Andrés Segovia and his Contemporaries Volume 16
The Guitar in Spain, Part 4
rec. 1928-55
Doremi DHR8150 [74]
This long-running series continues to excavate revealing discs from the 1930s but opens with a recording of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto No.1 played by Segovia at the Lucerne Festival with conductor Ataulfo Argenta in August 1955. Those familiar with Doremi’s edition will know that the previous volume also contained a recording of the concerto, a very murky 1939 broadcast from Montevideo. The good news is that the Lucerne broadcast is heard in much better sound which is almost on a par with the studio recording Segovia made earlier in London with Alec Sherman. The neo-classical allure of the work is sprucely and supply put across, the wind solos are effective and the slow movement is warmly expressive. The rustic, ‘national’ finale goes with necessary fire. You couldn’t have asked for a more sympathetic collaborator than Argenta.
Segovia heads an alluring list of guitarists, a few of whom are his senior in years – Antonio Sinópoli, for example, and the Mallorcan player Bartolome Calatayud – who play a richly varied repertoire. Viennese-born Luise Walker was making discs for Supraphon, amongst others, well into the 70s but the examples here date from 1932 and are reflective of her penchant for salon-scaled pieces extracted from Boccherini’s Guitar Quintet G451, and from Weber, played with graceful precision. The Cuarteto Aguilar is an anomalous ensemble in this context as they didn’t play guitars but four types of laúd – laudín, laudete, laúd and laudón. For so influential and admired an ensemble – the list of composers who wrote original compositions or arrangements for them includes Stravinsky, Turina, Rodrigo, Nin, Villa-Lobos and many others – their recorded legacy is exceptionally slim and these four sides, made in London in 1928, seem to be all that remains. Croft’s Allemande and Mena’s Tres Caprichos para vihuelas represent their Ancient repertoire whilst Turina their Modern. In everything their sonority is crisply tangy, wonderfully evocative in Turina and weirdly strange in Croft.
Victor Doreste and Ignacio Rodriguez recorded their four sides (two 78s) in 1930. Unfortunately, there’s an obtrusive noise throughout the first two of their tracks which sounds like the bottom of the cartridge hitting the disc as the needle tracks it. It probably isn’t that but that’s the effect, aurally. The frequency response is fine so one can listen through that defect to their fine playing of Tárrega and Albéniz. Antonio Sinópoli was the teacher, and father, of Nélida and their collaboration is effective but the 1932 Victor that represents them is afflicted with torrential noise and strange intestinal-sounding blips. I don’t know whether this is a particularly rare disc but it’s a great pity a decent copy couldn’t be located.
By happy contrast, Calatayud and Graciano Tarragó’s 1936 disc is in better estate. It apparently is rare, thought not to have survived the Spanish Civil War, but the copy here reveals a crisp partnership. I still wonder, though, about an apparent blip from 2:20 in track 16, a piece by Baltasar Semper, which seems to cause the music to speed up. Finally, we hear Consuelo Mallo López, Torroba’s favourite interpreter, and María Herminia Antola, in a salon arrangement of Mozart coupled with Alfonso Galluzzo’s Romanza No.2. This 1937 Victor houses some sonically vivid duo playing.
All credit to Jack Silver who has researched the project – his notes are splendid as ever – and dealt with transfers and restoration. He has clearly had a hard job with a number of these sides but the majority are in very listenable shape.
Jonathan Woolf
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Contents
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concerto No. 1 for guitar and orchestra in D Major, Op. 99
Andrés Segovia (guitar)/Swiss Festival Orchestra/Ataulfo Argenta, rec. 17 August 1955
Carl Maria von Weber: Menuetto for flute, viola and guitar from Donna Diana
Luigi Boccherini: Menuett from Guitar Quintet No. 7 in E major, Op.11, G. 451
Luigi Boccherini: Allegretto from Guitar Quintet No. 7 in E major, Op.11, G. 451
Luise Walker (guitar) with anonymous flute and viola, and anonymous quartet, rec. 1932
Joaquin Turina: Orgia (Danzas Fantasticas, Op. 22: No. 3)
William Croft: Allemande
Gabriel Mena: Tres Caprichos para Vihuelas
Joaquin Turina: Fiesta Mora em Tanger, from Album de Viaje: No. 5
Cuarteto Aguilar, rec. 1928
Francisco Tárrega: Capricho árabe
Isaac Albéniz: Sevilla from Suite Española, Op. 47
Folklorical: Folias – Canarias
Victor Doreste and Ignacio Rodriguez (guitars), rec. 1930
Antonio Sinópoli: Milonga No. 4 & Gato
Antonio Sinópoli: Vidalita
Antonio Sinópoli and Nélida Sinópoli (guitars), rec. 1932
Baltasar Semper: Só de pastera
Joan María Thomãs: Festa de Sant Antoni
Bartolomé Calatayud and Graciano Tarragó (guitars), rec. 1936
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Minueto from Symphony No. 39
Alfonso Galluzzo: Romanza No. 2
Consuelo Mallo López and María Herminia Antola (guitars), rec. 1937
