Testimony on the Course with Segovia at Geneva by Piero Bonaguri (from: Il Fronimo, N.42, January 1983; with kind permission from the magazine)
My participation at Segovia’s Masterclasses at Geneva is an event that will leave a permanent mark in my human and artistic experience.
Since I began studying the guitar (15 years ago by now), I had always desired to meet Andrés Segovia and study with him, even if I doubted that this dream would ever come true. In more recent years, however, in my work I had been trying to be aware of the great example that the figure of Segovia represents: most of all, his love for music and the guitar, his capacity to emphasize every fragment of beauty contained (and sometimes concealed) in the music that he performs, but also his dedication to his work, his tenacity in reaching the objectives he would set for himself. The personal encounter with the Maestro put me to work and to wait, even if it certainly went beyond all my expectations. I’ll now try to briefly recall some of my memories and impressions.
The first thing that struck me about Segovia’s personality was the seriousness and the passion with which he dedicated himself at the course, in other words, his love for work: always extremely punctual, often ahead of schedule, generous in granting his attention and his time (the first day he worked from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for the auditions and from 4p.m. to 8 p.m. in class, in front of the CBS crew; during the course, each of the 10 students received 11 private lessons), patient in putting up with the “siege” of admirers during the breaks before and after the lessons.
However, the most impressive thing was his way of teaching the lesson and especially his astounding ease with which he understood and communicated the musical meaning of every phrase, of every note; this quick intuition that translates into concrete suggestions (move, add or take away a legato, a portamento, an elision, mark an accent, etc.) gives its “natural” expression back to the music; one would realize that “that’s how it is” and asks himself how he didn’t think of it before…
This teaching style is the direct opposite of pedantry because, most of all, it is the communication of an “intelligence” while dealing with the musical fact, and from the moment that the student tunes in to this intelligence, all the particulars start to go to their place, to form an “order, that is to say more definitively, form, the form in which the creative effort culminates” (Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music).
This way Segovia favors the establishment of a personal relationship between the student and the music, so everyone can feel how their own personality is respected and appreciated; this can only happen within a rigorous respect for the music (Segovia is ready to block any intemperance!), respect that in turn is the expression of a love. The Maestro said to a student who was playing Bach, “First you need to be precise, observe everything written in the music; but then, without losing this rigor, you need to put love into the performance, without which the playing loses its meaning. Of an artist without love it was once said: he is perfect, but nothing more.”
It seemed that most of all Segovia feared the reduction of the musical fact to its merely “mechanic” aspect, with the likely consequence of a search for instrumental effect to its own end; for this reason, among other things, the Maestro suggests to moderate the use of some chitarristic effects (for example, the portamento, so common in the music of Tárrega and Llobet, that would be limited to the few cases in which it were essential. “With too many portamenti the guitar becomes a weepy instrument!”)
Another point on which Segovia is uncompromising is the “cult” of speed. I remember some phrases of the Maestro: “You need to be dictators and not slaves of technique.” Villa-Lobos said to one who was playing his 4th Prelude too quickly: “You seem like a machine… without a driver.” And still: “When you get up on stage, before you start playing, I would like to say to you: slower!”
Some “amnesia” afflicted upon a student provides the cue to talk about memory: Segovia explains that memory needs to be most importantly musical and not visual, and needs to be accompanied by a deep understanding of the fingerboard of the instrument, as to be able to immediately transport a passage from one position to another (to obtain this result the Maestro advises to practice finding all the possible positions of single notes and chords).
Often Segovia invites us to play more softly: “the guitar,” he says, “is a persuasive instrument, it must persuade, and so it should be played piano.”
Piano, of course, but with clarity; for this reason the Maestro often suggests substituting harmonics with the real notes, most of all when one plays in large halls in which the harmonics, particularly the artificial ones, become like violins in that orchestra in which the conductor said: “I hear the violins that aren’t playing!” (The problem of harmonics is accentuated by modern nylon strings).
Even through these concrete suggestions a fully loving respect for the instrument is revealed to us, joined with that healthy realism that comes from decades of the Maestro’s experience; these are the two qualities indispensable for whomever wants to seriously promote the development of the guitar and its full insertion into the world of music.
Another subject of great interest during the course was the repertoire. Almost all the works presented by us students belong to the “segovian” repertoire; among these, the compositions of contemporary authors like Ponce, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Villa-Lobos, Turina, Torroba, often had their beginning, as we know, from a tight collaboration between the composers and the Maestro; this fact, among other things, permits us to consider the fact that Segovia had made some modifications to a number of pieces under a particular light, even after the publication; while dealing with music for guitar it was necessary for the experience of the performer, subjecting the piece to the “training” of years of concerts, to suggest the interventions that made up for the inevitable gaps of the composer (who could say to know, at the beginning of the 1900’s, “how you write” for guitar?). Segovia affirms, on the other hand, to have not ever wanted to play works that weren’t adapted to the sonority of the instrument.
The course was also the occasion to recall that profitable collaboration between composer and performer from which many important pages of our repertoire were born (like the Variations and Fugue on the ‘Folia de España’ written in “complete spiritual communion” with Segovia, such that much in this piece was suggested by the instrumental resources of the guitar; and this is one more reason to scrupulously observe Segovia’s fingering that here is truly one body with the music).
As the course went along and the Maestro’s authority was more and more asserted, I would think back spontaneously to the numerous courses in which I participated under the guidance of Alirio Diaz and Oscar Ghiglia and I recognized in these the clean imprint of the musical setting and didactics of Segovia; the effective existence was confirmed, summing up, of a “Segovia school” that remains an irreplaceable point of reference, a precious heritage that constantly taps into a lesson of rigor and taste for beauty.
The days of the course passed in a hurry. After the last lesson all the touched students crowded around the Maestro who said, “I noticed that the things that I said to you weren’t always accepted; but when you’ll grow older you’ll understand that they were right! Anyhow, it’s when I don’t say anything that you should worry: it’s a sign that I can’t do anything…”.
The day after we were busy preparing the final concert; the Maestro brings a bunch of strings made for him by Mrs. Augustine. She measures them one by one with a gauge, helped by Mrs. Segovia, chooses the perfect ones and distributes them to us, “For tomorrow!”
Andrés Segovia is also this.
My participation at Segovia’s Masterclasses at Geneva is an event that will leave a permanent mark in my human and artistic experience.
Since I began studying the guitar (15 years ago by now), I had always desired to meet Andrés Segovia and study with him, even if I doubted that this dream would ever come true. In more recent years, however, in my work I had been trying to be aware of the great example that the figure of Segovia represents: most of all, his love for music and the guitar, his capacity to emphasize every fragment of beauty contained (and sometimes concealed) in the music that he performs, but also his dedication to his work, his tenacity in reaching the objectives he would set for himself. The personal encounter with the Maestro put me to work and to wait, even if it certainly went beyond all my expectations. I’ll now try to briefly recall some of my memories and impressions.
The first thing that struck me about Segovia’s personality was the seriousness and the passion with which he dedicated himself at the course, in other words, his love for work: always extremely punctual, often ahead of schedule, generous in granting his attention and his time (the first day he worked from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for the auditions and from 4p.m. to 8 p.m. in class, in front of the CBS crew; during the course, each of the 10 students received 11 private lessons), patient in putting up with the “siege” of admirers during the breaks before and after the lessons.
However, the most impressive thing was his way of teaching the lesson and especially his astounding ease with which he understood and communicated the musical meaning of every phrase, of every note; this quick intuition that translates into concrete suggestions (move, add or take away a legato, a portamento, an elision, mark an accent, etc.) gives its “natural” expression back to the music; one would realize that “that’s how it is” and asks himself how he didn’t think of it before…
This teaching style is the direct opposite of pedantry because, most of all, it is the communication of an “intelligence” while dealing with the musical fact, and from the moment that the student tunes in to this intelligence, all the particulars start to go to their place, to form an “order, that is to say more definitively, form, the form in which the creative effort culminates” (Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music).
This way Segovia favors the establishment of a personal relationship between the student and the music, so everyone can feel how their own personality is respected and appreciated; this can only happen within a rigorous respect for the music (Segovia is ready to block any intemperance!), respect that in turn is the expression of a love. The Maestro said to a student who was playing Bach, “First you need to be precise, observe everything written in the music; but then, without losing this rigor, you need to put love into the performance, without which the playing loses its meaning. Of an artist without love it was once said: he is perfect, but nothing more.”
It seemed that most of all Segovia feared the reduction of the musical fact to its merely “mechanic” aspect, with the likely consequence of a search for instrumental effect to its own end; for this reason, among other things, the Maestro suggests to moderate the use of some chitarristic effects (for example, the portamento, so common in the music of Tárrega and Llobet, that would be limited to the few cases in which it were essential. “With too many portamenti the guitar becomes a weepy instrument!”)
Another point on which Segovia is uncompromising is the “cult” of speed. I remember some phrases of the Maestro: “You need to be dictators and not slaves of technique.” Villa-Lobos said to one who was playing his 4th Prelude too quickly: “You seem like a machine… without a driver.” And still: “When you get up on stage, before you start playing, I would like to say to you: slower!”
Some “amnesia” afflicted upon a student provides the cue to talk about memory: Segovia explains that memory needs to be most importantly musical and not visual, and needs to be accompanied by a deep understanding of the fingerboard of the instrument, as to be able to immediately transport a passage from one position to another (to obtain this result the Maestro advises to practice finding all the possible positions of single notes and chords).
Often Segovia invites us to play more softly: “the guitar,” he says, “is a persuasive instrument, it must persuade, and so it should be played piano.”
Piano, of course, but with clarity; for this reason the Maestro often suggests substituting harmonics with the real notes, most of all when one plays in large halls in which the harmonics, particularly the artificial ones, become like violins in that orchestra in which the conductor said: “I hear the violins that aren’t playing!” (The problem of harmonics is accentuated by modern nylon strings).
Even through these concrete suggestions a fully loving respect for the instrument is revealed to us, joined with that healthy realism that comes from decades of the Maestro’s experience; these are the two qualities indispensable for whomever wants to seriously promote the development of the guitar and its full insertion into the world of music.
Another subject of great interest during the course was the repertoire. Almost all the works presented by us students belong to the “segovian” repertoire; among these, the compositions of contemporary authors like Ponce, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Villa-Lobos, Turina, Torroba, often had their beginning, as we know, from a tight collaboration between the composers and the Maestro; this fact, among other things, permits us to consider the fact that Segovia had made some modifications to a number of pieces under a particular light, even after the publication; while dealing with music for guitar it was necessary for the experience of the performer, subjecting the piece to the “training” of years of concerts, to suggest the interventions that made up for the inevitable gaps of the composer (who could say to know, at the beginning of the 1900’s, “how you write” for guitar?). Segovia affirms, on the other hand, to have not ever wanted to play works that weren’t adapted to the sonority of the instrument.
The course was also the occasion to recall that profitable collaboration between composer and performer from which many important pages of our repertoire were born (like the Variations and Fugue on the ‘Folia de España’ written in “complete spiritual communion” with Segovia, such that much in this piece was suggested by the instrumental resources of the guitar; and this is one more reason to scrupulously observe Segovia’s fingering that here is truly one body with the music).
As the course went along and the Maestro’s authority was more and more asserted, I would think back spontaneously to the numerous courses in which I participated under the guidance of Alirio Diaz and Oscar Ghiglia and I recognized in these the clean imprint of the musical setting and didactics of Segovia; the effective existence was confirmed, summing up, of a “Segovia school” that remains an irreplaceable point of reference, a precious heritage that constantly taps into a lesson of rigor and taste for beauty.
The days of the course passed in a hurry. After the last lesson all the touched students crowded around the Maestro who said, “I noticed that the things that I said to you weren’t always accepted; but when you’ll grow older you’ll understand that they were right! Anyhow, it’s when I don’t say anything that you should worry: it’s a sign that I can’t do anything…”.
The day after we were busy preparing the final concert; the Maestro brings a bunch of strings made for him by Mrs. Augustine. She measures them one by one with a gauge, helped by Mrs. Segovia, chooses the perfect ones and distributes them to us, “For tomorrow!”
Andrés Segovia is also this.