on Career with Many
Turns, WSKG. Available at: https://wskg.org/arts/bus-driving-guitarist-
looks-back-on-career-with-many-turns/ (Accessed: 2 April 2019).
Segovia, A. (1955) ‘Guitar strings before and after Albert Augustine’, Guitar
Review, (17), pp. 7–10.
Segovia, A. (1976) Andrés Segovia: An Autobiography of the Years 1893–1920.
Translated by W. F. O’Brien. New York: Macmillan.
Sensier, P. (1959) ‘Cover portrait’, BMG, February, p. 132.
Sensier, P. (1962a) ‘Guitar topics’, BMG, November, pp. 53–54.
394 Archives and Bibliography

Sensier, P. (1962b) ‘Guitar topics’, BMG, October, pp. 22–23.

Sensier, P. (1975) ‘A gap in the story of the guitar’, Guitar, October, pp. 16–17.
Sensier, P. (1976) Review of Irma Costanzo: Turina/Villa Lobos (HMV Con-
cert Classics SXLP30215), Gramophone, August, pp. 319–320.
S.F. (1964a) Review of Julian Bream: Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar
(RCA RB6593), High Fidelity, April, p. 94.
S.F. (1964b) Review of John Williams: Sor, Twenty Studies for Guitar (XWN
19039), High Fidelity, February, p. 78.
S.F. (1969) Review of William Gomez: A Guitar Recital (Decca STS 15072),
High Fidelity, February, p. 120.
S.F. (1970) Review of Ernesto Bitetti: Contemporary Music for the Guitar
(Music Guild MS 871), High Fidelity, April, p. 111.
S.F. (1971a) Review of Christopher Parkening: Parkening Plays Bach (Angel
S-36041), High Fidelity, August, p. 72.
S.F. (1971b) Review of Siegfried Behrend: English Guitar Music (DGG
3300103), High Fidelity, August, pp. 96–8.
S.F. (1971c) Review of Siegfried Behrend: Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Romancero
Gitano Op. 152/Bussotti, ultima rara/Hartig, Perché Op. 28 (DGG 2530
037), High Fidelity, September, p. 90.
S.F. (1973) Review of Julian Bream: Julian Bream Plays Villa-Lobos (LSC
3231), High Fidelity, June, p. 138.
Shand, E. and Yates, S. (2000) Mel Bay presents Ernest Shand: 23 Guitar Solos
from Victorian England. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay Publications.
Shields, J. (2002) ‘So Far, So Good, Soepa! Conversations concerning Benja-
min Verdery’s lastest artistic offering’, Soundboard, 28(4), pp. 61–66.
Shulman, J. (2004) Liner notes for Rey de la Torre/The Stuyvesant Quartet
(Bridge 9188). Bridge.
Siewers, M. I. (2007) Liner notes for Maria Isabel Siewers: A Mimita (AQ173).
Acqua Records.
Silver, J. (1998) Liner notes for Segovia and his Contemporaries Volume 1
(Doremi DHR-7703). Doremi.
Silver, J. (2002) ‘Segovia – and over’, Classic Record Collector, pp. 28–35.
Simons, D. (2004) Studio Stories: How the Great New York Records Were
Made: From Miles to Madonna, Sinatra to The Ramones. San Francisco,
CA: Backbeat Books.
Sisley, G. (1936) ‘A gallery of guitarists – 10. Andrés Segovia’, BMG,
September, p. 292.
Sisley, G. (1937a) ‘A gallery of guitarists – 7. Julio Martinez Oyanguren’,
BMG, January, p. 94.
Sisley, G. (1937b) ‘A gallery of guitarists – 7. Julio Martinez Oyanguren (con-
tinued)’, BMG, February, pp. 125–126.
Sisley, G. (1937c) ‘A gallery of guitarists – 10. Francisco Salinas’, BMG, Sep-
tember, p. 293.
Sisley, G. (1937d) ‘A gallery of guitarists – 10. Francisco Salinas (continued)’,
BMG, October, pp. 16–17.
Slonimsky, N. (1945) Music of Latin America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company.
Smith Brindle, R. (1982) ‘Performance psychology’, Guitar, November,
pp. 7–8.
Smith, E. P. (1998) Sophocles Papas: The Guitar, His Life. Chapel Hill, NC :
Bryn Mawr, Pa: Theodore Presser Co.
Archives and Bibliography 395

Smith, M. (1969) Voice of the Past Volume 5: HMV Black Label Catalogue:
The Gramophone Company ‘D’ and ‘E’ Series. Oakwood Press.
Smith, S. (2002) ‘The classical score: Celebrating Segovia’, Billboard, 8 June, p. 18.
Snitzler, L. (1985a) ‘An interview with Liona Boyd’, Guitar Review, (60), p. 13.
Snitzler, L. (1985b) ‘The typhoon from the East’, Guitar Review, (60),
pp. 34–35.
Snitzler, L. (1987) ‘A conversation with Julian Bream’, Guitar Review, (69),
pp. 28–32.
Söllscher, G. (1995) Liner notes for Göran Söllscher: Here, There and Every-
where (DGG 447 104-2). Deutsche Grammophon.
Sooy, H. (n.d.) ‘Harry O. Sooy memoir’. Available at: https://digital.hagley.
org/LMSS_2300_Sooy#page/1/mode/2up (Accessed: 23 October 2020).
Sooy, R. (n.d.) Memoirs of my Recording and Traveling Experiences… .
Available at: https://digital.hagley.org/LMSS_2464_09_X_B_MA1252_20.
(Accessed: 21 May 2018).
Southall, B., Vince, P. and Rouse, A. (2002) Abbey Road: The Story of the
World’s Most Famous Recording Studios. Omnibus Press.
Spanish Music Center (1956) Guitar Masterpieces (SMC-1019 & 1020) (Ad-
vertisement), Guitar Review, (20), n.p.
Sparks, P. (1995) The Classical Mandolin. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Spencer, R. (1983) ‘Robert Spencer introduces recordings made in the 1920s
by the Catalan guitarist Miguel Llobet’, Music for Guitar. London: BBC
Radio 3. Available at: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/4bb278a4b30148
aeae971d0f98e4b425 (Accessed: 21 May 2018).
Spottswood, D. (1996) ‘Guitarcheology: The frst guitars on cylinders & 78s’,
Guitar Player, pp. 65–70.
Stampone, A. (2010) ‘El problema es el mismo’, in Valor y símbolo. Dos siglos
de industrias culturales en la Argentina. Argentina: Secretaría de Cultura,
Presidencia de la Nación : SInCA, Sistema de Información Cultural de
la Argentina.
Starling, W. (2012) Strings Attached: The Life and Music of John Williams.
London: Robson Press.
Stein, H. A. (1957) Liner notes for Charlie Byrd: Jazz Recital (Savoy MG
12099). Savoy Record Co.
Stevenson, R. (1952) Music in Mexico: A Historical Survey. New York:
Crowell.
Stevenson, R. (1968) Music in Aztec & Inca Territory. Berkeley, CA and Los
Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Stevenson, R. (1980) ‘Santiago de Murcia: A review article’, Inter-American
Music Review, 3(1), pp. 89–101.
Stewart, A. (1992) ‘Back to Spain’, Gramophone, July, p. 18.
Stover, R. (ed.) (1976) The Guitar Works of Agustín Barrios Mangoré Volume
1. Miami, FL: Belwin Mills Publishing Corporation.
Stover, R. (1979) ‘Careers in classical guitar’, in Guitar Player Magazine (ed.),
The Guitar Player Book (Revised and Updated Edition). New York:
Grove Press Inc., pp. 275–277.
Stover, R. (1983) ‘Guitarra Americana’, Soundboard, 10(4), pp. 390–393.
Stover, R. (1985) ‘Guitarra Americana’, Soundboard, 12(1), pp. 86–89.
Stover, R. (ed.) (2003) Complete Works of Agustin Barrios Mangore for Guitar
Vol. 1. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay Publications.
Stover, R. (2004) ‘The music of Barrios Part One’, Classical Guitar, April,
pp. 11–12.
396 Archives and Bibliography

Stover, R. (2012) Liner notes for Agustín Barrios Mangoré: The Complete His-
torical Recordings (CHR104). Chanterelle Verlag.
Stover, R. D. (1984) ‘Guitarra Americana’, Soundboard, 11(4), pp. 371–375.
Stover, R. D. (1992) Six Silver Moonbeams: The Life and Times of Agustín
Barrios Mangoré. Clovis, CA: Querico Publications.
Sublette, N. (2007) Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo.
Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press.
Swedien, B. (2009) Make Mine Music. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard.
Switzer, M. R. (1981) Juan Mercadal: A Biographical Sketch and a Study of
Pedagogical Process. D.M.A. University of Miami.
Symes, C. (2004) Setting the Record Straight: A Material History of Classical
Recording. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Takemitsu, T. (1981) Liner notes for Óscar Cáceres: Toru Takemitsu 12 Songs
for Guitar (Pavane ADW 7037). Pavane Records.
Tanenbaum, D. (1990) Liner notes for David Tanenbaum: Acoustic Counter-
point (New Albion NA032). New Albion.
Tanenbaum, D. (2003a) Liner notes for David Tanenbaum: Hans Werner
Henze, Royal Winter Music (Stradivarius STR 33670). Stradivarius.
Tanenbaum, D. (2003b) ‘Perspectives on the classical guitar in the twentieth
century’, in Coelho, V. A. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 182–206.
Tanno, J. W. (1976) Review of Diego Blanco: Ponce, Sojo, Lauro, Barrios (BIS
LP 33), Soundboard, 3(4), p. 75.
Taylor, J. (1978) Tone Production on the Classical Guitar. London: Musical
News Services Limited.
Taylor, J. (2010) Liner notes for David Merrin: Granary Guitars, The Sound of
Spain (GGR03). Granary-Guitar Recordings.
Tedesco, T. (1978) ‘Studio log: The Deer Hunter’, Guitar Player, August, p. 127.
T.H. (1955) Review of Narciso Yepes: Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez (Lon-
don TW 91019), Gramophone, March, p. 437.
Thomson, J. M. (1975) ‘On playing the lute: Julian Bream in conversation
with J.M. Thomson’, Early Music, 3(4), pp. 348–351.
Tonazzi, B. (1966) Miguel Llobet: chitarrista dell’impressionismo. Ancona, It-
aly: Ed. Bèrben.
Tosone, J. (2000) Classical Guitarists: Conversations. Jefferson, NC: McFar-
land & Co.
Traviss, G. (2009) ‘Miloš Karadaglić interviewed by Guy Traviss’, Classical
Guitar, November, pp. 11–15.
Traviss, G. (2011) ‘The Albéniz Concerto’, Classical Guitar, January, pp. 11–
12, 14, 16–18.
Traviss, G. (2013) ‘Interview: Stephen Goss, composer’, Soundboard, 39(3),
pp. 30–34.
Traviss, G. (2014) ‘Interview with John Williams: Concerto: John Williams on
his new self-released disc’, Soundboard, 40(3), pp. 48–50.
Turnbull, H. (1974) The Guitar, from the Renaissance to the Present Day. New
York: C. Scribner’s Sons.
Tyson, I. (2010) The Long Trail: My Life in the West. Toronto: Random
House of Canada.
Urlik, S. (1997) A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Pres-
ent. Commerce, CA: Sunny Knoll Publishing Company.
Urlik, S. (2015) A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Pres-
ent. Commerce, CA: Sunny Knoll Publishing Company.
Archives and Bibliography 397

Usher, T. (1959) ‘John Williams: Guitar recital’, BMG, November, p. 34.

Usillos, C. (1973) Andrés Segovia. Bilbao: Dirección General de Bellas Artes.
Valdes Ortiz, A. (1965) ‘Guitar records in Mexico’, Guitar News, February,
pp. 26–27.
Vera, A. (2008) ‘Santiago de Murcia (1673–1739): New contributions on his
life and work’, Early Music, 36(4), pp. 597–608.
Verdery, B. (2013) ‘Refections on a guitarist America loves’, Soundboard,
39(1), pp. 8–11.
Vernon, P. (1994) ‘The Tango trip’, Folk Roots, pp. 33–34, 41.
Vernon, P. (1995) Ethnic and Vernacular Music, 1898–1960: A Resource and
Guide to Recordings. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Vernon, P. (1997) Odeon Records: Their ‘Ethnic’ Output, Musical Traditions.
Available at: http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/odeon.htm (Accessed:
14 November 2017).
Vieaux, J. (2005) Liner notes for Jason Vieaux: Images of Metheny (Azica
ACD 71233). Azica.
Vittes, L. (1991) ‘Cornering the market: Klaus Heymann, founder of Naxos,
in conversation with Laurence Vittes’, Gramophone, June, p. 16.
Wade, G. (1980) Traditions of the Classical Guitar. London: Calder.
Wade, G. (1983) Segovia, A Celebration of the Man and His Music. London
and New York: Allison & Busby.
Wade, G. (1985) The Guitarist’s Guide to Bach. Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland:
Wise Owl Music.
Wade, G. (1986) Maestro Segovia. Robson Books.
Wade, G. (2001) A Concise History of the Classic Guitar. Pacifc, MO: Mel
Bay Publications.
Wade, G. (2006) Joaquin Rodrigo – A Life in Music: Travelling to Aranjuez.
Withernsea, nr Hull: GRM Publications.
Wade, G. (2008) The Art of Julian Bream. Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark
Publishing Co.
Wade, G. and Garno, G. (1997a) A New Look at Segovia, His Life, His Music
Volume 1. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay Publications.
Wade, G. and Garno, G. (1997b) A New Look at Segovia, His Life, His Music
Volume 2. Pacifc, MO: Mel Bay Publications.
Wager-Schneider, J. (1980a) ‘A feature review’, Soundboard, 7(4), pp. 175–177.
Wager-Schneider, J. (1980b) ‘Conversation with Julian Bream’, Soundboard,
7(1), pp. 9–12.
Wager-Schneider, J. (1981a) ‘A feature of conversation with Eliot Fisk’,
Soundboard, 8(1), pp. 10–17.
Wager-Schneider, J. (1981b) Liner notes for John Wager-Schneider: Sonic
Voyage (El Maestro EM 8004). El Maestro Records.
Wager-Schneider, J. (1981c) ‘The contemporary guitar: Toru Takemitsu’,
Soundboard, 8(3), pp. 169–171.
Walker, L. (1989) Ein Leben mit der Gitarre. Frankfurt am Main: Musikverlag
Zimmermann GmbH.
Walker, T. (1974) Liner notes for Timothy Walker: Guitar Recital (L’Oiseau
Lyre DSLO 3). L’Oiseau Lyre.
Wallich, I. (2001) Recording My Life. London: Sanctuary Publishing, Limited.
Walters, G. (1987) Liner notes for Julian Bream: Leo Brouwer, Concerto Ele-
giaco (RCA RL87718). RCA.
Warrack, J. (1967) Liner notes for Julian Bream: 20th Century Guitar
(RB6723). RCA.
398 Archives and Bibliography

Warren, G. (1988a) ‘In Memorium Leif Christensen’, Soundboard, 15(2),

pp. 107–109.
Warren, G. (1988b) Review of Lawrence Johnson: Solo Guitar Music of Fer-
nando Sor, Soundboard, 15(1), p. 84.
Washington, J. (1974) The Beatles for Classical Guitar. London: Wise
Publications.
Wassily Saba, T. (2014a) ‘John Williams Speaks about his latest performances
and projects with Thérèse Wassily Saba’, Classical Guitar, June, pp. 11–18.
Wassily Saba, T. (2014b) ‘Julian Bream interviewed by Thérèse Wassily Saba’,
Classical Guitar, December, pp. 11–17.
Weber, J. (2001) ‘Brunswick (ii)’, in Grove Music Online. Available at: https://
doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.48924
Weber, W. (2008) The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Pro-
gramming from Haydn to Brahms. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Weller, A. (1994) ‘José Rey de la Torre’, Guitar Review, (99), pp. 1–7.
Weller, A. (2005) Liner notes for Rey de la Torre/The Stuyvesant Quartet
(Bridge 9188). Bridge.
White, J. L. (1943) ‘The Spanish guitar in England’, BMG, May, pp. 141–143.
Whitehouse, B. (2009) The Ramirez Collection: History and Romance of the
Spanish Guitar. Halesowen, West Midlands, England: ASG Music.
Wildhagen, H. (1973) ‘Stereophony Demonstrated on one Composer’, in
Rauchhaupt, U. von (ed.) The Symphony. London: Thames and Hudson,
pp. 83–84.
Williams, J. (1965) Liner notes for John Williams: Virtuoso Music for Guitar
(MS 6696). Columbia.
Williams, J. (1981) Liner notes for John Williams: Echoes of Spain (CBS
36679). CBS.
Williams, J. (1982) Liner notes for John Williams: Portrait of John Williams
(CBD D37791). CBS.
Williams, J. (2008) Liner notes for John Williams: From a Bird (JCW1). JCW.
Williams, J. and Gascoigne, B. (1976) Liner notes for John Williams: John
Williams and Friends (M 35108). CBS.
Williams, M. (2013) Writing ‘Classical Gas’. Available at: http://www.classi-
calgas.com/gasstory.html (Accessed: 29 April 2019).
Willnauer, F. (1973) Liner notes for Leo Brouwer: Rara (DGG 2530 307).
Deutsche Grammophon.
Wingate, J. (2010) Liner notes for John Williams: Cavatina, The Complete Fly
and Cube Recordings (SALVOCD 215). Salvo.
Wiseman, C. (1986) ‘Alexandre Lagoya’, Guitar Review, (66), pp. 1–5.
W.R.A. (1941) Review of Andrés Segovia: Mendelssohn, Canzonetta and
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Vivo e Energico (HMV DB 3243), Gramophone,
March, p. 222.
W.R.A. (1950) Review of Andrés Segovia: Ponce, Sonatina Meridional (Co-
lumbia LX1275), Gramophone, May, p. 224.
W.S.M. (1968) Review of Avant-Garde Vol. 1 (DGG 104998-93), Gramophone,
December, pp. 884, 889–890.
W.S.M. (1972) Review of Julian Bream: The Art of Julian Bream, Gramo-
phone, December, pp. 1208–1209.
Yates, S. (2004) ‘John Williams interview June 1, 2004’. Available at: https://
stanley-yates.squarespace.com/s/Williams-complete.pdf (Accessed: 27
March 2019)
Archives and Bibliography 399

Yeoman, W. (2009) Review of Craig Ogden: Imágenes de España (Nimbus

NI5811), Gramophone, January, p. 79.
Yeoman, W. (2011) Review of Miloš Karadaglić: Mediterraeno (DGG 477
9693GH2), Gramophone, June, pp. 75, 77.
Zalkowitsch, G. (1991) ‘Garôto: “The kid with the banjo”’, Classical Guitar,
March, pp. 35–37.
Zan, J. R. (2003) ‘Casa Edison (Brazil)’, in Shepherd, J., Horn, D., Laing, D.,
Oliver, P., and Wicke, P. (eds), Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music
of the World, Volume 1: Media, Industry, Society. London and New York:
A&C Black.
Zea, L. (1986) ‘“There aren’t really any anecdotes in my music”: Antonio
Lauro interviewed by Luis Zea’, Guitar International, August, pp. 22–25.
Zuth, J. (2013) Handbuch der Laute und Gitarre. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag.
Select Discography

Abril, M. (1975) Classics of American Music. Hansen Records MM114.

Aldana, J. M. (1967) Guitarra Clásica. EMI ASDL 935.
Aldana, J. M. (1968) Recital de Guitarra. EMI ASDL 967.
Almeida, L. (1950) Concert Creations for Guitar. Capitol LC6669.
Almeida, L. (1955a) Guitar Music of Latin America. Capitol P8321.
Almeida, L. (1955b) Guitar Music of Spain. Capitol P8295.
Almeida, L. (1957) New World of the Guitar. Capitol P8392.
Almeida, L. (1958) Contemporary Creations for Spanish Guitar. Capitol
P8447.
Almeida, L. (1960) Villa-Lobos – Music for the Spanish Guitar. Capitol
SP8497.
Almeida, L. (1961) The Spanish Guitars of Laurindo Almeida. Capitol P8521.
Almeida, L. (1962) Reverie for Spanish Guitars. Capitol SP8571.
Almeida, L. (1966a) Concerto de Copacabana. Capitol P8625.
Almeida, L. (1966b) Villa-Lobos – Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra.
Capitol SP8638.
Almeida, L. (1966c) Virtuoso Guitar. Crystal Clear CCS8001.
Almeida, L. and Modern Jazz Quartet (1964) Collaboration. Atlantic 1429.
Almeida, L. and Ruderman, M. (1961) The Guitar Worlds of Laurindo
Almeida. Capitol P8546.
Almeida, L. and Shank, B. (1955) Laurindo Almeida Quartet featuring Bud
Shank. Pacifc Jazz Records PJ-1204.
Almeida, L., Terri, S., and Ruderman, M. (1958) Duets with Spanish Guitar.
Capitol P8406.
Anido, M. L. (n.d.) Maria Luisa Anido, Solo de Guitarra. Odeon BSOA/
E4516B.
Anido, M. L. (1955) A Spanish Guitar Recital. Capitol P18104.
Anido, M. L. (1963) Guitar Solo. King SKJ-4.
Anido, M. L. (1965) Maria Luisa Anido. Melodiya 15275-76.
Anido, M. L. (1972) Grande Dame de la Guitare. Erato STU 70722.
Anido, M. L. (n.d.) Recital de Guitarra. Microfon I 44/MC-130.
Anido, M. L. and Atreo, O. (1967) Danza Ritual del Fuego. Angel LPA-11206.
Argüelles, F. (n.d. a) Classic Guitar Recital (Vol 1). SMC Pro-Arte 506.
Argüelles, F. (n.d. b) Classic Guitar Recital (Vol 2). SMC Pro-Arte 507.
Artzt, A. (1971) Classic Guitar. Gemini GME 1018.
Artzt, A. (1973) Original Works. Gemini GME 1019.
Artzt, A. (1978) Guitar Music by Fernando Sor. Meridian E77006.
Artzt, A. (1979a) English Guitar Music. Meridian E77037.
Artzt, A. (1979b) Guitar Music by Francisco Tárrega. Meridian E77026.
Artzt, A. (1982a) Guitar Music by Manuel Maria Ponce. Meridian E77041.

400
Select Discography 401

Artzt, A. (1982b) Romantic Virtuoso Guitar Music. Hyperion A66040.

Atkins, C. (1956a) Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions. RCA Victor LPM-1397.
Atkins, C. (1956b) Finger-Style Guitar. RCA Victor LPM-1383.
Atkins, C. (1960) The Other Chet Atkins. RCA Victor LPM-2175.
Atkins, C. (1967) Class Guitar. RCA Victor LSP-3885.
Atkins, C. (1979) Chet Atkins – The First Nashville Guitar Quartet. RCA
AHL1-3302.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (n.d.) Noguiera, Concertino Para Viola Brasileira e Orques-
tra de Camara. Chantecler CMGS 9001.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1958) Dez Dedos Mágicos num Violão de Ouro. Chantecler
CLP 1.001.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1959) O Menino e o Violão. Chantecler CMG 1004.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1960) Concerto de Violão. Chantecler CMG-1006.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1964) Immortal Catullo. Chanteceler CMG 1022.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1978) Barbosa-Lima interpreta 12 Estudos para violão de
Francisco Mignone. Philips Brazil 6598-312.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1982a) Carlos Barbosa-Lima Plays the Music of Antonio
Carlos Jobim and George Gershwin. Concord Concerto CC 2005.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1982b) Carlos Barbosa-Lima Plays the Music of Luiz
Bonfá and Cole Porter. Concord Concerto CC 2008.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (1993) Ginastera’s Sonata. Concord Concerto CCD-42015.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (2015) The Chantecler Sessions Vol. 1. Zoho ZM 201508.
Barbosa-Lima, C. (2016) The Chantecler Sessions Vol. 2. Zoho ZM 201611.
Barreiro, E. (n.d.) Elias Barreiro in Guitar Classics Vol. 2. SMC-1112.
Barrios, A. (2012) Agustín Barrios: The Complete Historical Guitar Record-
ings. Chanterelle Verlag CHR 104.
Barrueco, M. (1978) Works for Guitar by Albéniz & Granados. Vox Turnabout
TV34738.
Barrueco, M. (1980) Manuel Barrueco, Sonatas by Scarlatti, Cimarosa, Pa-
ganini, Giuliani. Vox TV 34770.
Barrueco, M. (1981) Manuel Barrueco Plays Bach: Lute Suites Nos. 2 & 4.
Vox Cum Laude 39023.
Barrueco, M. (1988) Manuel Barrueco Plays Mozart and Sor. EMI CDC 7
49368 2.
Barrueco, M. (1994) Plays Lennon and McCartney. EMI 7243 5 55228 2 5.
Bartoli, R. (n.d.) Guitare 3. Harmonia Mundi HM 751.
Bartoli, R. (1971) René Bartoli. RCA Red Seal LSB 4032.
Bartoš, A. (1963) Guitar Recital. Supraphon SUB 10384.
Behrend, S. (1963) Die Geschichte de Gitarre. Columbia C 83 506.
Behrend, S. (1966a) Guitarra Olé: Spanische Impressionen. Hörzu SHZE 383.
Behrend, S. (1966b) Siegfried Behrend. Deutsche Grammophon 139167.
Behrend, S. (1968) Deutsche Gitarrenmusik. Deutsche Grammophon 139377.
Behrend, S. (1970) Guitar and Percussion. Deutsche Grammophon 2530 034.
Behrend, S. (1971a) English Guitar Music. Deutsche Grammophon 2530 079.
Behrend, S. (1971b) Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Sylvano Bussotti, Heinz
Friedrich Hartig – Romancero Gitano Op. 152/Ultima Rara/Perche Op. 28.
Deutsche Grammophon 2530 037.
Behrend, S. (1975) Chitarra Italiana. Deutsche Grammophon 2530 561.
Behrend, S. and Belina (1963) 24 Songs and One Guitar. Columbia SMC 83
510.
Behrend, S. and Lorengar, P. (1966) Altspanische Romanzen und Volkslieder.
Deutsche Grammophon 139 155.
402 Select Discography

Bellinati, P. (1991) The Guitar Works of Garôto. GSP 1002CD.

Bellinati, P. (1993) Serenata: “Choros and Waltzes of Brazil”. GSP 1005CD.
Bellinati, P. (2008) Lira Brasileira. GSP 1005CD.
Benites, J. (1981) Jesús Benites plays A. Barrios. Globo 402/403.
Benitez, B. (1978) Latin American Music for the Classical Guitar. Nonesuch
H-71349.
Bitetti, E. (1970) Contemporary Music for the Guitar. Music Guild MS 871.
Blanco, D. (1976) Ponce, Sojo, Lauro, Barrios. BIS LP-33.
Bonell, C. (1987) Twentieth Century Music for Guitar. EMI/HMV EL 27 0560 1.
Bonell, C. (2011) Magical Mystery Guitar Tour. Musical Concepts DYCD2.
Borrull Jiménez, M. (1928) Granada. Compañia del Gramófono AE 2006.
Available at: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000180549_1
Boyd, L. (1974) The Guitar. Boot BMC 3002.
Boyd, L. (1976) The Guitar Artistry of Liona Boyd. Boot BMC 3006.
Boyd, L. (1977) Miniatures for Guitar. Boot BOS 7181.
Boyd, L. (1978) The First Lady of the Guitar. CBS Masterworks M 35137.
Boyd, L. (1980) Spanish Fantasy. CBS Masterworks M 36675.
Boyd, L. (1983) Virtuoso. CBS Masterworks IM 37829.
Boyd, L. (1986) Persona. CBS FM 42120.
Bream, J. (1955) Spanish Guitar Music. Westminster XWN-18135.
Bream, J. (1956a) A Bach Recital for the Guitar. Westminster XWN-18428.
Bream, J. (1956b) Guitar Music of Villa-Lobos and Torroba. Westminster
XWN-18137.
Bream, J. (1960) The Art of Julian Bream. RCA LM/LSC-2448.
Bream, J. (1961) Guitar Concertos. RCA LM/LSC-2487.
Bream, J. (1964) Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar. RCA LM/LSC-2606.
Bream, J. (1966a) Bach: Lute Suites Nos. 1 and 2. RCA LM/LSC-2896.
Bream, J. (1966b) Baroque Guitar. RCA LM/LSC-2878.
Bream, J. (1967) 20th Century Guitar. RCA LM/LSC-2964.
Bream, J. (1969) Classic Guitar. RCA LSC-3070.
Bream, J. (1970a) Julian Bream’s Greatest Hits. Westminster WGM-8106.
Bream, J. (1970b) Romantic Guitar. RCA LSC-3156.
Bream, J. (1971) Julian Bream Plays Villa-Lobos. RCA LSC-3231.
Bream, J. (1973) Julian Bream ’70s. RCA ARL1-0049.
Bream, J. (1974a) Giuliani – Sor. RCA ARL1-0711.
Bream, J. (1974b) Giuliani (Rossiniane/Sor Grand Sonata Op. 25). RCA Red
Seal ARL1-0711.
Bream, J. (1982) Dedication. RCA ARL1-5034.
Bream, J. (1985) Guitarra: The Guitar in Spain. RCA RL85417(2).
Bream, J. (1988) Rodrigo, Fantasía Para Un Gentilhombre/Brouwer, Concerto
Elegiaco. RCA Victor RD 87718.
Bream, J. (1993a) Nocturnal. EMI 0777 7 54901 2 1.
Bream, J. (1993b) To the Edge of Dream. EMI CDC 7 54661 2.
Bream, J. (1995) Sonata: José, Sonata/Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Sonata, Op. 77
‘Omaggio a Boccherini’. EMI 7243 5 55362 2 8.
Bream, J. and Pears, P. (1965) Music for Voice and Guitar. RCA LM/LSC-2718.
Bream, J. and Williams, J. (1979) Julian Bream and John Williams ‘Live’. RCA
ARL2-3090.
Brightmore, R. (1980) Robert Brightmore Classical Guitar. Vista VPS 1077.
Brouwer, L. (1965) Musica para Guitarra. Areito LPA 5001.
Brouwer, L. (1971a) Leo Brouwer Gitarre. Deutsche Grammophon Debut
2555 001.
Select Discography 403

Brouwer, L. (1971b) Les Classiques de Cuba. Erato STU 70669.

Brouwer, L. (1973) Rara. Deutsche Grammophon 2530 307.
Brouwer, L. (1981) De Bach a los Beatles. Areito LD-3876.
Byrd, C. (1957) Jazz Recital. Savoy MG 12116.
Byrd, C. (1977) Charlie Byrd. Crystal Clear CCS8002.
Cáceres, Ó. (1975) Leo Brouwer. Erato STU 70734.
Cáceres, Ó. (1981) Toru Takemitsu, 12 Songs for Guitar/ Leo Brouwer, 3 Temas
Populares Cubanos. Pavane ADW 7037.
Canadian Guitar Summit (1987) Beyond Borders. Guitar Player Magazine –
Soundpage #34.
Canhoto (1982) Os Grandes Solistas Vol. 2: Américo Jacomino ‘Canhoto’. Seta
LP 110.405.007.
Canhoto (2002) Violão Imortal: Projeto Cultura - Canhoto. Revivendo
Musicas Br.
Carlevaro, A. (1958) Recital de Guitarra. Antar ALP 1002.
Carlevaro, A. (1960) 2° Recital de Guitarra. Antar ALP 4002.
Carlevaro, A. (1965) Vicente Vallejos - La Guitarra de Oro del Folklore. Antar
PLP 5055.
Christensen, L. (1981) Giulio Regondi Guitar Works. PAULA 10.
Christensen, L. (1982) Miguel Llobet Obras Para Guitarra. PAULA 20.
Christensen, L. (1985) Works for the 7-string guitar by Wassilii Stepanowitsch
Sarenko. PAULA 40.
Christensen, L. (1987) Fernando Sor Etudes. PAULA 55.
Cojo de Málaga and Borrull, M. (1917) Los verdiales. Biblioteca Digital His-
pánica. Available at: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000195066.
Costanzo, I. (n.d.) Irma Costanzo Guitarra. Qualiton QI 4000.
Costanzo, I. (1972a) Bach/Villa-Lobos. EMI 3C 065-20872.
Costanzo, I. (1972b) Turina, La Música Para Guitarra. EMI 1 J 063-20873.
Díaz, A. (1956) Récital de Guitare No. 1. BAM LD 032.
Díaz, A. (1958) Panorama de la Guitare Classique No. 1. Teppaz 25.759.
Díaz, A. (1959) Guitarra de Venezuela. High Fidelity Recordings Inc. R812.
Díaz, A. (1963) Masterpieces of the Spanish Guitar. Vanguard VRS1084.
Díaz, A. (1965) Four Centuries of Music for the Classic Spanish Guitar. Van-
guard VSD 71135/VSL 11010.
Díaz, A. (1966) Solos de Guitarra – Venezuela/Paraguay. Espiral ESPIRAL
L.P.-1.
Díaz, A. (1968) Plays Bach. HMV HQS 1145.
Díaz, A. (1970) Guitar Music of Spain and Latin America. HMV HGS1175.
Díaz Cano, M. (1956) Popular Guitar Favourites. Durium DLU 96024.
Díaz Cano, M. (1963) Recital di Musica Spagnola. Durium AI 77068.
Dúo Madiedo–Pérez Puentes (1984) Guitarra Vol. 2 Dúo Madiedo-Pérez
Puentes. Areito LD-4173.
Dyens, R. (1982) Villa-Lobos, Les Préludes/Dyens, Trois Saudades/Capri-
cornes. Arc En Ciel 3011.61.
Dyens, R. (1987) Villa-Lobos, Concerto Pour Guitare Et Petit Orchestre/Suite
Populaire Brésilienne/Dyens, Hommage à Villa-Lobos. Auvidis AV 4845.
Dyens, R. (1999) Nuages. GHA 126.043.
Dyens, R. (2003) Night and Day: Visite au Jazz. GHA 126.061.
El Mochuelo and Borrull, M. (1898) Granaínas. Biblioteca Digital Hispánica.
Available at: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000046524
El Mochuelo and López, M. (1900a) Aires montañeses. Biblioteca Digital His-
pánica. Available at: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000046097
404 Select Discography

El Mochuelo and López, M. (1900b) Granadinas. Biblioteca Digital His-

pánica. Available at: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000046340
Fernandez, E. (1985) Legnani/Giuliani/Diabelli/Paganini/Sor. Decca 6.43182.
Fernandez, E. (1987) Villa-Lobos/Ginastera. London Records 414 616-2.
Fernandez, E. (1993) Avant-Garde Guitar. Decca 433 076-2.
Fisk, E. (1978) Eliot Fisk Plays Scarlatti and Bach 8.30 Tonight. Mark Levin-
son MAL 6.
Fisk, E. (1981) Eliot Fisk Performs Latin American Guitar Music. Musical
Heritage Society MHS 4233.
Fisk, E. (1982) American Virtuoso. Musical Heritage Society MHS 4640.
Fisk, E. (1983) The Classical Guitar. Musical Heritage Society 4793W.
Fisk, E. (1985) Eliot Fisk Performs Works by Baroque Composers. Music
Masters MMD20090M.
Fisk, E. (1987) Latin American Guitar Music. EMI CDC 7 47760 2.
Fisk, E. (1992) Paganini: 24 Caprices. Musical Heritage Society MHS
513555Y.
Fisk, E. (1994) Rochberg, Caprice Variations. MusicMasters 01612-67133-2.
Fisk, E. (1995) Sequenza! MusicMasters 01612-67150-2.
Fisk, E. (1996) Segovia: Canciones Populares. MusicMasters MMD 67174.
Fisk, E. (2017) Robert Beaser, Guitar Concerto. Linn Records CKD 528.
Funes, M. A. (n.d.) Un Recital de Guitarra. Odeon Exitos Permanentes
DMO-55424.
Funk Pearson, S. (1983) Hudson River Debut. Kyra 1001.
Garcia, T. (2016) Leyendas. Erato 0190295954635.
Garcia, T. (2018) Bach Inspirations. Erato 9029560526.
Gómez, V. (1939a) Decca Presents Vicente Gómez in a group of Classical Span-
ish Guitar Selections Vol. 2. Decca Album No. 60 ‘Personality Series’.
Gómez, V. (1939b) Decca Presents Vicente Gómez in a Guitar Recital Vol 1.
Decca Album No. 17 ‘Personality Series’.
Gómez, V. (1940) Decca Presents a Recital of Classical Spanish Guitar Music
Played by Vicente Gómez in a Guitar Recital Vol 3. Decca Album No. 117
‘Personality Series’.
Gomez, W. (1967) A Guitar Recital. London STS-15072.
Gonzalez, J. L. (1964) Two Worlds of the Classical Guitar. CBS BR-235066.
Gonzalez, J. L. (1966) Contemporary Guitar Music. CBS SBR-23517.
Guerra, R. (1984) Guitarra Vol. 4: Rey Guerra. Areito LD-4172.
Harris, B. (1956) Bill Harris. EmArcy MG36097.
Hatzinikolaou, A. (2013) Music of Memory. NMC NMCD184.
Henderson, F. (1978) Twentieth Century Guitar. Musical New Services G121.
Hidalgo, S. (1907a) Miserere del Trovador. Edison Cylinder 18941. Available
at: http://tinyurl.com/y5qwdgeu
Hidalgo, S. (1907b) Selva Negra: Polka. Edison Cylinder 19062. Available at:
http://tinyurl.com/y6sr9ngr
Hill, E. (1979) Guitar Music of Torroba. Saga 5462.
Holeček, J. and Schéle, M. (1975) Josef Holeček, Märta Schéle – Britten/
Castelnuovo-Tedesco. BIS LP-31.
Isbin, S. (1978) Sharon Isbin Classical Guitar. Sound Environment Recording
Series TR-1010.
Isbin, S. (1980) Sharon Isbin Classical Guitar Vol II. Sound Environment Re-
cording Series TR-1013.
Isbin, S. (1981) Sharon Isbin Guitar Recital. Denon OX-7224-ND.
Isbin, S. (1985) 3 Guitars 3. Pro Arte Digital PAD 235.
Select Discography 405

Isbin, S. (1987) Brazil, with Love. Concord Picante CJP-320.

Isbin, S. and Barbosa-Lima, C. (1988) Rhapsody in Blue/West Side Story.
Concord Concerto CC-2012.
Isbin, S. (1989) J.S. Bach: Complete Lute Suites. Virgin Classics VC7 90717-2.
Isbin, S. (1994) Nightshade Rounds. Virgin Classics 7234 5 45024 2 2.
Isbin, S. (1995) American Landscapes. Virgin Classics CDC 7243 5 55083 2 4.
Isbin, S. (2001) Christopher Rouse/Tan Dun. Teldec 8573-81830-2.
Johnson, L. (1999) Solo Guitar Music of Fernando Sor (15 CDs). CRG (Roch-
ester NY). Available at: http://www.crgrecordings.com/catalog-new.html
Kanengiser, W. (1991) Rondo Alla Turka. GSP 1004CD.
Kanengiser, W. (1993) Echoes of the Old World. GSP 1006CD.
Karadaglić, M. (2011) Miloš, The Guitar (aka Mediterraneo). Deutsche
Grammophon DGG 00289 477 9693.
Karadaglić, M. (2012) Latino. Deutsche Grammophon DGG 479 0514.
Karadaglić, M. (2014) Aranjuez. Deutsche Grammophon/Mercury Classics
00289 481 08114.
Karadaglić, M. (2016) Blackbird. Mercury Classics 481 2341 DH.
Karadaglić, M. (2019) Sound of Silence. Decca 777 9637 DH.
Kitaguchi, I. (1995) The Soul of Antonio de Torres “1867”. Cosmo Village
CV-S001.
Koshkin, N. (1997) The Prince’s Toys. Soundset Recordings SR 1011.
Kotzia, E. (1989) The Blue Guitar. Pearl SHE CD 9609.
Kraft, N. (1989) Tippett, The Blue Guitar/Britten, Nocturnal/Murray Schafer,
Le Cri de Merlin. Chandos CHAN 8784.
Lagoya, A. (1970a) Alexandre Lagoya joue Sor et Villa-Lobos. Philips 6504
131.
Lagoya, A. (1970b) L’extraordinaire Alexandre Lagoya. Philips 6521 013.
Lagoya, A. (1973) Viva Lagoya! Philips 6833 159.
Lagoya, A. (1980) The Spanish Guitar. CBS M 35857.
Lagoya, A. and Bolling, C. (1976) Concerto for Classic Guitar and Jazz Piano.
RCA Red Seal FRL1-0149.
Lagoya, A. and Presti, I. (2019) The Alexandre Lagoya Edition with Ida Presti:
Complete Philips and RCA Recordings (10 CDs). Decca 4840567.
Leisner, D. (1981) The Viennese Guitar. Titanic Ti-46.
Leon, C. (n.d. a) Guitar Masterworks Vol. 8: Fernando Sor. SMC-575.
Leon, C. (n.d. b) Guitar Masterworks Vol. 9: Fernando Sor. SMC-576.
Llobet, M. (2008) Miguel Llobet: The Complete Guitar Recordings 1925–1929.
Chanterelle Verlag CHR 001.
López, G. (1957) Obras para guitarra de Ponce. Musart MCD 3006.
López Ramos, M. (1971) Anthology of the Guitar Vol. 3. RCA VICS 1541.
López Ramos, M. (1973) Antologia de la guitarra clásica Vol. 2. Angel
SAM-35024.
Lukowski, G. (1979) Guitar Music of Barrios. EMI/Angel S-37844.
Malukoff, A. (n.d.a) Guitar Masterpieces – Matteo Carcassi Op. 60 25 Melo-
dious Studies for Guitar. SMC-1020.
Malukoff, A. (n.d.b) Guitar Masterpieces – Niccolo Paganini 29 Original Gui-
tar Compositions. SMC-1019.
Marina, C. (n.d. a) 19th Century Guitarists. SMC-1122.
Marina, C. (n.d. b) Albéniz for the Guitar. SMC-1123.
Marina, C. (n.d. c) Bach for the Guitar. SMC-1124.
Marina, C. (n.d. d) Recordando de Espana. SMC-1121.
Maroto, S. (1957) Sebastian Maroto. Pathé DT 1028.
406 Select Discography

Maroto, S. (1968) Guitar Recital. Polydor 583720.

Martin, G. (1998) In My Life. Echo ECHPR20.
Matoušek, M. (1983) Kytara/Guitar. Panton 8111 0318.
Medici Quartet and Williams, J. (1997) George Martin Presents the Medici
Quartet. Classic FM CFM CD5.
Mikulka, V. (1983) Vladimir Mikulka plays East European Guitar Music by
Nikita Koshkin and Štěpán Rak. BIS LP-240.
Mikulka, V. (1984) Guitar Recital. Supraphon OX-1253-S.
Mills, J. (2013) Segovia – The Ramírez Years. Tirando.
Morel, J. (n.d.) Guitar Moods. SMC Pro-Arte 1110.
Morel, J. (1981) Virtuoso South American Guitar. Guitar Masters Records
GMR 1002.
Morel, J. (1982) Jorge Morel plays Broadway. Guitar Masters Records GMR
1004.
Moreno, A. (1982) Rodrigo, Concierto De Aranjuez/A La Busca Del Más Allá/
Zarabanda Lejana Y Villancico. HMV ASD 4159.
Moreno, A. (1983) Ponce, Concierto del Sur. HMV ESD1651051.
Moronn Pérez, R. (2013) Andrés Segovia Archive: Spanish Composers. Refer-
ence Recordings FR-705.
Moronn Pérez, R. (2014) Andrés Segovia Archive: French Composers. Refer-
ence Recordings FR-709.
Moronn Pérez, R. (2017) Viva Segovia! Reference Recordings FR-723.
Mysliveček, M. (1981) Martin Mysliveček. Panton 8111 0174.
Newman, M. (1979) Michael Newman Classical Guitarist. Sheffeld Lab LAB
10.
Newman, M. (1981) Italian Pleasures. Sheffeld Lab LAB 16.
Niedt, D. (1976) Classic Guitar Artistry. Antigua S-1000.
Niedt, D. (1981) Virtuoso Visions. Antigua S-2000.
Nunes, M. (1965) Recital: Milton Nunes interpretando ao Violão. Ricordi Bra-
sileira SRE-3.
Ogden, C. (1995) The Blue Guitar. Nimbus NI 5390.
Ogden, C. (1996) Yoshimatsu, Symphony No. 2/Guitar Concerto/Threnody To
Toki. Chandos CHAN 9438.
Ogden, C. (1999) Music from the Novels of Louis de Bernières. Chandos
CHAN 9780.
Ogden, C. (2001) English Guitar Concertos. Chandos CHAN 9963.
Ogden, C. (2004) Guitar Works by Lennox and Michael Berkeley. Chandos
CHAN 10261.
Ogden, C. (2007) Imágenes de España: Craig Ogden Plays the Music of Paul
Coles. Nimbus NI 5811.
Olsen, S.-E. (1987) Blue Sonata. Simax PSC 1031.
Ortega, J. (n.d.) Recital. Areito LDA 3403.
Ortega, J. (1972) De Nuestra Guitarra. Areito LD 3553.
Oyanguren, J. M. (1950) Latin American Folk Music. Decca DL 8018.
Papandreou, E. (2003) Nikita Koshkin. BIS CD-1236.
Parkening, C. (1968a) In the Classic Style. Angel S-36019.
Parkening, C. (1968b) In the Spanish Style. Angel S-36020.
Parkening, C. (1969) Romanza. Angel S-36021.
Parkening, C. (1972) Parkening Plays Bach. Angel S-36041.
Parkening, C. (1976) Parkening and the Guitar. Angel S-36053.
Parkening, C. (1991) A Tribute to Segovia. EMI CDC 549404.
Ponce, A. (1972) Prestige de la Guitare au XX Siècle. Arion ARN 30S150.
Select Discography 407

Ponce, A. (1974) Ohana: Oeuvres pour Guitare. Arion ARN 31935.

Postlewate, C. (1981) Dual Image – Jazz and Classical Guitar Solos. Prism
ST-8101.
Presti, I. (2012) The Art of Ida Presti: Studio Recordings 1938/1956. IDIS 6642.
Ragossnig, K. (1969) Bondon, Concerto de Mars/Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Quin-
tet for Guitar and String Quartet. RCA VICS 1367.
Ragossnig, K. (1971) Guitar Recital. Supraphon 111 1040.
Ragossnig, K. (1972) Les Baroques. Erato STU 70647.
Ragossnig, K. and Widmer, H. (1971) Luth, Guitare et Orgue. Erato STU
70504.
Rak, Š. (1988) Remembering Prague. Chandos CHAN 8622.
Rak, Š. (1989) The Guitar of Štěpán Rak. Nimbus NI 5177.
Rak, Š. (1990) Dedications. Nimbus NI 5239.
Reis, D. (1956) Dilermando Reis. Contintental LPP-25.
Reis, D. (1958) Sua Majestade O Violão. Contintental LPP-3009.
Reis, D. (1970) Radamés Gnattali Concerto No.1 para Violão e Orquestra.
Continental GPLP-70.003.
Rey de La Torre, J. (n.d. a) Fernando Sor Grand Sonata and Other Works for
the Classical Guitar. Allegro AL 76.
Rey de La Torre, J. (n.d. b) The Music of Fernando Sor (1778–1839) A Guitar
Recital Vol. 2. SMC Pro-Arte 517.
Rey de La Torre, J. (n.d. c) The Music of Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909) A
Guitar Recital Vol. 1. SMC Pro-Arte 516.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1952) 20th Century Music for the Guitar. Philarmonia
PH106.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1957) Plays Classical Guitar. Epic LC3418.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1958) Virtuoso Guitar. Epic LC3479.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1959) Romantic Guitar. Epic LC3564.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1960) Music for Two Guitars/Music for One Guitar. Epic
LC3674.
Rey de La Torre, J. (1961) Recital. Epic LC3815.
Rey de La Torre, J. and Rogers, E. (n.d.) German Song from the Minnesingers
to the Seventeenth Century. Allegro AL 90.
Ribeiro, G. (1959) Interpreta Nazareth e Barrios. RCA Victor (Brazil) BBL
1060.
Ribeiro, G. (1966) Seis Brasilianas de Theodoro Nogueira. Chantecler P1966.
Ribeiro, G. (1971) Theodoro Nogueira, Concertino Para Viola Brasileira e
Orquestra de Camara/12 improvisos. Fermata SFB 336.
Romero, A. (1976) Spanish Virtuoso. Angel S-36094.
Romero, A. (1978) Virtuoso Works for Guitar. Angel S-37312.
Romero, A. (1979a) Divine Giuliani. Angel SZ 32376.
Romero, A. (1979b) Giuliani, Guitar Concertos Nos 1 & 3. Angel S-37967.
Romero, A. (1982) Torroba, Homenaje a la Seguidilla. EMI ASD 4171.
Romero, P. (1976) Rodrigo, Fantasía para un Gentilhombre/Giuliani, Introduc-
tion, Theme with Variations and Polonaise Op. 65. Philips 9500 042.
Romero, P. (1978a) Giuliani, Guitar Concertos Op. 36 & Op. 70. Philips 9500
320.
Romero, P. (1978b) Giuliani, Handel Variations, Op. 107/Gran Sonata Eroica.
Philips 9500 513.
Romero, P. (1981a) Joaquín Rodrigo. Philips 7300 915.
Romero, P. (1981b) Rodrigo, Concierto para una Fiesta/Romero and Torroba
Concierto de Malaga. Philips 411 133-1.
408 Select Discography

Romero, P. and Romero, A. (1975) Giuliani, Guitar Concerto, Op.30/Rodrigo,

Concierto Madrigal. Philips 6500 918.
Russell, D. (1979) Something Unique. Overture OR1001.
Russell, D. (1980) David Russell Plays Antonio Lauro. Guitar Masters Re-
cords GMR 1001.
Russell, D. (1991) Francisco Tárrega – Integral De Guitarra (3 CDs). Opera
Tres CDS 1003/4.
Russell, D. (2004) Aire Latino. Telarc CD-80612.
Russell, D. (2005) Spanish Legends. Telarc CD-80633.
Russell, D. (2009) For David. Telarc 80707.
Russell, D. (2010) Sonidos Latinos. Telarc 31979-02.
Santos, T. (1963) Villa-Lobos, 12 Estudos para Violão. Caravelle LP-CAR
43001.
São Marcos, M. L. (1962) Villa-Lobos, Concêrto Brasileiro de Violão. Audio
Fidelity AFLP-1991.
São Marcos, M. L. (1966) Villa-Lobos and Ponce. Chantecler CMG 1040.
São Marcos, M. L. (1971) Old Worlds and New Worlds. Everest SDBR 3248.
São Marcos, M. L. (1974) Heitor Villa-Lobos, Douze Etudes pour Guitare.
BAM LD 5832.
Scheit, K. (n.d. a) Meisterwerke der Klassichen Gitarre. Amadeo AVRS 6372.
Scheit, K. (n.d. b) Renaissance and Baroque. Amadeo AVRS 6108.
Scheit, K. (n.d. c) The Virtuoso Guitar. Amadeo AVRS 6236.
Scheit, K. (1968) Music for Guitar by Giuliani, Torelli, Carulli, Paganini. Vox
Turnabout TV 34123S.
Schneeweiss, K. (1996) Anthology of Guitar Music (7 CDs). Arte Nova 74321
37633 2.
Segovia, A. (1944) Andrés Segovia Playing the Music of Albéniz and Granados.
Decca Album No. A-384.
Segovia, A. (1947a) Andrés Segovia, Classical Guitar Solos. Decca Album No.
A-596.
Segovia, A. (1947b) Bach Chaconne. Musicraft Album M-85.
Segovia, A. (1947c) Bach Selections. Musicraft Album M-90.
Segovia, A. (1949a) Andrés Segovia Guitar Recital Vol. 2. Decca Album
DU-710.
Segovia, A. (1949b) Andrés Segovia Guitar Solos. Decca Album DL-8022.
Segovia, A. (1949c) Andrés Segovia Playing the Music of Albéniz and Grana-
dos. Decca Album DU-707.
Segovia, A. (1952a) An Andrés Segovia Concert. Decca DL 9638.
Segovia, A. (1952b) An Andrés Segovia Program. Decca DL 9647.
Segovia, A. (1952c) An Andrés Segovia Recital. Decca DL 9633.
Segovia, A. (1954a) An Evening with Andrés Segovia. Decca DL 9733.
Segovia, A. (1954b) Andrés Segovia Plays. Decca DL 9734.
Segovia, A. (1954c) Bach: Chaconne. Decca DL 9751.
Segovia, A. (1957) Segovia and the Guitar. Decca DL 9931.
Segovia, A. (1958) Golden Jubilee (3 x LPs). Decca DXJ 148.
Segovia, A. (1961) Boccherini-Cassadó/Bach. Decca DL 710043.
Segovia, A. (1962a) Five Pieces From ‘Platero And I’. Decca DL 710054.
Segovia, A. (1962b) Granada. Decca DL 710063.
Segovia, A. (1964) Second Series from Platero and I. Decca DL 710093.
Segovia, A. (1965) Tansman, Suite In Modo Polonico/ Mompou, Suite Com-
postelana. Decca DL 710112.
Segovia, A. (1967) Mexicana. Decca DL 710145.
Select Discography 409

Segovia, A. (1969) The Unique Art of Andrés Segovia. Decca DL 710167.

Segovia, A. (1970) Castles of Spain. Decca DL 710171.
Segovia, A. (1973) Intimate Guitar Vol. 2. RCA Red Seal ARL1-1323.
Segovia, A. (1978) Reveries. RCA Red Seal RL-12602.
Segovia, A. (1980) The Art of Segovia: The HMV Recordings 1927–1939 (2 ×
LP). EMI RLS 745.
Segovia, A. (1987–1991) The Segovia Collection (9 Vols on CD). MCA.
Segovia, A. (1988) Andrés Segovia: Recordings 1927–1939. EMI Classics CHS
761047 2.
Segovia, A. (1994a) Andrés Segovia: A Centenary Celebration. MCA MCAD4
11124.
Segovia, A. (1994b) Andrés Segovia: The Complete 1949 London Recordings.
Testament SBT 1043.
Segovia, A. (2002a) The Art of Segovia. Deutsche Grammophon 471 697-2.
Segovia, A. (2002b) The Segovia Collection. Deutsche Grammophon 471
430-2.
Segovia, A. (2004) Segovia: The Great Master. Deutsche Grammophon
B0003035-02.
Segovia, A. (2006a) Andrés Segovia: The 1946 New York and the 1949 London
Recordings. Naxos Historical 8.111088.
Segovia, A. (2006b) Dedication. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 477 6050.
Segovia, A. (2007) Andrés Segovia: 1950s American Recordings (Vols 1–5)
(5 vol). Naxos Historical.
Segovia, A. (2009) Segovia: The American Decca Recordings 1. Deutsche
Grammophon 00289 477 8133.
Segovia, A., Sherman, A., and New London Orchestra (1949) Castelnuo-
vo-Tedesco Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra. Columbia LX 1404-6.
Shibe, S. (2017) Dreams and Fancies. Delphian DCD34193.
Shibe, S. (2018) softLOUD. Delphian DCD34213.
Siewers, M. I. (1984) Maria Isabel Siewers plays the Music of Argentina. Gui-
tar Masters Records GMR 1003.
Silva, J. (1965) Virtuoso de la Guitarra. RCA Victor Mexico MKL 1642.
Sky (1979) Sky. Ariola ARLH 5022.
Sky (1980) Sky 2. Ariola AD SKY2.
Sky (1981) Sky 3. Ariola ASKY3.
Sky (1982) Sky 4 Forthcoming. Ariola ASKY4.
Sky (1983) cadmium… Ariola 205 885.
Smith, N. (1981) Neil Smith. Pennine Records GMR PSS 186.
Smith, N. (1984) Neil Smith Plays John W. Duarte. Guitar Masters Records
GMR 1006.
Söllscher, G. (1983) Johann Sebastian Bach, Lute Suites. Deutsche Grammo-
phon 410 643-1.
Söllscher, G. (1984) Johann Sebastian Bach, Präludium BWV 999, Suite BWV
995, Präludium, Fuge Und Allegro BWV 998 • Suite BWV 1006a. Deut-
sche Grammophon 413 719-1.
Söllscher, G. (1995) Here There and Everywhere. Deutsche Grammophon 447
104-2.
Söllscher, G. (2000) From Yesterday to Penny Lane. Deutsche Grammophon
459 692-2.
Starobin, D. (1981) New Music With Guitar, Volume 1. Bridge BDG 2001.
Starobin, D. (1984) New Music With Guitar, Volume 2. Bridge BDG 2004.
Starobin, D. (1985) New Music With Guitar, Volume 3. Bridge BDG 2006.
410 Select Discography

Starobin, D. and Rees, R. (1978) 20th Century Music for Voice & Guitar. Vox
Turnabout TV34727.
Stingl, A. (1961) Gitarrenmusik (45 rpm EP). Christophorous CV 75 041.
Stingl, A. (1985) Werke Fur Gitarre Solo. Harmonia Mundi HM 620.
Tanenbaum, D. (1989) Hans Werner Henze, Royal Winter Music. Audiofon
CD 72029.
Tanenbaum, D. (1990) Acoustic Counterpoint. New Albion NA032.
Tanenbaum, D. (1993) Great American Guitar Solo. Neuma 450-84.
Tanenbaum, D. (1997) David Tanenbaum. New Albion NA095.
Tanenbaum, D. (2003) Hans Werner Henze, Royal Winter Music. Stradivarius
STR 33670.
Tanenbaum, D. and Ensemble Modern (1991) Hans Werner Henze – Le Mir-
acle De La Rose/An Eine Äolsharfe. Harmonia Mundi HM859-2.
Tarragó, R. (1959) Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez/Torroba, Suite “Guitarra
Española”. Columbia ML5345.
Tarragó, R. (1960) The Music of Francisco Tárrega. Columbia ML5454.
Tarragó, R. (1963) Torroba, Concierto de Castilla. Columbia MS6322.
Tarragó, R., Bassey, S., and Barry, J. (1968) Deadfall: Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack. 20th Century Fox Records S4203.
Tennant, S. (2018) The Segovia Sessions. Guitar CoOp. Available at: https://
guitarcoop.com.br/en/scott-tennant-the-segovia-sessions/
Tomas, J. (1964) Cuatro Piezas para Guitarra. Hispavox HH-16486.
Tomas, J. (1968) Recital de Guitarra. Dim DGS-174.
Valdes Blain, R. (n.d.) Guitar Masterpieces (Volume 1): Grand Sonata, Op. 22
by Fernando Sor (1778–1839). SMC Pro-Arte 546.
Valdes Blain, R. (1959) La Guitarra: The Genius of Rolando Valdes-Blain.
Roulette R-25055.
Valenti, A. (n.d.) Magic Strings. SMC Pro-Arte 1002.
Van, J. (1979) Twentieth Century Guitar Music. Cavata CV 5011.
Van, J. and Sutton, V. (1972) Dominick Argento Letters from Composers.
Composers Recordings Inc. CRI SD 291.
Various (n.d.) Las Mejores Guitarras. Musart DC745.
Various (1964) Masters of the Guitar Vol. 2. RCA RB-6599/LM-2717.
Various (1976) Guitarra Mexicana. Discos Pueblo DP-1025.
Various (1978a) Jovenes Músicos de Cuba Vol. 1. Areito LD-3683.
Various (1978b) Jovenes Músicos de Cuba Vol. 2. Areito LD-3684.
Various (1989) La Guitarra en el Nuevo Mundo Vol. 7. UAM/Producciones
K’Aylay.
Various (1997) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 2: Segovia and Guillermo
Gómez. Doremi DHR-7704.
Various (1998a) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 1: Segovia and Oyan-
guren. Doremi DHR-7703.
Various (1998b) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 3: Andrés Segovia and
Luise Walker. Doremi DHR-7709.
Various (1999a) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 4: Segovia and Maria
Luisa Anido. Doremi DHR-7719.
Various (1999b) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 5: Segovia and Vicente
Gómez. Doremi DHR-7723.
Various (2000) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 6: Segovia – Llobet –
Anido. Doremi DHR-7754.
Various (2001) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 7: Andrés Segovia & Fran-
cisco Salinas. Doremi DHR-7761.
Select Discography 411

Various (2003) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 8: Andrés Segovia & Julio
M. Oyanguren Part II. Doremi DHR-7794.
Various (2004) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 9: Segovia & Sainz de la
Maza. Doremi DHR-7804.
Various (2009) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 11: Guitarists of the Rio
de la Plata. Doremi DHR-7955-8.
Various (2013) Segovia and His Contemporaries Vol 12: Tárrega, His Disciples
and Their Students. Doremi DHR-7996.
Various (2014) 5 Guitarras Historicas. Pasarela CDP4/631.
Various (2018) Panorama de la Guitare: a world of classical guitar music (25
CDs). Erato/Warner Classics 0190295801724.
Verdery, B. (1991a) Ride the Wind Horse: American Guitar Music. Newport
Classic Premier NPD 85509.
Verdery, B. (1991b) Some Towns and Cities. Newport Classic Premier NPD
85519.
Verdery, B. (2001) Soepa. Mushkatweek Records MR200.
Verdery, B. (2006) Branches. Mushkatweek Records 300.
Vicente Gómez Quintet (1941) Music from the 20th Century Fox Picture,
Blood and Sand. Decca Album No. 265.
Vieaux, J. (2005) Images of Metheny. Azica ACD-71233.
Vieaux, J. (2014) Play. Azica ACD-71287.
Wager-Schneider, J. (1981) Sonic Voyage. El Maestro Records EM 8004.
Walker, L. (1952a) Concertino for Guitar and Orchestra (Santórsola). Philips
N 00626 R.
Walker, L. (1952b) Guitar Recital. Philips N 00640 R.
Walker, L. (1954) Guitar Recital. Epic LC 3055.
Walker, L. (1963) Famous Guitar Compositions. Supraphon SUA 10437.
Walker, L. (1973) Guitar Recital. Supraphon 111 1230.
Walker, T. (1974) Guitar Recital. L’Oiseau Lyre DSLO 3.
Williams, J. (1959a) Guitar Recital. Delysé ECB 3149.
Williams, J. (1959b) Guitar Recital (Second Album). Delysé ECB 3151.
Williams, J. (1961) A Spanish Guitar. Westminster XWN-18957.
Williams, J. (1963) Fernando Sor: 20 Studies for Guitar. Westminster WST
17039.
Williams, J. (1964) Columbia Records Presents John Williams. Columbia MS
6608.
Williams, J. (1965) Virtuoso Music for Guitar. Columbia MS 6696.
Williams, J. (1967) More Virtuoso Music for Guitar. Columbia MS 6939.
Williams, J. (1968) John Williams Plays Two Guitar Concertos. Columbia MS
7063.
Williams, J. (1969a) Giuliani/Vivaldi Concertos. Columbia MS 7327.
Williams, J. (1969b) Virtuoso Variations for Guitar. Columbia MS 7195.
Williams, J. (1970) John Williams Plays Spanish Music. Columbia M 30057.
Williams, J. (1971) Changes. Fly FLY 5.
Williams, J. (1972) Gowers: Chamber Concerto/Scarlatti: Six Sonatas. CBS S
72979.
Williams, J. (1973a) Music from England, Japan, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina
& Mexico. CBS S 73205.
Williams, J. (1973b) The Height Below. Fly HIFLY 16.
Williams, J. (1974) Rhapsody. CBS 73350.
Williams, J. (1976) John Williams and Friends. Columbia S 73487.
Williams, J. (1977) John Williams Plays Barrios. CBS Masterworks M 35145.
412 Select Discography

Williams, J. (1978a) John Williams Plays Manuel Ponce. CBS Masterworks

M 35820.
Williams, J. (1978b) Travelling. Cube HIFLY 27.
Williams, J. (1981) Echoes of Spain. CBS Masterworks IM 36679.
Williams, J. (1982) Portrait of John Williams. CBS Masterworks M37791.
Williams, J. (1986) Echoes of London. CBS MK 42119.
Williams, J. (1991) Takemitsu Played by John Williams. Sony Classical SK
46720.
Williams, J. (2003) El Diablo Suelto. Sony Classical SK 90451.
Williams, J. (2008) From a Bird. JCW 1.
Williams, J. (2014) Concerto. JCW 3.
Williams, J. (2018) The Flower of Cities. JCW 5.
Williams, J. and Brown, W. (1970) Songs for Voice and Guitar. Odyssey 32 16
0398.
Williams, J. and Farandouri, M. (1971) Theodorakis – Songs of Freedom. CBS
S 72947.
Williams, J. and Hurford, P. (1981) John Williams and Peter Hurford Play
Bach. CBS Masterworks IM 37250.
Williams, J. and Puyana, R. (1971) Music for Guitar and Harpsichord. Colum-
bia S 72948.
Yamashita, K. (1978) Romance de Amor. RCA Red Seal RDCE-8.
Yamashita, K. (1981) Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition. RCA Red Seal
ARC1-4203.
Yamashita, K. (1987) Fernando Sor, Complete Works for Guitar (16 CDs).
Victor VDC (14-29).
Yáñez, O. (1907a) Anita. Edison Gold Moulded Record 20102. Available at:
http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder7751
Yáñez, O. (1907b) Cuando el amor muere. Edison Gold Moulded Record
20180. Available at: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder16165
Yáñez, O. (1907c) La Perjura. Edison Gold Moulded Cylinder 20065. Avail-
able at: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder13770
Yáñez, O. (1908) Mexican Dance (Habaneras). Victor 5662. Available at:
http://frontera.library.ucla.edu/recordings/mexican-dance-habaneras-0
Yáñez, O. (1913) Dolores. Edison Blue Amberol 22107. Available at: http://
www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder13519
Yáñez, O. (1920) Anna Gavota. Edison Blue Amberol 22074. Available at:
http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder13552
Oyanguren, J. M. (1950) Latin American Folk Music. Decca DL 8018.
Yang, X. (1999) Classical Guitar by Xuefei Yang. Shine Horn SC-1029.
Yang, X. (2005) Si Ji (Four Seasons). GSP 1028CD.
Yang, X. (2006) Romance de Amor. EMI Classics 0946 3 70714 2 7.
Yang, X. (2008) 40 Degrees North. EMI Classics 5099 2 06322 2 9.
Yang, X. (2010) Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez/Goss, Albéniz Concerto. EMI
Classics 50999 6 98361 2.
Yang, X. (2016) Songs from our Ancestors. Globe Music GM-001.
Yepes, N. (1954a) Música Española para Guitarra. Decca LXT 2974.
Yepes, N. (1954b) Rodrigo, Fantasía para un gentilhombre/Ohana, Tres Gráf-
cos. London CS 6356.
Yepes, N. (1956) Jeux Interdits (LP). Decca (France) 115.008.
Yepes, N. (1958) Jeux Interdits (45 rpm EP). Decca (France) 458.516.
Yepes, N. (1964a) Guitar Recital Vol. 2. London-Globe GLB 1023.
Yepes, N. (1964b) Guitar Recital Vol. 3. London-Globe GLB 1024.
Select Discography 413

Yepes, N. (1969) Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez/ Fantasía para un Gentilhom-

bre. Deutsche Grammophon 139440.
Yepes, N. (1971) Johann Sebastian Bach/Silvius Leopold Weiss: Werke für Gi-
tarre. Deutsche Grammophon 2530 096.
Yepes, N. (1974a) Johann Sebastian Bach: Werke für Laute I. Deutsche Gram-
mophon 2530 461.
Yepes, N. (1974b) Johann Sebastian Bach: Werke für Laute II. Deutsche
Grammophon 2530 462.
Yepes, N. (1977) Gitarrenmusik des 20. Jahrhunderts. Deutsche Grammophon
2530 802.
Yepes, N. (2016) Narciso Yepes: The Complete Concerto Recordings. Deutsche
Grammophon 00289 479 5467.
Yepes, N. (2017) Narciso Yepes: The Complete Solo Recordings (20 CDs).
Deutsche Grammophon 00289 479 7316.
York, A. (1986) Perfect Sky. Timeless Records.
York, A. (1993) Dénouement. GSP 1007CD.
York, A. (2006) The Hauser Sessions. Maijan Music.
Zea, L. (1983) Simon Bolivar. EMI ARC 1014.
Zelenka, M. (1963) Guitar Recital. Supraphon SUB 10373.
Zelenka, M. (1971) Moderní České Skladby Pro Kytaru. Supraphon 0110969.
Zelenka, M. (1978) Kytarový Recitál Ze Skladeb J.S.Bacha. Supraphon 111
2263.
Zepoll, G. (1953) Concert Guitar. Cook 1024.
Index

Abbey Road Studios 50, 52, 92–3, 156, 364; Torre Bermeja 156, 198, 199;
346, 367 Zambra Granadina 234
Ablóniz, Miguel 234, 235 Alais, Juan 68, 70, 157
Abril, Mario 280–1 Aldana, José Manuel 233
acoustic choreography 220 Allegro (label) 131–2
acoustic context of classical guitar Almeida, Laurindo 135, 136–40, 144,
performance and recording 5, 109, 276, 284; and American composers
111–14, 115–16, 129, 130–1, 133, 134, 137–8; crossover recordings 136;
139–40, 175–6, 184–9, 193, 203, 204, multi-tracking experiments 140–1;
208, 217, 219, 220, 226, 228, 229, recordings of Latin American music
230, 315, 316–18, 338, 348–9, 351, 78, 136, 138, 258, 306, 307; sound of
357–8, 359 Capitol recordings (FDS) 138–41; use
Aguado, Dionisio 9, 24, 56, 68, 69, of classical guitar in jazz context 144;
71, 72, 82, 111, 113, 121, 123, 127, Villa-Lobos recordings 137
128, 170, 294; Nuevo Método para Almiron, Lalyta 35, 73
Guitarra 111; views on ideal acoustic Amadeo (label) 236, 238
conditions of guitar performance 111, Améndola, Alfredo 71
113–14 American composers 29, 105, 268–9,
Aguilar, José María 70 339–41, 343–4
Aguirre, Julián 29; Huella 29, 154; Triste American Decca (label) 11, 17, 41, 44–5,
No. 4 153 87–111, 115, 117, 120, 122–4, 128,
Akkerman, Jan 212–13 224–5, 228; “Gold Label” series
Albéniz, Isaac 26, 30, 32, 43, 45, 88–9, 93–4, 97
134–6, 156, 158, 201, 234–5, 246–7, American guitarists 191, 268, 330
292, 294, 363–4; Barrueco recordings American popular music 141–4, 333
of 298; Bream recordings of 179, 294; amplifcation 3, 178, 218, 365
Rey de la Torre recordings of 134–5; Andrés Segovia Archive 351
Romero (Angel) recordings of 292; Angel (label) 154, 161, 191, 258, 276,
Segovia recordings of 43, 45, 88, 89, 288–91, 292, 302, 313, 350; Parkening
96, 105; Williams recordings of 198–9, recordings 288–91
201, 220; Yang recordings of 363–4; Ángel Martinez, Miguel 33–4
works: Asturias (Leyenda) 32, 45, 96, Angulo, Héctor 164
125, 129, 156, 288, 292, 293, 352, 365, Anido, Maria Luisa 28, 29, 30, 34,
366; Cádiz 70, 73; Cantos de España 70, 73, 131, 152–4, 248, 309; early
363; Córdoba 134, 201, 220; Evocación recordings in Rio de la Plata 70,
(from Iberia) 154, 364; Granada 26, 73; mid-century recordings 152–4;
32, 45, 73, 89; Sevilla 32, 45, 89, 128, recordings with Miguel Llobet 29, 30,
151, 363; Rumores de la Caleta 246, 73, 154
289; Suite Española (Op. 47) 298, 340, Antar (label) 156

415
416 Index

Anthologie de la Guitare recording series 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 251, 261, 272,
161, 239, 247 275, 276, 278, 281, 288, 289, 290,
Anthologie Sonore recording series 35 295–8, 308, 309, 314, 329, 333, 342,
Appleby, Wilfred 123, 124 346, 348, 349, 352, 359, 362; Bream
Arcas, Julián 34, 64 recordings of 174–5, 177, 179, 180,
Arc-en-ciel (label) 332 186, 188, 333; Carlevaro-Costanzo
Archiv Produktion (imprint of DGG) arrangement of Cello Suite No. 3
228, 232, 236, 238, 239 (BWV 1009); debates concerning
Ardévol, José 163; Sonata para effcacy of music on guitar 42, 47,
Guitarra 163 90, 174–5; Duarte arrangement of
Areito (label) 163-4 Cello Suite No. 3 (BWV 1009) 103,
Argentina 28, 63, 68, 72–4, 152–3, 155, 158, 198; Fisk transcriptions of
161, 247–8, 308–9, 312, 330 295–7; Isbin recordings of 297, 300;
Argento, Dominick 271 Parkening recordings of 289, 290;
Argüelles, Felix 124–5, 129–30 Segovia recordings of 40–4, 46–8,
Ariola (label) 212 51, 52–5, 58, 59–60, 90–1, 96, 97,
Arion (label) 245, 250, 252 98–9, 103, 105, 132, 288; Söllscher
Arnold, Malcolm 177–9, 336; Bream recordings of 297–8; transcriptions
recordings of 177–9, 333; Fantasy of 40, 91, 198, 201, 295–8; Williams
for Guitar (Op. 107) 338; Guitar recordings of 198, 200–1, 207, 212–4,
Concerto (Op. 67) 177–8, 182, 333, 215; Yepes recordings of 231–2;
336; Ogden recordings of 336 Zelenka recordings of 246; works:
Arte Nova (label) 333 Allemande (Lute Suite No. 1 in E
Artigas (label) 71 minor BWV 1996) 41, 47, 53; Bourrée,
Artzt, Alice 59, 266, 303, 317; album Lute Suite No. 1 (BWV 996) 96, 346;
programming 261–2, 266–7, 274; Bourrée No. 1/Loure, Cello Suite No.
audiophile recordings 316–18; 3 (BWV 1009) 70, 74; Bourrée, Partita
nineteenth century repertoire 303–4; No. 1 in B minor (BWV 1002) 96,
on Segovia performance style 59 136; Chaconne (BWV 1004) 47, 60,
Assad, Sérgio 366 82, 90–1, 97, 98, 111, 132, 158, 174,
Atkins, Chet 141–2, 278–80; classical 200, 231, 246, 261, 289, 295, 329, 342,
guitar arrangements 142; work with 352, 362; Courante, Cello Suite No.
Liona Boyd 278 3 (BWV 1009) 53, 96, 129, 246, 288,
Atlanta (label) 68, 69, 71, 72, 76 289; Fugue in A minor (BWV 947);
Atreo, Omar 154 Fugue in G minor (BWV 1000/1001)
Audiofon (label) 270 41, 42, 47, 53, 54, 150, 179; Gavotte,
Auger, Robert 188 Cello Suite No. 6 (BWV 1012) 151;
Australian Record Company (CBS) 235 Gavotte en Rondeau, Violin Partita
Austria: classical guitarists recording in No. 3 in E (BWV 1006) 40, 47, 52, 98,
235–40 128, 246; Gavottes 1 and 2, Cello Suite
Auvidis (label) 332 No. 5 (BWV 1011) 290; “Goldberg”
Ayala, Héctor 308 Variations (BWV 988); Jesu, Joy of
Man’s Desiring 290; Lute Suite No.
Babbitt, Milton 269, 343 1 in E minor (BWV 996) 180, 186,
Bach, Johann Sebastian 4, 10, 28, 34, 242, 333; Lute Suite No. 4 in E (BWV
35, 40–4, 46–8, 51, 52–5, 58, 59–60, 1006a) 201, 298; Prelude, Cello Suite
70, 74, 82, 90–1, 96, 98–9, 103, 105, No. 1 (BWV 1007) 43, 44, 96, 212;
109, 124, 125, 128, 129–30, 132, 136, Prelude, Cello Suite No. 4 (BWV
140, 142, 144, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155, 1010) 70, 155; Prelude, Fugue and
156, 158, 160, 162, 171, 174–5, 177, Allegro (BWV 998) 128, 174; Prelude
179, 180, 186, 188, 198, 200–1, 203, in C minor (BWV 999) 41, 47, 53, 54,
212–4, 215, 231–2, 234, 235, 238, 242, 98, 179; Prelude in C, Well-Tempered
Index 417

Clavier Book I 149, 162; Prelude, Lute Beaser, Robert 344–5

Suite No. 4 (BWV 1006a) 128; Sheep Beatles, The 213, 221, 257, 284–5, 310,
May Safely Graze 290; Sicilienne, 314, 330, 345–6
Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor Becker, Günther 243
(BWV 1001) 96; Toccata and Fugue Beethoven, Ludwig van 32, 74, 148, 149,
in D minor (BWV 565) 215; Two Part 227, 243, 251, 299
Inventions 245, 276; Well-Tempered Begley, Edwin 324
Clavier (BWV 846-893) 246, 276, 290 Behrend, Siegfried 134, 137, 202, 230,
Bachman, William S. 94 240–5, 264, 301, 331, 368; and avant-
BAM (label) 152 garde music 242–4; compositions
banjo, early recordings of 20–1 by 242–3; Deutsche Grammophon
Barbosa-Lima, Carlos 150–51, 280, recordings 242–4, 338, 344; historical
282–4 focus of programs 242–3; irreverence
Barclay (label) 250 towards classical guitar canon 241;
Barnes, Milton 277; Fantasy for use of guitar with electronics 242–3
Guitar 277 Belina 244
Baroque guitar 4, 34, 35, 62, 164, 239, Bellinati, Paulo 150, 283, 343; Jongo 343
294, 354 Bell Lab 23
Barreiro, Elías 125–6, 129 Belter (label) 225
Barrios, Ángel 40 Benites, Jesús 77
Barrios Mangoré, Agustín 4, 9, 69, Benitez, Baltazar 309
71–81, 149–50, 156–8, 160, 307–12, Bennett, Richard Rodney 182; Concerto
316, 319, 331, 348, 352; and Bach’s for Guitar and Chamber Ensemble
music 74; association with Discos 182; Impromptus 182, 183, 335
Atlanta 71–2, 76; association Bensa, Olivier 314
with Odeon 72–5; instruments 76; Beranek, Leo 113
performance style 75–6; recordings Berkeley, Lennox 177, 182, 336; Guitar
as primary sources of works 77–8; Concerto (Op. 88) 182, 336; Sonatina
recordings of by other guitarists (Op. 51) 177, 276, 335, 338; Theme
122, 128, 136, 149, 150, 154, 156, and Variations (Op. 77) 182, 262
158, 180, 198, 235, 248, 307–8, 309, Berkeley, Michael 336
311–12, 316, 334, 337, 348, 352, Bernstein, Leonard 142, 284, 310; West
359; relationship with Segovia 71; Side Story 142, 284, 310
revival of music in 1970s 307–8; Biberian, Gilbert 262
Stover campaign on behalf of 306; Bickert, Ed 278
steel strings, use of 76–7; recording Bicknell, David 50
technology, use of 75; tango Bilobram, Chris 154
recordings 71–2; works: Choro da BIS (label) 187, 261, 273, 311, 315–6,
Saudade 136; Danza Guaraní 122, 307; 329, 332, 348
Danza Paraguaya 154, 158, 235, 307; Bitetti, Ernesto 113, 308–9; views on
Diana Guaraní 26, 75, 80; La Catedral acoustics 113
74, 128, 149, 248; Preludio Op 5 No. 1 Blanco, Diego 311
in G minor 74, 128, 136, 235 Blanco, Juan 265; Contrapuncto especial
Barroso, José 136 III-c 265
Barrueco, Manuel 298, 345–6 Bland, William 269, 343
Bárta, Lubor 246 Bobri, Vladimir 98, 102, 104
Bartoli, René 249–50 Boccherini, Luigi 44–5, 48, 103, 107,
Bartolozzi, Bruno 267 150, 262, 334; Cello Concerto No.
Bartoš, Antonín 245 6 in E major (transc. for guitar and
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) orchestra) 103; Quintet No. 4 in D
29, 39, 123, 170, 171, 185, 186, 193, (G. 448) 132
215, 314 Bogdanović, Dušan 343, 352
418 Index

Bonell, Carlos 328; Beatles recordings 346 Britten, Benjamin 181; Nocturnal 181–2,
Bonfá, Luiz 283; Carlos Barbosa-Lima 261–2, 322, 335
recordings of 283 Brouwer, Leo 4, 163–4, 264–6, 271,
Boot Records (label) 275, 276, 279 274, 308, 314, 329, 331–2, 339, 342,
Borges, Raul 157, 170, 334 346; avant-garde classical guitar
Borrull Castelló, Miguel 25 264–6; innovative studio techniques,
Borrull Jiménez, Miguel 25 Leo Brouwer Gitarre and Rara
Borud, Russ 218–19 264–5; works: Canción de Cuna 368;
Boston (label) 161 Canticum 271; Concerto Elegiaco
Boulez, Pierre 245 314; Danza Caracteristica 271; El
Bourdain, Pierre 258–9 Decameron Negro 342; Elogio de
Bower, John 185, 188, 193 la Danza 163, 248, 252; Estudios
Boyd, Liona 274–80; attitude to classical Sencillos 314; Exaedros I 264; La
guitar repertoire 276, 278; Canadian Espiral Eterna 266, 271, 329, 332;
Guitar Summit 278–9; CBS contract Parabola 231; Sonata for Guitar 334;
276; critiques of 277–8; “First Lady Tarantos 231; “The Fool on the Hill”
of the Guitar” motif 275; in the studio (arr. for guitar duo) 221, 285, 346;
279–80; work with Chet Atkins 278–9 Tres Apuntes 164
Brazil 10–11, 28, 34, 74–6, 78–9, 81, Brubeck, Dave 281
146–7, 149–50, 152, 155, 160, 248, Bruger, Hans Dagobert 40
257, 280, 283–4, 306, 333, 343; early Brunswick (label) 68, 94, 123, 172;
solo guitar recording, eclectic roots of recordings of Ezequiel Cuevas 68
78–82; mid-twentieth century classical Buenos Aires 28, 68–71, 73, 149, 292
guitar scene 147–52 Burghauser, Jarmil 246
Bream, Julian 12–13, 169, 171–86, 188–9, Burley, Raymond 356
192–4, 199–202, 218–19, 227–8, 230–1, Burnett, James 185, 188, 193, 336
238–41, 243–4, 249, 257–62, 270, Burt, Fred C. 65
293–5, 301–2, 314, 316, 333–6, 364–6; Burtnieks, J.A. 174
approach to editing when recording Bussotti, Sylvano 244
193–4; career at RCA 177–84, Butin, Roy 21
259; Bream repertoire paradigm, Byrd, Charlie 142; and use of classical
assimilation of in 1970s 259–63; guitar in jazz 143
classical guitar album program,
re-thinking 177–80; Decca and Cáceres, Oscar 248, 266, 284, 306
Westminster, early recordings 169–75; Cage, John 268, 332
development of recording aesthetic Calatayud, Bartolome 34
175–6, 184–9; focus on contemporary Campese, Clara 154
repertoire 180–4; on acoustics in Canadian Guitar Summit 278
performance 112; on amplifcation Canhoto, Américo Jacomino 55, 79–81,
218; reception of post-1960s recording 147–9; comparisons to Barrios 80; in
aesthetic 189–91; recording process recording studio 80; works: Abismo
192–4; views on early Segovia de Rosas 80, 148; Marcha Triunfal
recordings 52, 55; Wardour Chapel, Brasileira 80, 148
recording in 185, 188–9, 193, 204 Capitol (label) 135–6, 138–140
Bremner, Michael 185 Carcassi, Matteo 127, 128, 130, 245
Bridge Records (label) 269, 303, 330, Cardew, Cornelius 264 Material 264
338, 343–4 Cardoso, Jorge 309
Brightmore, Robert 263 Carlevaro, Abel 152; Preludios
Brindle, Reginald Smith 181; El Polifemo Americanos 309
de Oro 181 Carter, Elliott 269, 343
British repertoire traditions 169–71, Carulli, Ferdinando 126, 127, 180, 232,
201–3, 337–8 238, 245, 247, 304
Index 419

Casa Edison 78 classical guitar duos 135, 221–2, 285,

Casals, Pablo 41 247, 248; Duo Madiedo-Pérez Puentes
Cassadó, Gaspar 31, 103, 106, 107 314; Duo Pomponio/Martínez-Zárate
Cassinelli, Ulises J. 70 247, 248; Duo Presti-Lagoya 247,
Castelló, Miguel Borrull 25 251, 257
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario 4, 10, 40, classical guitar establishment 267–8, 274,
44–5, 48, 98, 100, 102, 103, 104, 150, 277–8, 333
155, 158, 203, 235, 244, 260, 262, classical guitarist-composers 17, 68–78,
289, 309, 312, 314, 334, 347, 349, 350, 70, 121, 149, 154, 157, 159, 234, 238,
354; Bream’s views on 260; Segovia 240, 246, 249, 271, 273, 285, 301, 305,
recordings of 44–5, 48, 92, 102, 103, 307, 311, 313, 327, 330–3, 340, 343,
104, 150; works: Capriccio Diabolico 348; guitarist-composer revival 330–3
98, 100; Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D classical guitar marketplace 153, 158; at
(Op. 99) 92, 203; Les Guitares Bien end of 1960s 257–9
Temperés Op. 199, 347; La Guarda classical guitar musicology 34,
Cuydadosa 244; Quintet for Guitar 301–4, 306
and Strings (Op. 143) 158; Platero classical guitar performance practice 3,
and I 104, 289, 314; Sonata “Omaggio 5–7, 13, 29, 30, 56–60, 64–5, 69, 75–6,
a Boccherini” (Op. 77) 44, 48, 103, 77, 79, 80–1, 97–8, 106–9, 111–14,
150, 262, 334; Tarantella 91, 155, 244; 120, 128–9, 131, 134, 138, 139, 140,
Tonadilla “on the name of Andrés 142, 143, 147, 149, 151, 154, 155, 158,
Segovia” 235 159, 169–70, 173, 174, 175, 184–5,
CBS Records (label) 94, 134, 200–1, 191, 192–4, 200, 204, 210–11, 212,
203, 204, 206–7, 210, 212, 214, 218, 220–21, 232, 237, 240, 245, 250,
219, 228, 235, 252, 259, 276, 277, 261, 268, 270–1, 272, 277, 281, 282,
279, 307, 311, 334, 335. See also 287, 288–9, 291, 294, 296–7, 298–300,
Columbia. 301, 303, 305, 312, 319–24, 339, 341,
CBS Studios, Theobolds Road, London 346, 359, 370
205; Whitfeld Street, London 203, classical guitars, alto 140, 297; 11-string
204, 208–9 65–6, 297; Fleeson, Martin 221–2;
Cearense, Catullo da Paixão Fleta, Ignacio 214, 221; guitarra
(Catullo) 151 septima 66; Hauser, Hermann 55;
Çeku, Petrit 355 Ovation 214; Ramírez II, José 76;
Cervantes, Ignacio 163 Ramírez III, José 231, 350, 359;
Chandos (label) 328, 331, 336–7, 354 Ramírez, Manuel 54–5; Simplicio,
Chantecler (label) 150–2 Francisco 76; Smallman, Greg 221–2,
Chaves, Benedito (Gurú) 81 359; Soloette 342; 10-string 231–2;
Chávez, Carlos 160 tornavoz 30; Torres Jurado, Antonio
Chaviano, Flores 163, 314 de 23, 30, 54–5, 112, 221, 317, 359
Chopin, Frédéric 10, 82, 96, 126, 140, classical guitar sound, recorded 13,
142, 148, 149, 154, 236, 251, 303; 22–4, 30, 33, 49–56, 75–7, 92, 94, 107,
Etude Op. 10 No. 3 “Tristesse” 148 109–16, 129, 133, 134, 135, 138–41,
Christensen, Leif 303 169, 175–6, 179, 183, 184–91, 217–21,
classical guitar, defned for purposes of 228–30, 237, 244, 264–5, 279–80,
book 6–7; dynamic range of 22–3; 315–19, 324, 341–2, 349, 355–8,
performance techniques 22, 25, 26, 359–60, 367; critical perspectives on
67, 80, 82, 183, 190, 191, 212, 244, 52–6, 217–21, 357–8
267, 273, 274, 277, 279, 300, 328, 331, classical guitar transcription, recordings
332, 340; strings 22, 23, 50, 55–6, and 295–300
57, 65, 76–7, 121, 122, 129, 190, 191, Classic FM (label) 337
218, 231, 267, 321, 328, 332; 10-string Claves (label) 236
231–2; timbre 6, 27, 55–6, 114 Coelho, Olga 80
420 Index

Coles, Paul 336 Davies, Peter Maxwell 182–3, 284, 341;

Columbia (label) 20–1, 30–3, 35, 39, Hill Runes 182; Lullaby for Ilian
66–7, 73, 81–2, 91–4, 121–2, 110, 121, Rainbow 261; Sonata for Guitar 341;
134, 148, 149, 151, 156, 180, 201, 213, “Yesterday” (arrangement) 284
203, 224, 225, 232, 242, 244, 258, 292; Debussy, Claude 51, 96, 140, 147, 148,
Segovia 78 rpm recordings 91–3. See 290, 275, 290, 348
also CBS Records. Decca (label), British 171, 185, 225, 226,
Compañia del Gramófono 25, 26, 30, 227, 230, 234, 304, 329, 364
34, 42 Delerue, Georges 328
Composers Recordings Inc. (label) 134 Dellheim, Peter 185, 188, 323–4
Conceição, Levino Albano da 81 Delphian (label) 338
concert music, and the legitimacy of Delysé (label) 198–9, 201, 311
classical guitar 46 Denon (label) 319
Concord (label) 282–3, 328 Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft
contemporary classical guitar music 28, (label) 152, 228–31, 238, 242, 244–5,
34, 40–1, 43–4, 46, 48, 49, 90, 91, 98, 264–5, 297; Behrend recordings for
99, 100–1, 102–5, 123, 131–2, 137–8, 242–4; Brouwer recordings for 264–5;
149, 151, 153–4, 163, 171, 172, 177–8, Söllscher recordings for 297–8, 345–6;
180–4, 189, 198, 201, 202, 231, 235, 239, Yepes recordings for 228–32
242–5, 246, 247, 248–9, 251, 259–74, Dervoed, Artyom 355
276, 284–5, 294, 309, 314, 327, 329, 330, Diabelli, Anton 179, 261, 304
327–45, 348, 354, 355, 359, 366, 368 Díaz, Alirio 157–9, 161, 198, 200, 235,
Cook, Emory 160; recordings of 247, 252, 258, 267, 306, 311–12
Gustavo Zepoll 161 Díaz Cano, Manuel 234–5
Cook (label) 160 Diccionario de Guitarristas (Prat) 53,
Costanzo, Irma 292, 308 68, 69
Coste, Napoléon 28, 30, 34, 35, 126, Dinnigan, Simon 356
127, 128, 180, 305, 354, 355; Estudio Discophon (label) 225
Brillante (Op. 38 No. 23) 28, 30, 35 Discos Pueblo (label) 313
Crémieux, Octave 66 Discus (BMG critic) 100
Crespo, Jorge Gómez 92, 158, 198, 234, Dodgson, Stephen 198, 201–3, 246,
306, 310 252, 262, 271; Williams recordings of
CRG Records (label) 304 201–3; works: Concerto for Guitar
Crosley Home Recorder 75 and Chamber Orchestra No. 1 202,
Crumb, George 343–4 203; Concerto No. 2 for Guitar
Csáki, András 355 and Chamber Orchestra 203; Duo
Cuba 10–11, 38–9, 62–4, 67–8, 74, Concertante 202; Fantasy Divisions
124–5, 131–2, 146–7, 163, 248, 264–5, 203; Four Poems of John Clare 202;
312–14; Edison recordings in 63–5; Legend 262; Partita No. 1 201–2, 252,
guitarists recording, late 1920s 67–8; 271
guitarists recording, post-1960s 163–4, Domeniconi, Carlo 343, 362, 363, 365
313–14 Dominici, Antonio 236
Cuban guitarists 125, 163–4, 187, 313–14 Doremi (label) 17, 18, 26, 27, 33, 34
Cuban Revolution 163 Doreste, Víctor 32
Cubanas, Rafael 63, 65 Dowland, John 58, 88, 102, 115, 143,
Cubedo, Manuel 56 154, 171, 172, 182, 193, 200, 202, 234,
Cuevas, Ezequiel 68 243, 261, 338, 354
Curtis-Smith, Curtis 341 Downs, Colin 262
Czechoslovakian guitar scene 245–6 Duarte, John W. 38, 92–3, 103, 208,
308, 331, 340, 359; Artzt recordings
Davezac, Betho 248 of 261–2; “rent a programme” 198,
Davidovsky, Mario 343, 344 339; Segovia recordings of 103; Smith
Index 421

recordings of 263; Williams recordings Fariñas, Carlos 163, 164, 265

of 198; works: arrangement of Bach Faust, Karl 265
Cello Suite No. 3 (BWV 1009) 103, Ferera, Frank 21
158, 198; Birds (Op. 66) 262; English Fernandez, Eduardo 304, 328, 329
Suite 103, 243, 262, 339; Homage to Feybli, Walter 240
Antonio Lauro 310; Miniature Suite Fiala, Petr 274
137; Night-Music 262; Sonatinette Fiddler on the Roof 280
261; Variations on a Catalan Folk Song Figner, Frederico 78
(Op. 25) 198, 262, 263 Field-Hyde, Margaret 171
Dumigan, Chris 77 Fisk, Eliot 200, 238, 295–7, 298, 300,
Dun, Tan 340 312, 323, 344; Bach transcriptions
Duncan, Charles 22, 59 295–7; Beaser Concerto 344–5; and
Durium (label) 234–5 Berio Sequenza XI; and Rochberg
Dyens, Roland 332–3, 337, 345 Caprice Variations 344; Latin
American guitar music 312; minimal
Eastern Europe: classical guitar editing on Eliot Fisk plays Scarlatti
recording in 272–4 and Bach 8.30 Tonight 323; Paganini
East 30th Street Studio, New York transcriptions 300; Segovia tribute
(Columbia) 134, 203 recordings 350–1; work with John
Eben, Petr 274 Taylor 356–7
Ecuador 126 famenco music 24–5, 68
Edison Records (label) 19, 20, 21, 24, 39, Fly/Cube (label) 212–3
63–6, 78 fngertips/fesh vs nails debate 56,
Edison Phonograph Monthly 65 76, 232
EGREM (Empresa de Grabaciones y Focus (band) 212
Ediciones Musicales) 163, 313, 314 Foster, Rick 290
electric guitar 142, 205, 213–14, 338 Fortea, Daniel 9, 27, 28, 33, 34, 51, 160,
El Maestro Records (label) 267, 308 246; recordings for Regal 33
EmArcy (label) 143 Fowler, Edward 50
Emmett, Rik 278 France: classical guitar recording in
EMI (label) 31, 46, 56, 91, 92, 109, 157, 246–52
158, 159, 180, 210, 234, 298, 307, 308, Fricker, Peter Racine 338; Paseo 338
309, 311, 312, 328, 330, 333–4, 349, Friessnegg, Karl 236
350, 363–4; Bream, late contract with Froberger, Johann Jakob 45, 239, 296
330, 333–4; Alirio Diáz recordings for Frost, Thomas 106–7, 351
157–9, 311; Xuefei Yang recordings Full Dimensional Sound 138–40
for 363–4 Funes, Maria Angélica 152
Epic (label) 133–5, 237, 258 Funk Pearson, Stephen 271–2
Erato (label) 152, 154, 239, 247–9, 265,
266, 307, 352, 355; Panorama de la gabinetes fonográfcos 24, 26
Guitare series 247–9 Gaisberg, Fred 40, 50
Escalada, Gustavo Sosa 69 Galbraith, Paul 356
Escargot (label) 250 Garcia, Gerald 353–4
Espiral (label) 235, 307 Garcia, Thibaut 352
Esplá, Óscar 103, 115 Garcin, Michel 247
Esquembre, Quintin 123 Gardel, Carlos 71
European context of classical guitar Garno, Gerard 42
recording 224–54 Gemini (label) 261–2, 316
Germany: classical guitar recording in
Falla, Manuel de 35, 49, 70, 132, 133, 240–5
179, 241, 247, 198; Homenaje 96, 132, Gershwin, George 280, 281–2, 284, 310;
133; The Miller’s Dance 241, 284 Porgy and Bess 280
422 Index

GHA (label) 333, 347 Great Britain 28, 92, 94, 123, 169–72,
Gilardino, Angelo 351 185, 197–200, 203, 236, 239, 262–3,
Ginastera, Alberto 4, 309, 365; Sonata 316, 327, 333, 335; classical guitar
(Op. 47) 4, 309, 328 recording in 39–46, 50–2, 91–2, 171–6,
Giuliani, Mauro 4, 9, 96, 128, 133, 170, 186–9, 197–99, 203–10, 212–17, 262–3,
179, 200, 201, 203, 231, 238, 243, 245, 333–8; classical guitar culture in
272, 281, 301, 303; recording projects 169–71, 185
devoted to 301–2; works: Concerto Greenfeld, Edward 230
No. 1 in A (Op. 30) 203, 301, 302, 304, Grubb, Suvi Raj 109
305, 348, 354, 355; Rossiniane 281, GSP (label) 342–3
301–2; Sonata (Op. 15) 96, 133, 179, Guastavino, Carlos 309
201, 301, 303 Guerra, Rey 314
Gluck, Christoph Willibald 96 Guitar CoOp (label) 359
Glücksmann, Max 73–4 Guitar Masters Records (label) 263,
Gnattali, Radamés 138, 149, 284; 310–11
Concerto de Copacabana 138, 258 Guitar Review 102, 146–7, 306; Latin
Goldmark, Peter 94 American focus of content 146–7, 306
Goluses, Nicholas 355 gut strings 6, 55, 57, 76–7, 121
Gómez, Guillermo 32, 66, 159
Gómez, Vicente 122–4; American Decca Hackett, Steve 212
recordings 122–3; Blood and Halasz, Franz 329
Sand 123 Haley, Bill 110
Gomez, William 234 Hamel, Fred 238
Gonzalez, José Luis 235 Hambourg, Mark 19
Goss, Stephen 335, 363–4; Albéniz Handel, George Frideric 58, 96, 215,
Concerto 364; The Chinese Garden 222, 238, 239
363; The Flower of Cities 335 Hansen, Eric 346
Gould, Glenn 107, 108–9, 174, 185, Harmonia Mundi (label) 245, 249, 250,
194, 200, 203, 220, 221; philosophy 271, 274, 314
of recording 108–9, 185, 194, 220–1; Harris, Albert 105, 137
“Prospects of Recording” essay Harris, Bill 142
108–9 Harrison, Lou 269, 340
Gowers, Patrick 205–6, 207 Harvey, Richard 334
Gramatges, Harold 164, 265; Fantasía Hatzinikolaou, Antonis 337–8
para Guitarra 164 Hauser, Hermann 55, 359
Gramophone Company see His Master’s Hawaiian steel guitar 21
Voice Havana 38–9, 63–4, 68, 163
Granados, Enrique 32, 33, 35, 43, 45, Haydn, Joseph 88, 99, 238, 295, 305,
67, 70, 89, 100, 126, 132, 134, 135, 350, 353
141, 201, 241, 363, 365, 367; Barrueco Head, Brian 343
recordings of 298; Bream recordings Heck, Thomas 301–2
of 294; Rey de la Torre recordings Henderson, Forbes 262
of 132, 134, 135; Segovia recordings Hendrix, Jimi 340
of 43, 45, 88, 89, 100; Williams Henze, Hans Werner 181, 183, 243,
recordings of 198, 201; works: Danza 262, 264, 269, 270–1; 329; works: An
Española (No. 5) 32, 33, 45, 67, 89, Eine Aölsharfe 271; Drei Tentos 181,
100, 126, 132, 141, 241, 365, 367; 243, 262, 264; Memories aus dem
Danza Española (No. 10) 45, 89, 298; “Cimarrón” 264; Royal Winter Music
Intermezzo from Goyescas 134; La 183, 264, 270–1, 329
Maja de Goya 70, 132, 198; Valses Hernández, Antonio 26; Semana Santa
Poéticos 201, 363 en Sevilla 26
Gray, Steve 334 Hernández, Santos 54
Index 423

Heymann, Klaus 352–4 Jobim, Antonio Carlos 128, 282, 284,

Hidalgo, Sebastián 63–5 333, 339; Barbosa-Lima recordings of
Hill, Eric 180, 293; all-Torroba LP 293 282; Sharon Isbin association with 339
His Master’s Voice (label) 17, 38–61, 71, Johnson, Lawrence 304–5; Sor recording
74, 88–9, 91, 106, 136, 289; “black” project 304
label series 42; “plum” label series 42; Jolivet, André 247
“red” label series 43 Joplin, Scott 280–1, 314
Hispavox (label) 113, 224–5, 232–4, 309 José, Antonio 334
historical composer recording projects
300–5 Kagel, Mauricio 265; Match for Three
HK Marco Polo (label) 353 Players 265
HMV (label) see His Master’s Voice Kamei, Dean 342
Holeček, Josef 261 Kanengiser, William 342
Holliger, Heinz 245 Käppel, Hubert 314
Holmquist, John 355 Karadaglić, Miloš 364–8; marketing of
Holzman, Adam 355 365, 367; pop star image 367
Horowitz, Israel 101–3, 105–7, 111, Kekuku, Joseph 21
116–17, 349, 357; infuence on Kernis, Aaron Jay 341–2
Segovia album programming 101–3; Kerstens, Tom 356
on Pythian Temple 110; recording Kitaguchi, Isao 359
and producing Segovia 106, 107, 111, Knab, Thomas J. 348
116–17; remastering Segovia 349–50; Kohl, Randall 65
views on Segovia 59, 98, 101 Kolb, Barbara 269, 343
Houghton, Philip 335 Kolomoku, Walter 21
“house” guitarists 258–9, 266, 301, 353, Korchinska, Maria 46
362–8 Korde, Shirish 341
Howe, Steve 212 Koshkin, Nikita 273–4, 331–2, 355;
Hunt, Oliver 263; works: Barber of works: Piece with Clocks 332; The
Baghdad 263, 343; Garuda 262 Prince’s Toys 273, 332; Usher Waltz
Hurok, Sol 90 274, 332
Hyperion (label) 274, 316, 317, 335, 336 Kotzia, Eleftheria 328, 356
Kozinn, Allan 38, 220, 277, 296
Ilett, Rosalind 348 Kraft, Norbert 328, 354–6
Illarionov, Dimitri 355 Kreisler, Fritz 44, 48
International Talking Machine Krivokapić, Goran 355
Company 72 Kyra (label) 271
Inurrieta, Juan 30–1
Isaka, Hiroshi 322 Lagoya, Alexandre 12, 108, 247, 251–2,
Isbin, Sharon 271, 284, 297, 300, 318–19, 257, 288; on editing recordings 108;
339–340, 344; audiophile engineering Philips recordings 251–2
of early recordings 318–9; Bach Lang, David 338
transcriptions 297; contemporary Lansky, Paul 343–4
music commissioning and recording LaPorte, Guy 248
339–40; Latin American themed Latin American guitar music: music 4,
recordings 339 10, 11, 32, 62–82; 146–7, 312, 334, 339,
Italian guitarists 68, 234, 235, 237, 249, 343, 345, 347–8, 366; Alirio Díaz and
288, 304, 351, 362 Venezuelan music 157–9; Brazilian
classical guitar, emergence of 78–82,
jazz 31, 93, 136, 137, 138, 141–4, 147, 147–52; and classical guitar canon
170, 178, 205, 212–13, 257, 278, 306–14; developments in 146–65; early
281–2, 284, 310, 320, 332, 333, 345 classical guitar recording in 62–82;
Jeffery, Brian 301, 304 guitarists, Rio de la Plata 68–78,
424 Index

152–7; guitar culture, documentation 188, 189, 183, 201, 212, 213, 228,
of 62–3, 146–7; and Latin American 231–2, 236, 238–9, 240, 242–3, 245,
“corrective” 10, 11, 63, 146 258, 261, 294, 296–8, 301, 333, 338,
Lauro, Antonio 134, 158–59, 198, 339, 344, 346, 354
248–49, 274, 276, 288, 308, 310–12, Lutoslawski, Witold 334
316, 331, 334, 337, 339, 347, 354,
358; works: Concerto for Guitar and MacCombie, Bruce 271, 339; Nightshade
Orchestra 159, 274; El negrito 311; Rounds 271, 339
Seis por derecho 311; Sonata 311; Machover, Tod 343, 344
Suite homenaje a John Duarte 311; MacMillan, James 338
Suite Venezolana 311; Triptico 311; Malats, Joaquín, Serenata Española 32,
Vals Criollo (Vals No. 3, “Natalia”) 43, 45, 70, 125, 158, 171, 234, 245
198, 288, 311; Venezuelan Valses 134, Malukoff, Anatole 126–7, 129, 130
159, 249, 288, 311 Manén, Joan 101, 115; Fantasía
Laursen, Patti 289, 290, 291 Sonata 101
Lecuona, Ernesto 126, 136, 314 Marco, Tomás 267
Lee, Noel 134 Marina, Carmen 128
Leon, Cesar Meneses 126 Maroto, Sebastian 250, 330
Leisner, David 303, 340 Marshall, Ingram 342
Legnani, Luigi 304 Martin, Frank 181; Quatre Pièces Brèves
Leloup, Hilarión 34 181, 252, 260, 334
Levinson, Mark 323 Martin, George 214, 346; In My Life
Libaek, Sven Erik 235 recording project 346
Lifeson, Alex 278 Martone, Elaine 348
“light” music 136, 141, 210 Massini, Esteban 68
Lindström Company 24–5, 72 Matoušek, Miloslav 273–4
Linn Records (label) 344 MCA (label) 87, 94, 104, 105, 111,
List, Kurt 175 258, 349
liveness, recapturing in classical guitar McCabe, John 243, 338
performance 319–24 McFadden, Jeffery 355
Llobet, Miguel 23, 27–30, 33, 35, 40, 45, Melodiya (label) 154
70, 75, 79, 133, 152, 154, 157–8, 235–7; Mendelssohn, Felix 10, 30, 45, 48, 99,
performance style 29–30; recordings of 180; Canzonetta 45, 48, 180, 231, 303,
27–30; Segovia opinion of recordings 354, 359; Song Without Words (Op. 19
30; Torres guitar 30; works: Catalonian No. 6) 96
folksong arrangements 29, 30; El Mercadal, Juan 187, 191
Mestre 29; El Testament d’Amèlia 29, Mercury (label) 110, 115, 139, 141, 143,
30, 126, 142, 235, 366 175, 188, 257
London Globe (label) 227 Meridian (label) 180, 262, 316–17
London International (label) 225 Mertz, Johann Kaspar 4, 271, 303
López, Gustavo 160 Mexican guitarists 66, 312–13
López, Manuel 25 Mexico 10–11, 21, 32, 43, 62–3, 65–6,
Lorca, Federico García 134, 181, 68, 146, 159–61, 235, 312–13; classical
273, 336 guitarists recording, late 1920s and
Lorengar, Pilar 244 early 1930s 66–8; Edison and Victor
LP record 9, 11, 20, 87–90, 92, 121; recordings 63–6; mid-twentieth
adoption by Segovia of 95–105; century classical guitar scene 159–62
emergence of 87–95; improvements Milan, Luis 35, 88, 96, 105, 121, 126,
over 78 rpm 94 132, 143, 162, 164, 244
Lucas, Nick 21–2, 127, 170 Mikulka, Vladimir 272–4, 315, 332
lute music 6, 40, 41, 44, 55, 91, 96, 104, Mills, John 359
128, 138, 171–2, 174, 180, 182, 186, Minella, Aldo 324
Index 425

Minshull, Ray 185 North America: classical guitar

miscellaneous/miscellany album marketplace, emergence of 120–4;
programs 9, 11, 87, 91, 97, 98, 99, classical guitar recording in 120–45,
102, 105, 111, 125, 132, 134, 179, 180, 267–72, 287–91, 338–45; North
221, 227, 249, 270, 281, 290, 293, 337, American progressives: rise of 267–72
345, 355 Northcott, Bayan 269, 338
Mompou, Federico 104, 289; Suite Nunes, Milton 151–2
Compostelana 104, 289 Nupen, Christopher 205; John Williams
Monk, Thelonius 333 at Ronnie Scott’s documentary 205
Montevideo 68, 69, 71, 87, 155, 350
Montoya, Ramón 26 Obrovská, Jana 246, 274; Six
Moore, Gerald 19 Preludes 246
Morel, Jorge 128, 142, 281, 282, 310 Odeon (label) 24, 30, 34–5, 68, 72–4,
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 32, 78–81, 88, 148, 152–5; recordings of
154, 179, 295, 298, 342; Barrueco Barrios 72–5
transcriptions 298 Ogden, Craig 335–7; British repertoire
Mozzani, Luigi 249 335–6
Mudarra, Alonso 4, 96, 215, 244 Ohana, Maurice 227–8, 231, 247, 252,
Murcia, Santiago de 138, 294 265; Tres Gráfcos 227–8
Murray Schafer, R. 328; Le Cri de Ojembarrena, Anselmo 32
Merlin 328–9 Olcott-Bickford, Vahdah 23
Musart (label) 160 Olf, Mark 127
Musgrave, Thea 243 Oller, Gabriel 124–30
Musical Heritage Society (label) 238, Olsen, Stein-Erik 328
295, 300, 344 Omega Quartet 356
Musicraft (label) 47, 90–1, 98, 131, 174 online music consumption and the
MusicMasters (label) 295, 329, classical guitar recording 369–70
350, 356 Oraison, Jorge 73, 314
Mussorgsky, Modest 299; Pictures at an Orbon, Julián 132
Exhibition (arr. Yamashita) 299 Ortega, Jesús 163–4, 314
Myers, Paul 200, 204, 205, 208 Ossman, Vess L. 20
Myers, Robert E. 139, 288 Otermín, Julio J. 69
Myers, Stanley 213, 214, 216, 281, 345 Ovation guitar 214
Mysliveček, Martin 273–4 Oyanguren, Julio Martínez 70, 79,
121–3, 126, 147, 307; Columbia and
Narváez, Luys de 4, 58, 102, 115, 121, American Decca recordings 121–2;
244, 264 early Victor recordings 70
Naxos (label) 352–6
Nazareth, Ernesto 147, 149, 284, 307 Paganini, Niccolò 88, 96, 127, 130, 180,
Newman, Michael 304, 320–1; direct to 200, 238, 243, 295, 300, 304, 344, 354,
disc recordings 320–1 356; Malukoff recordings of 127, 130;
Newport Classic Premier (label) 340 Fisk recordings of 300, 356; works:
Nicola, Isaac 163 Caprices 295, 300, 344, 356; Grand
Niedt, Douglas 281–2 Sonata in A (Op. 39) 180, 201, 246;
Nimbus (label) 331, 335, 336 Sonata in C (Op. 25) 243; Terzetto
Nin-Culmell, Joaquín 131, 132, 134, 265; Concertante 238; Quartet No. 7
Six Variations on a Theme of in E 238
Milan 132 Panorama de la Guitare, Erato recording
Nitsche, Eric 97 series 158, 239, 247, 355
NMC (label) 338 Panton (label) 273–4
Nogueira, Theodoro 150 Papandreou, Elena 332
Nonesuch (label) 307, 309 Papas, Sophocles 143
426 Index

Paraguay 17, 43, 69, 71, 75, 79, 307 142, 161, 237; Sonata Clásica 91,
Pardo, Mario 73 92, 104, 161; Sonata for Guitar and
Parkening, Christopher 114, 191, 200, Harpsichord 161, 202; Sonata III 42,
246, 258, 268, 275, 276, 287–91; 44, 366; Sonatina Meridional 91, 100,
Bach transcriptions 231, 246, 290; 161, 163; Sonata Mexicana 103, 104;
evaluation of Segovia’s sound 114; Sonata Romántica 104, 158; Suite in
infuence of Segovia on 288–90; A (after Weiss) 43, 45, 59, 88, 96, 158;
recording practice 191, 290–1; Segovia Suite No. 2 in D (after A. Scarlatti)
tribute recordings 350; work with Patti 88, 89, 115, 161, 313; 12 Preludes 98,
Laursen 289–91 100, 137, 235, 288; Theme, Variations
Parlophon (label) 25, 27, 33, 72 and Fughetta on a Theme by Antonio
Parras del Moral, Juan 32 de Cabezón 309; Thème Varié et
Pathé (label) 25 Finale 104, 199, 235; Tres Canciones
Patti, Adelina 19, 39, 40 Populare Mexicanas 29, 122, 198, 246,
Paula (label) 303 282; Valse (from Cuatro Piezas) 44,
Pears, Peter 172, 186, 335, 336, 364 48, 136, 161; Variations on “Folia de
Pennine Records (label) 263 España” and Fugue 43, 48, 151, 156,
Pérez, Roberto Moronn 351, 359, 369 211, 219, 261, 312
Pernambuco, João 79, 80, 148, 149, 248, popular music 13, 78, 93, 137–8, 141,
249, 314; Sons de Carrilhões 79, 81, 148 151, 212–13, 222, 280–4, 310, 314;
Petrassi, Goffredo 329 and canonization of Beatles 345–6; as
Philharmonia (label) 131–3 classical guitar repertoire 280–5
Philips (label) 151, 237, 249, 251–2, 292, Postlewate, Charles 282
302; and Alexandre Lagoya 251–2; post-Segovian narratives 257–86; album
and Luise Walker 237; and Pepe program, re-imagined 266–7
Romero 292, 302 Poulenc, Francis 234
phonomusicology and the study of Pozo, Antonio (El Mochuelo) 25
classical guitar recordings 1–7 Prat, Domingo 25, 53, 68, 69
Piazzolla, Astor 337, 352, 366 Presti, Ida 246–7, 249, 251, 257
Pickering, Norman 133 Pro Arte Digital (label) 284
Pincherle, Marc 91, 98, 103 programme record 95–7
Plaut, Fred 203 progressive paradigm in classical guitar
plucked string instruments 19–21 recording 13, 178, 181, 227, 231, 239,
Polášek, Barbara 247, 249 252, 260, 264–7, 267–74, 276, 327–30,
Polskie Nagrania (label) 347 333, 341, 343, 344, 348, 350
Ponce, Alberto 12, 98, 103, 227, 247, Prol, Julio 127
252, 311 Pujol, Emilio 4, 9, 29, 34, 35–6, 40,
Ponce, Manuel M. 4, 10, 29, 40, 42, 45, 56, 63, 69, 126, 128, 134, 135,
43–5, 48, 49, 59, 66, 77, 88, 89, 91–2, 152, 153, 155, 158, 172, 198, 301;
96, 98, 100, 103, 104, 115, 122, 136, Anthologie Sonore recordings 35; The
137, 142, 147, 149, 151, 156, 158, 160, Dilemma of Timbre on the Guitar 56
161–2, 163, 171, 180, 182, 198, 199, Pujol, Maximo Diego 328
201, 202, 211, 219, 235, 237, 246, 251, Puner, Samuel Paul 131
260, 261, 282, 288–9; association with Purcell, Ronald 28
Segovia 43–4; Julian Bream’s views Puyana, Rafael 103, 202
on 260; works: Andantino Variato Pythian Temple 110–11, 114–15, 184
96; Concierto del Sur 92, 103, 313;
Cuatro Piezas 44, 136, 313; Estrellita Qualiton (label) 308
43, 66, 149, 162, 237; Mazurka 44, Quijano, Pedro M. 29, 70, 125
48; Prelude from Cello Suite No.
1 (arr.) 44, 289; Prelude in E (after Rachmaninoff, Sergei 19, 51
Weiss) 288, 289; Scherzino Mexicano Rady, Simon 93, 97–8, 110
Index 427

Raeburn, Christopher 185 Reference Recordings (label) 351

Ragossnig, Konrad 190, 239–40, Regal (label) 30–3; guitarists associated
247, 249 with 32–3; “Viva tonal” technology 31
Rak, Štěpán 273–4, 331; Hiroshima 331 Regondi, Giulio 303
Ramírez II, José 76 Reinhardt, Django 333
Ramírez III, José 231, 350, 359, 360 Reich, Steve 341
Ramírez, Manuel 54, 76, 359 Reis, Dilermando 76, 147, 148
Ramirez, Simon 18, 26 Rey de la Torre, José 11, 18, 28, 41, 97,
Ramos, Carlos 127 108, 120, 125, 147, 163, 221, 232,
Ramos, Manuel López 161–2, 202, 247, 248, 258, 276, 304; double-tracking
312, 313; recordings of Ponce experiments 135; later recording
161–2, 202 career 131–5; LPs for Epic 133–5;
Rawsthorne, Alan 182, 190 SMC recordings 125, 129
RCA France (label) 161, 239, 247, 249 Ribeiro, Geraldo 152, 307
RCA Victor (label) 141, 105, 108, 110, Rifkin, Joshua 280
116, 139, 150, 152, 154, 159, 162, 171, Riley, Terry 341–2
172, 177, 182, 184, 185, 187, 190, 228, Rio de la Plata: classical guitar recording
252, 358, 259, 278, 307, 314, 350 in 68–78, 152–7, 308–10
RCA Victor, Brazil (label) 150, 307 Robichaud, Enrique 3–5; Guitar’s Top
RCA Victor, Mexico (label) 162 100 3
recording industry: in Brazil, early Robledo, Josefna 81
twentieth century 78–81; in Cuba, Rochberg, George 344; Caprice
early twentieth century 63–5; in Variations 344
Mexico, early twentieth century 63–5; rock music, interaction with classical
in North America, mid twentieth guitar scene 212–13
century 93–4, 120–44; in Rio de la Rodes, Rosita 35
Plata, early twentieth century 68–78; Rodrigo, Joaquín 35, 92, 103, 132, 133,
in Spain, early twentieth century 24–7, 137, 144, 153, 159, 177, 186, 194,
30–33; international classical guitar, 202, 203, 208–10, 225–7, 230–1, 233,
1960s 257–9 251–2, 291–3, 333, 366–7; Almeida
recording model: consolidated 11; recordings of 137, 144; Anido
deconstructed 12–13; established recordings of 153; Bream recordings
8–10; interrogated 11–12 of 177, 186, 194, 333; Díaz recordings
recording practice: audiophile recording of 159; Karadaglič recordings of
3, 132, 160, 176, 187, 314–19, 324, 348, 366–7; Lagoya recordings of 251–2;
357, 359–60; digital effects 342; digital Rey de la Torre recordings of 132,
recording 210, 211, 221, 293, 312, 319, 133; Romero (Angel and Pepe)
349–50, 358, 359, 370; “direct to disc” recordings of 291–3; Sainz de la
recording 319–24; and high fdelity 115, Maza recordings of 35, 92; Segovia
138–40, 175–6; and lo f characteristics recordings of 103; Tarragó recordings
128–31; and microphone 3, 18, 20, of 233; Williams recordings of 202,
23–4, 30, 50, 51, 52–3, 70, 75, 92, 106, 203, 208–10; Yepes recordings of
110, 115–16, 121, 129, 134, 175–6, 225–7, 230–1; Concierto de Aranjuez
184–5, 187–91, 193, 208, 217–18, 220, 35, 92, 144, 186, 194, 203, 213,
279–315, 317–18, 321–22, 324, 346, 208–10, 225–6; 230, 233, 237, 251,
349, 356, 357; monaural recording 115, 258, 284, 292–4, 309, 312, 333, 337,
116, 139, 140, 176; and plucked string 347, 353, 364, 366–7; Concierto para
instruments, early period 20–4; stereo una festa 292; Elogio de la Danza 292;
recording 116, 128, 135, 139, 140–1, En Los Trigales 137, 153, 155, 177,
176, 184, 187, 188, 208, 221, 226, 226, 233; Fandango 103; Fantasía para
229, 265, 317, 349–50; technological un Gentilhombre 103, 164, 202, 203,
conditions in early period 18–20 213, 227, 230, 251, 292, 309, 312, 366;
428 Index

Invocación y Danza 159, 352; Sonata 154–60, 170–1, 173–5, 198–200,

a la Española 237; Triptico 252; 227–34, 249–51, 287–9, 294–7, 301,
Zarabanda Lejana 132, 133 305–6, 310–14, 348–52, 359; at Abbey
Rodriguez, Aldo 314 Road Studios 50, 52, 91–3; album
Rodriguez, Ignacio 32 artwork 97–8, 102; at American Decca
Rodríguez, Manuel 54 87–119; American Decca recordings,
Romance de Amor 26, 123, 148, 160, 225, sound 115–17; classical guitar in
241, 289, 322, 337 post-war period, redefning 93–4;
Romanillos, José 30 classical guitar performance, acoustics
Romea, Alfredo 34 111–14; critiques of performance style
Romero, Angel 291, 292 56–60; early classical guitar recording
Romero, Clara 163 aesthetics 49–56; early post-war
Romero, Pepe 291, 292, 302 recordings and long-playing (LP)
Roncalli, Ludovico 103, 243 format 87–91; frst Ramírez guitar 54;
Rouse, Christopher 340 frst recording 38–9; at HMV (1923–
Ruderman, Martin 138 1939) 38–61; in the recording studio
Russell, David 311, 347–9 106–9; legacy in North America 287–
91; LP and early recorded programs
Sachs, Curt 35 94–8; North American backdrop to
Saga (label) 293 120–45; performance style 56–60;
Sainz de la Maza, Eduardo 234 reception of HMV recordings 46–9;
Sainz de la Maza, Regino 34–5, 81, 92, high fdelity recording aesthetics
128, 157, 160, 225, 233, 235, 274, 348; 109–11; repertoire and recording
Andaluza 35 El Vito 35 strategy 39–46; repertoire
Salinas, Francisco 32, 66–7, 123, 159, programming and album concept
162; evaluation of recordings in 98–106; Segovian paradigm
BMG 67 reinstated post-1990s 349–52; sound
Santórsola, Guido 237; Concertino for of HMV recordings 49–56; tone
Guitar and Orchestra 237 production 55–6
Santos, Joaquín dos 81 Sensier, Peter 62, 78
Santos, Turibio 151, 152, 180, 247, 248 78 rpm discs 3, 9, 17, 20, 32, 35, 40, 41,
Sanz, Gaspar 4, 35, 113, 121, 126, 138, 45, 50, 52, 57, 65, 69, 75, 88, 89, 90,
153, 158, 164, 213, 234, 264, 294 92, 94–5, 96, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124,
Sardinha, Anibal Augusto (Garôto) 79, 148, 152, 155, 232, 234, 235, 246, 258,
80, 147, 283, 343 307, 317, 319; basis of early market
Sarenko, Wassilii Stepanowitsch 303 for classical guitar recording 258;
São Marcos, Maria Livia 151–2, 180 boxed album format 88, 122, 123;
Satie, Erik 215, 271, 281, 290 conditions of recording 18–20, 51,
Saumell, Manuel 126, 163, 265 319; recording time limit 9, 20, 40, 41,
Sávio, Isaías 122, 149–51, 152, 161, 45, 75, 94, 96; remastering to LP and
238, 339 CD 17, 56, 29, 308, 349
Scarlatti, Alessandro 88, 115; Ponce Shand, Ernest 170
Suite No. 2 in D (after A. Scarlatti) Shaw, Harold 90
88, 89, 115, 161, 313 Shearer, Aaron 268
Scarlatti, Domenico 88, 154, 155, 159, Shibe, Sean 337–8
206, 231, 237, 251, 261, 295, 298, 346 Shine Horn (label) 362
Scheit, Karl 172, 228, 238–9 Shuttleworth, John 316
Schneeweiss, Kurt 333 Siegel, Samuel 21
Schumann, Robert 74, 81, 96, 106, 126, Siewers, Maria Isabel 73, 154, 309–10
148, 236, 303, 359; Träumerei 74, 81 Silva, Jesús 162
Schweitzer, Albert 41 Simões, Ronoel 17, 78, 147
Segovia, Andrés 9–11, 28–30, 38–60, Sisley, Geoff 67, 121, 122
71–2, 74–6, 81–2, 87–143, 151–2, Sky (band) 212–16
Index 429

Small Queen’s Hall (London) 52 329, 334, 336, 339, 341, 348, 351–2,
SMC see Spanish Music Center 359–60, 363–4, 365–6, 368–9
Smith, Neil 263 “The Spanish Guitar” (BMG column)
Smits, Raphaella 112, 347 123–4
Sojo, Vicente Emilio 158, 252, 311, Spanish Music Center (label) 124–7, 132,
312, 316, 334, 347; Five Pieces from 307; lo-fi recording aesthetics 128–31;
Venezuela 252, 311 recordings 124–8
Söllscher, Göran 216, 228, 297, 345–6; Spanish music industry 30–1, 224–5
alto guitar in Bach recordings 297–8; specialist classical guitar recordists
Beatles albums 345–6 356–7
Sony Classical (label) 334 Starobin, David 268–71, 343, 368; New
Sooy, Harry 18, 65 Music with Guitar series 269, 330,
Sooy, Raymond 18, 65 343–4
Sor, Fernando 4, 9, 10, 26, 27, 28, 29, steel strung guitars 21, 22, 23, 76–7,
34, 40, 47, 52, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 141, 148
82, 89, 92, 96, 97, 99, 104, 115, 121, Steidl, Pavel 273–4
123, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, Steinweiss, Alex 97
134, 136, 139, 141, 150, 158, 162, 169, Stingl, Anton 202, 244; recordings of
171, 172, 173, 174, 179, 180, 199, 200, 244–5
226, 227, 230, 231, 234, 237, 242, 247, Stover, Richard “Rico” 71, 72, 75, 77,
249, 251, 264, 271, 272, 288, 294, 298, 260, 267, 306; assessment of late
301, 303, 304, 314, 317, 322, 333, 1970s US classical guitar scene 267–8;
348, 354–5; large-scale Sor recording Barrios research 306
projects 304–5; Segovia edition of 20 Stroh, Johann Matthias 19
Sor Studies, recordings of 89, 125, Stutz, Reiner 358
180, 199, 288; works: First Grand Supraphon (label) 152, 190, 239, 245–6,
Sonata (Op. 22) 97, 125, 131, 132, 141, 272–3
172, 174; Grand Solo 4, 179, 298, 322;
Second Grand Sonata (Op. 25) 69, Takemitsu, Toru 269, 284–5, 329–30,
96, 97; Study in B minor (Op. 35 No. 337, 346; guitarists’ recordings of
22) 28, 29, 162, 234; Variations on a 284, 329–30; All in Twilight 329,
Theme of Mozart (Op. 9) 4, 40, 47, 330; 12 Songs for Guitar (Beatles
52, 96, 200, 237, 242, 294, 298, 348 arrangements) 284, 330, 345, 346; To
Soria, Luis 34 the Edge of Dream 330; Toward the
Soundboard, Latin American guitar Sea 269, 330; Vers l’arc-en-ciel,
scholarship in 147, 306; “Just for the Palma 330
Record” column 358 Tanenbaum, David 270–1, 330, 340–2,
Sound Environment Recording Corp. 368; American identity in recordings
(label) 271, 318 340–2; recordings of Hans Werner
Soundset Recordings (label) 332 Henze 270–1
Sowiak, Oksana 245 tango 67, 69, 70, 71–3, 74, 78, 80, 81,
Spain, early classical guitar recording in 121, 337, 366; guitarists in Rio de la
17–37; mid-twentieth century Spanish Plata 70–1, 73
recording artists 224–35; Spanish Tansman, Alexandre 98, 100, 104, 105,
repertoire traditions 9–10, 41, 43, 45, 234, 235, 262, 309, 352, 359; Cavatina
46, 58, 64, 66–70, 73, 74, 79, 81–2, 89, Suite 98, 100, 262, 289; Suite in Modo
100–5, 120–4, 126, 128, 131–3, 136–7, Polonico 103, 104
139–40, 141–2, 148, 150, 152–5, Tárrega, Francisco 4, 9, 10, 25–8, 30,
156–9, 160, 162, 164, 172–3, 177, 178, 32–5, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 52, 53, 56,
179, 181, 183, 197, 198, 199, 201, 206, 58, 64, 66–70, 71, 73–4, 77, 80–1, 88,
212–3, 225–8, 231, 232–5, 236–8, 240, 96, 99, 115, 121, 123, 125, 127, 128,
241, 244, 245, 248, 250, 251, 261, 129, 133, 134, 136, 139, 141, 142, 147,
265–6, 275, 288–9, 291–4, 298, 308–9, 148, 149, 150, 154, 158, 159, 162, 171,
430 Index

172, 180, 189, 197, 201, 224, 225, 226, Aires de la Mancha 201; Castillos de
231–6, 249, 251, 276, 279, 288, 292–3, España 104; Concierto de Castilla
295, 317, 333, 336, 345, 347, 352, 233; Danza 41; Guitarra Española
355, 359, 365, 366, 368; recording of suite 233; Homenaje a la Seguidilla
Maria-Gavota 27; school of classical 292; Madroños 227, 234; Piezas
guitar performance 9, 28, 30, 32, 34, Caracteristicas 88, 103, 234, 292;
56, 64, 67, 69, 70, 71, 73, 80, 81, 148, Romance de los Pinos 288; Sonatina in
159, 197; works: Adelita 25, 67, 141, A 41, 53, 96, 155, 173, 199, 246, 251,
142, 148, 149; Alborada 129, 142; 293; Suite Castellana 32, 41, 67, 123,
Capricho Arabe 32, 33, 67, 68, 70, 153, 199, 237, 245, 292
74, 125, 249, 293, 345, 359; Danza Toselli, Enrico 81
Mora 34, 67, 125; Estudio Brillante de Tower, Joan 339
Alard 35, 43, 125, 129; Gran Jota de Truhlár, Jan 246
Concierto 34, 35, 236; Lágrima 142, Tucker, Robert 77
162, 180; Marieta 35, 67, 162, 180, Turina, Joaquín 4, 10, 39, 41;
189; Recuerdos de la Alhambra 32, 34, Fandanguillo (Op. 36) 39, 41, 49,
35, 39, 41, 52, 53, 125, 128, 153, 234, 53, 81, 91, 141, 173, 240, 245, 281;
279, 288, 333, 345, 352, 363, 365, 366 Fantasía Sevillana (Op. 29) 234, 308;
Tarragó, Renata 56 Homenaje a Tárrega (Op. 69) 172;
Taylor, John 51, 356–7; Tone Production Soleares 128; Sonata for Guitar
on the Classical Guitar 356 (Op. 61) 137, 172, 237, 251, 252
Teicholz, Marc 355
Tejada, Miguel Lerdo de 66 United States see North America
Telarc (label) 347–9 Urban, Štěpán 245
Teldec (label) 339–40 Urlik, Sheldon 55, 359
Telefunken (label) 236 Uruguay 63, 68, 69, 76, 87, 121, 147, 149,
Tennant, Scott 359 155, 156, 237, 248; guitarists of 70, 73,
Teppaz (label) 158 122, 149, 155, 156, 266, 314, 328
Terri, Salli 138
Tippett, Michael 328, 335, 340; Songs Valdes-Blain, Rolando 125, 129,
for Achilles 335; The Blue Guitar 328, 132, 141
335, 340 Valenti, Al 127–8
Titanic (label) 303 Van, Jeffrey 271
Tomás, José 233 Vanguard (label) 157, 158, 172, 190,
Torres, Ana 329; Mil y una caras 329 236, 258
Torres Jurado, Antonio de 54; Torres Van Halen, Eddie 299
guitars 23, 30, 317, 359 Vees, Jack 342
Torroba, Federico Moreno 4, 10, 32, 41, Venezuelan music 157–9
43, 49, 53, 67, 70, 82, 88, 89, 91, 92, Verdery, Benjamin 340–2; American
96, 98, 103, 104, 123, 128, 134, 136, identity in recordings 340, 342;
151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 173, 174, 176, innovative production approach on
179, 199, 201, 227, 232, 233, 234, 237, Soepa 342
245, 246, 248, 251, 273, 276, 288, 292, Verdi, Giuseppe 64; Il Trovatore,
293, 336; Bream recordings of 173, Hidalgo arrangement of Miserere
174, 176, 179; Funes recordings of from 64
155; Hill recordings of 293; Romero Veyron-Lacroix, Robert 161
(Angel) recordings of 292–3; Segovia Victor Talking Machine Company 21,
recordings of 41, 43, 49, 53, 88, 89, 31, 39, 40, 47, 49, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68,
91, 92, 96, 98, 103, 104; Tarragó 69–70, 72, 73, 121, 148, 152;
recordings of 232–3; Williams in Japan 305
recordings of 199, 201; works: Vidal, Robert J. 239, 247, 309
Index 431

Vidović, Ana 355 Wagner, Richard 128

Vieaux, Jason 343, 345; recordings: Waldteufel, Emil 66
Images of Metheny 345; Play Walker, Luise (also Louise) 12, 28, 131,
343, 345 236–8
vihuela music 4, 6, 35, 58, 62, 96, 164, Walker, Timothy 261, 284
172, 215, 226, 228, 306, 313 Walton, William 4, 182, 186, 194, 262,
Villa-Lobos, Heitor 4, 10, 40, 81–2, 91, 335, 336, 338; Five Bagatelles 4,
96, 99, 105, 122, 126, 129, 133, 134, 182–3, 194, 262, 335–6, 338
136, 137, 147, 149, 150–2, 154, 155–6, Washington (label)
163, 173–4, 176, 179, 180, 181, 189, Weiss, Sylvius Leopold 44, 88, 96, 103,
190, 194, 198, 201, 206, 227, 230, 234, 138, 143, 158, 161, 238, 249, 251,
235, 238, 239, 248, 249, 251, 271, 273, 288, 289, 290, 309, 314, 354; Ponce
274, 276, 282, 283, 288, 289, 293, 306, “hoax” Suite in A 43, 45, 59, 88,
308, 309, 310, 312, 314, 328, 332, 337, 96, 158
352, 354, 366; Almeida recordings Werner, George J. 65
of 136, 137; Bream recordings of Westminster (label) 115, 151, 171–6, 177,
173–4, 176, 179, 180, 181, 189, 190, 180, 197, 199–200, 262
194; Carlevaro recordings of 155–6; Whitehouse, Brian 359–60
Dyens recordings of 332; knowledge Wildhagen, Heinz 229–30
of guitar and its repertoire 82; Wildner (label) 356
Ragossnig recordings of 239; Rey Williams, John 169, 330, 343; acoustic
de la Torre recordings of 133–4; São choreography on Echoes of Spain
Marcos recordings of 151–2; Santos 220–1; crossover projects 212–17;
recordings of 248; Segovia recordings Delysé, Westminster and CBS, early
of 81–2, 91, 96, 99, 105, 147; Williams recordings 197–203; development
recordings of 198, 201, 206; Yepes of recorded classical guitar sound
recordings of 227, 230; works: Choros 217–21; early recording aesthetic
No. 1 81, 82, 122, 133, 149, 155, 203–4; later recordings for and post-
235; Concerto for Guitar and Small CBS 334–5; Latin American guitar
Orchestra 82, 137, 151, 152, 248, 266; music 334; multi-track recording
Five Preludes 82, 96, 99, 129, 136, 150, 205–6, 208–10, 221–2; Patrick
151, 152, 154, 156, 173, 190, 194, 201, Gowers, recordings of 205–6, 207;
206, 230, 234, 239, 249, 251, 289, 308, recording and repertoire experiments,
352, 366; Suite Populaire Bresilienne 1970s 204–10; recording career late
82; 12 Estudos 82, 91, 96, 151–2, 181, 1950s-early 1980s 197–223; recording
198, 230, 238, 239, 248, 288, 328 of Cavatina 216–7; relationship with
Visée, Robert de 34, 35, 45, 58, 88, 96, CBS label 258–9, 206–7; Rodrigo
126, 151, 179, 242, 245, 246, 249, Concierto de Aranjuez, second
250, 290 recording of 208–10; solo guitar
Vista (label) 263 recordings, construction of in studio
Viuda de Aramburo 25 210–11; Stephen Dodgson, recordings
Vivaldi, Antonio 203, 215, 238, 245, 251 of 201–3; “virtuoso” themed albums
Von Bahr, Robert 315–16 200–2
Vox Turnabout (label) 236, 238, 239, Williams, Len 197, 240
245, 268, 298, 309 Williams, Mason 213
Windham Hill (label) 343
Wade, Graham 3, 38, 40, 136 Wolfe, Julia 338
Wager-Schneider, John 262; critiques
of recordings in Soundboard “Just Yamashita, Kazuhito 113, 298–300,
for the Record” column 358; The 305, 322, 342; arrangement and
Contemporary Guitar 267 recording of Mussorgsky Pictures at
432 Index

an Exhibition 299–300; direct to disc 230; Spanish contemporaries of

recordings 322; views on acoustics 113 232–5; 10-string guitar 231–2
Yáñez, Octaviano 65–7, 159; guitarra Yes (band) 212
septima 66; Mexican Dance York, Andrew 343, 345, 359; Sunburst
(Habaneras) 65 343, 345
Yang, Xuefei 362–4; work with Stephen Yoshimatsu, Takashi 337
Goss 363–4 Youngstrom, Kenton 359
Yepes, Narciso 225, 266; and
contemporary music 266; at Zanon, Fabio 356
Deutsche Grammophon 228–32; Zappa, Frank 341
Bach recordings 231; Deutsche Zea, Luis 311
Grammophon, recording and Zelenka, Milan 12, 231, 245–6
production aesthetics 228–30; early Zen-On (publisher) 77
recordings, Spain 224–8; Jeux Interdits Zepoll, Gustavo see López, Gustavo
26, 225, 234, 235; recordings of Zigante, Frédéric 355
Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez 225–6, Zonophone (label) 24, 72, 78s