Jérémy Jouve - Guitar Recital
Rodrigo • Turina • da Milano • Britten • Arcas
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“This admirable instrument, as sober as it is
rich, sometimes roughly yet sometimes sweetly
masters the soul. Through the centuries it has
taken up into itself the values of noble
instruments which have passed away, has taken
those values into itself without losing its own
character which it owes, in its origins, to the
people itself.”
Manuel De Falla
(from the preface to Emilio Pujol’s School of Guitar)
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The works on this disc are a telling illustration of
Manuel de Falla’s astute observations on the nature of
the guitar: on the way the instrument has gathered the
history and repertoire of earlier plucked instruments, yet
has maintained close contact with popular music.
The ricercari and fantasies by the Italian renaissance
composer, Francesco da Milano are among the
masterpieces of the lute repertoire and, by extension, the
guitar repertoire. These pieces are ideally suited for
performance on the guitar because the renaissance lute,
for which Milano composed his works, closely parallels
the guitar’s tuning. In fact, with minor adjustment, a
guitarist can play the text of these pieces with no change
at all. Thus, a convincing performance relies primarily
on the guitarist’s ability to enter the sound world of the
lute and demonstrate sensitivity for the aesthetics of
renaissance music. Of course, this does not preclude the
possibility of an altogether different approach, one that
is equally convincing if the spirit and imagination is
bold and right, as demonstrated by the forays into
renaissance music by such figures as Segovia and
Respighi. Francesco da Milano was in the employ of
several popes and was the most published renaissance
lutenist. His fame and esteem were such that his music
appeared in numerous anthologies, both printed and in
manuscript, throughout the 1500s. He was referred to by
his contemporaries as Il Divino, a nickname he shared
with Michelangelo. The four works presented here are
taken from about a hundred or so of Milano’s solo lute
works. They are presented by the guitarist to form a kind
of suite .
The English composer Benjamin Britten was among
the greatest composers of the twentieth century. His
Nocturnal, Op.70, for guitar was originally conceived as
a lute piece. Fortunately for guitarists, Julian Bream
convinced Britten otherwise, explaining to the composer
the impracticality of writing for the lute, with its relative
dearth of players.
The Nocturnal is a series of seven variations and a
passacaglia on the song Come, heavy sleep by John
Dowland, a setting of which appears at the end of the
cycle. This is a form not unlike Britten’s Lachrymae,
Op.48, for viola and piano, also based on a Dowland
song. In the Nocturnal, originally entitled Night Fancy,
Britten is concerned with depicting in musical terms the
various psychological moods and qualities of sleep. The
composer of some of the great operas of the twentieth
century, he here created a powerful psycho-drama
within the intimate, interior voice of the guitar.
Each variation has a descriptive title, Musingly,
Very agitated, Restless, Uneasy, March-like, Dreaming
and Gently rocking. The passacaglia that follows the
variations is the main element in the piece, building
impetus with an obsessive reiteration of the bass theme,
itself derived from an interior voice of Dowland’s song.
The section builds to a series of climaxes and,
ultimately, to the theme itself. Written in 1963, this is a
seminal work for guitar in many respects: in its
dimensions and formal design, high intellectual content,
in its notational, textural and formal innovations, and
above all, in its dramatic and musical power.
If Benjamin Britten was inspired by the “the values
of noble instruments which have passed away” as
described by Falla, then Joaquín Turina clearly
recognized the values the guitar took ” into itself without
losing its own character which it owes, in its origins, to
the people itself”. His flamenco inspired Sonata (1931)
begins with a strong, powerful gesture followed by a
scale passage that makes a chromatic curlicue
downward to the low notes of the guitar. The sense of
what follows is one of transition as the music surges
forward toward the coquettish second theme. The
sonata’s two themes share elements, like the eye in the
yin/yang symbol. Here, it is the dotted rhythm. Elements
of the first theme dominate the development section
until the arrival of a straightforward recapitulation. The
movement ends with a golpe (a tap on the guitar’s body)
and a final chord. Most of the second movement is
evocative of cante jondo, its ornamental single lines
evoking the flamenco singing style interspersed with
short guitar interludes. The final Allegro vivo uses
material from the first movement to create exciting
flamenco dance music. In this sonata Turina
successfully combines French ideas of form derived
from César Franck and Spanish folk-music.
The clever wit of the Sonata Giocosa by Joaquín
Rodrigo is apparent in its very first chord. This chord is
voiced in open position with Rodrigo’s trademark minor
second dissonance placed in the lowest register. This
unique sonority is followed by a theme made up a of
crisp scale passage and a tune in parallel thirds and
fourths. By this point, we are fully aware that this piece
is in the neo-classical world of Stravinsky and Poulenc,
albeit with a Spanish flavour The form of the first
movement is as sharp and clear as the contents. The
presentation of the movement’s themes and the
demarcation of its section are delivered pro forma. The
second movement is in great contrast to the first. The
neo-classical disposition of the first movement leads us
to interpret the stressed second beat of the opening
measures as a saraband. It soon becomes apparent,
however, that this is melancholy processional music.
The shifts of mode and texture create a chiaroscuro
effect. In the final movement, an Allegro, the composer
employs many devices from his bag of tricks: the
alternation of 6/8 and 3/4, rasqueados (strumming
effects), piquant dissonances, portamenti and scale
bursts. These devices are used with such joviality as to
call into question the gravity of the second movement:
Perhaps it was just a funeral march for a marionette?
The figure of Francisco Tárrega looms large in the
annals of the guitar. He was an inspiring teacher to
Miguel Llobet (1878-1938), Emilio Pujol (1886-1980)
and to many lesser figures. In fact, Tarrega had what
could be described as “cult status” among his many
admirers, even though he rarely performed in public. He
was an excellent transcriber of works by Chopin,
Beethoven, Schumann and, above all, Granados and
Albéniz. In this endeavour he revealed many of the
guitar’s potentialities that would later prove inspiring to
composers, particularly in the hands of Andrés Segovia.
As a composer, Tárrega was most comfortable with
miniatures. His preludes and short dances are little
jewels. His Recuerdos de la Alhambra and Capricho
arabe are staples of the guitar repertoire. All of his
original works fall upon the guitar with great naturalness
and sensitivity.
Although often attributed to Tárrega, the Fantasía
sobre motivos de la Traviata is actually by the Spanish
guitarist Julián Arcas. This incorrect attribution could be
traced to a manuscript copy of this work that Tárrega
made for a student. At any rate, the style of the Fantasía
is more related to the previous generation of
guitarist/composers that include José Broca (1805-
1882) and Johann Kasper Mertz (1806-1856) than the
Spanish nationalistic style of Tárrega.
Mark Delpriora