The Repertoire - Part II
by George Warren
Once there was a useful commodity known as the philosophical
novel. In it the writer could go beyond the scope of an essay and under
battle conditions, so to speak, try out the ideas he'd developed. The
trick in reading it was to figure out, from the story line, what precise
axiom was being tested (the author--Swift, say, or Huxley--usually made
you work a bit at this).
The tradition's largely dead now. To find any trace of it at all these
days you have to go to science fiction, its last surviving refuge. Once
there, you find concepts that other types of novels largely pass by:
historical cycles, for instance. Isaac Asimov presents a futuristic
realization of the historical theory behind Gibbon's Decline and
Fall in his "Foundation" novels. Then there's the novel, The
Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, which presents,
in the guise of a deep-space thriller, a dense and compelling proposition
about the cyclic history of an alien civilization, which has disturbing
implications about our own Earthly history--and our lack of it...
The problem posed here is this: what if human history--like the alien
history in the novel--turned out to be a series of civilizations, blindly
built and destroyed again and again, each time separated by dark ages
in which continuity with the past was broken and no progress could be
made? In this regard the various Cro-Magnon cultures immediately come
to mind. And what do we really know of the Incas, or the Olmecs, or
the people of Mohenjo-Daro? What will the next civilization remember
of our own? Will they learn as little from us as we have from the Mayas,
or the monolith builders, or the citizens of the great city of Ebla?
The axiom being tested here, of course, is Santayana's: 'Those who can't
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' What a peculiarly Spanish
axiom that is. Could anyone but a Spaniard have come up with it?
But pardon my bemusement. I've been out on an archaeological dig, so
to speak, mining the earth for artifacts of a forgotten civilization.
And, guided by an expert's steady hand, I've broken into a sealed vault
and found buried treasure...
All right. Let's test an axiom ourselves. What if there exists an archive
of forgotten Spanish guitar music, buried fifty years or more, that
for sheer quality eclipsed virtually everything in the field that we
did know? What if--let me try to state this diplomatically--the Spanish
guitar music not written for, and performed by, Andrés
Segovia were to turn out to be immeasurably finer than the stuff he
did commission and play? Major names immediately come to mind. We are
just now, thanks to the late Leif Christensen, rediscovering Miguel
Llobet, composer and arranger. We have yet to fully explore the many
wonderful compositions of Emilio Pujol. There are others.
And then there's the "Generation of 1927"...
Generation of who? Yes, I know. You've never heard of them. Neither
had I until a little while back. But I've been going through some scores,
listening to unreleased tapes, and reading a bit of modern Spanish history--particularly
that of the short-lived Spanish Republic (1931-1936) and the brutally
sanguinary Civil War (1936-1939) that put paid to it once and for all.
Thus, looking over the shoulders of the Spanish intellectuals whose
careers were gutted by the War, I began to develop a totally different
view of 20th century Spanish music than the one I'd been used to.
Spain, like Ireland, is a nation of vaticides. James Joyce, speaking
of Irish art, called Ireland "an old sow that eats its own farrow,"
but he might just as well have been speaking of Spain. The cyclic seizures
which have devastated Spain every so often over the centuries have repeatedly
confronted its best n-dnds, its best artists and thinkers, with unpleasant
choices: shut up, get out, or die.
So it was with Spain's Moors and Jews, the nation's intellectual elite,
in 1492. So it was with Fernando Sor's generation, swept up in the tide
of the Peninsular War. And so it was with the young poets, artists and
musicians who came up in the wake of the great older generation which
produced Manuel de Falla, Joaquin Turina, Rafael Alberti, José
Ortega y Gasset, Juan Ramón Jimenez, Juan Gris, and Pablo Ruiz
Picasso.
When the Spanish Civil War at last broke out, polarizing the country
and setting brother against brother, the first casualties included a
nest of young artists and thinkers who figured among the friends and
associates of the retiring Spanish intellectual who reigned as high
priest of the classical guitar in Madrid during the late 1920s and early
1930s, Regino Sainz de la Maza. These friends included the poet Federico
Garcia Lorca, who dedicated two poems to him; the far-seeing and influential
critic Adolfo Salazar, who, upon leaving Spain, left his magnificent
music library in Sainz de la Maza's care; the rising composers Julian
Bautista, Salvador Bacarisse, Gustavo Pittaluga, Rodolfo Halffter, Rosita
Garcia Ascot, Fernando Remacha, and other members of the so-called "Group
of Madrid."
Of these the most spectacularly gifted and promising was Antonio José
(Martinez Palacios; he never used his family names), of whom Ravel said,
"He will become the Spanish composer of our century." Spain and
the world of music expected much from these people, and all of the composers
among them wrote guitar music for Sainz de la Maza to play and publish.
Behold how they turned out. On Aug. 11, 1936--a month and a day after
the war broke out--Garcia Lorca, bard of the group, was executed near
Granada by Falangist insurgents. Around this time Antonio José,
too, was arrested by the Falange; two months later he was shot to death
by another firing squad on a lonely hillside near Burgos. Salazar, their
stoutest supporter, escaped into exile a step ahead of the dogs; Remacha
retreated into 20 years of despondent silence; Halffter spent the War
years in Lisbon, and all the rest went into permanent exile and obscurity.
Of these last, only Bacarisse had the good fortune to escape to a country--France--which
was congenial to artistic careers. The rest lived out their lives in
artistically inhospitable places like Mexico and Argentina, which had
a hard enough time supporting their native talent (see, for instance,
the difficult lives led by Mexico's Manuel Ponce and Argentina's Alberto
Ginastera, the latter a long-time "internal exile" during the Peron
years).
Thus the light lit in 1927 was snuffed out. Since Segovia had no interest
in the music of Sainz de la Maza or the Group of Madrid, their memory
faded with chilling swiftness as a result. Fifty years passed and each
of them died, and with them Sainz de la Maza, whose efforts on their
behalf had enjoyed so little success during the 40-year reign of the
Franco government.
Before me stands a copy of one of the pieces written for Sainz de la
Maza: the 61-year-old Preludio y Danza of Julian Bautista, published
in 1933 by Unión Musicál Española, Madrid. The
cover lists several other pieces written by members of the group: two
Homenajes (to the 18th-century harpsichordist Mateo Albéniz
and the 1920s German expressionist film maker F.W. Mumau) by Gustavo
Pittaluga; a Pavana by Bacarisse; an Aria by Halffter; a Toccata by
their contemporary Joaquin Rodrigo, who, blind and apolitical, rode
out the war outside the country and then returned to it; and, most tantalizing
of all, a Sonata by Antonio José.
Of these, only the Bautista and the two Pittaluga pieces ever saw publication;
no trace of the Halffter, Bacarisse and Rodrigo pieces listed here has
yet been located, at least in part due to the extreme dislocations forced
on the composers during the War (most of Bautista's pre-War production,
for instance, was lost when his Madrid house was destroyed during those
dark years).
But there's a curious trick of history at work, which sometimes bails
us out when, fools that we are, we try to destroy that historical continuity
which alone keeps us from slipping back into barbarism: you only have
to pass the baton along once--if you pass it to the right person. Before
his death Sainz de la Maza taught, influenced, and accepted as his assistant
another young exile--Cuban-born, Venezuela-raised guitarist Ricardo
Iznaola. He told Iznaola about the Group of Madrid--and gave him a copy
of the cherished, long-hidden manuscript of the "'lost" José
Sonata, inscribed "a mi querido amigo Regino..." ("to
my dear friend Regino...").
Well, you begin to see where this leads, and who has been guiding my
steps through the ruins. It takes one exile, I suppose, to appreciate
another, and I've spent most of my adult life over three thousand miles
from where I was born and raised. When Ricardo told me about these artists,
I recalled a copy of that stunning Bautista piece which I've owned for
many years--I'd often wondered about those "lost" pieces.
He gave me copies of the extant treasures, and then leaked out to me
audiotapes he'd made of the finished works--tapes whose history, to
date, has been nearly as melancholy as that of the music on them (release
of his 1984 "Generation of 1927" recording has been stymied by an unscrupulous
recording firm, now in receivership, which can't release the tape, yet
won't relinquish rights to the performer). [Note: A 1996 Ricardo
Iznaola recording of 1927: Spanish guitar music from the time of
García Lorca is now available on CD. See below
for details.]
And now I have copies of the music before me, and I am listening, on
my office Walkman, to some of the most seductive and challenging guitar
music of our time: music which makes powerful statements to the listener
and extraordinary demands on the player, and which deserves--demands!--a
place on the programs of the next generation of guitarists.
Bautista's Preludio y Danza (UME 16953) is the only item previously
recorded (by Laurindo Almeida, around 1965), and is available through
the Guitar Solo mail-order catalogue. Despite its title, it is far from
simplistic, and its two movements, thematically related, encompass a
wide variety of moods and tempi. The "Danza" includes episodes of "lentamente"
recitative among the spirited 5/8 and 3/8 rhythms, and changes character
on occasion to quote from the "Preludio." Technically, it ranks with
the more difficult Villa-Lobos 6études, and has a crowd-pleasing
quality that could bring it wide, if belated, circulation.
Pittaluga's Homenaje a Mateo Albéniz (UME 16920) employs
frank--and charming--Neoclassicism in the same vein as Ravel's experiments,
using the resources of the instrument to great advantage. In the Elegia
(Homenaje para la tumba de Murnau) (UME 16954), however, we are
on quite different ground. Expressionistic use of chromaticism and a
weird cadenza-like opening featuring brooding, sweeping arrastres
introduce a dark and disturbing portrait of the film maker who, in Nosferatu,
gave us the first and most haunting of vampire movies. The pieces make
a striking pair, wildly contrasting as they are.
Also in the Neoclassic mode is the Española of Rosa Garcia
Ascot (UME 21641), the only female member of the group and wife of the
Spanish composer and critic Jesus Bal y Gay. This is an unpretentious
and charming dance tune interrupted every so often by a beguiling texture
trill in the treble, accompanied by a bouncing bass. Like the rest of
these pieces it uses the whole compass of the guitar, and will challenge
any but the most awesomely prepared player.
Other than the Bautista, the only other pieces on my tape which are
currently in print are the three by Bacarisse that Iznaola has excerpted.
These are the rollicking Zapateo (from the Petite Suite, Schott SCH
138); a lovely, lilting Ballade (SCH 137), à la sicilienne; and
a strong, athletic Passapied (GA 608). All are worth a place on anyone's
Spanish program--but pale beside the last item on the bill: the amazing
Sonata of José Antonio. Iznaola, its only contemporary interpreter,
regards the Sonata as "by far the most ambitious guitar piece written
by the 'Generation of '27"' and "perhaps the greatest piece for solo
guitar ever written in Spain." It is difficult to argue with him. My
previous candidate for this honor would have been the Fantasia-Sonata
of Juan Manen, written for Segovia, but this piece so surpasses the
thoroughly respectable Manen as to be a revelation.
It is a splendid piece, formally, for one thing: the spirited "allegro
moderato" which begins it introduces the themes which the sonata later
develops. The themes are dazzlingly Franco-Spanish (in the manner of
Debussy or Ravel) rather than slavishly folkloric. Echoes of this movement
appear in the pompous "Minueto" which follows, steadfastly refusing
to become a light-footed and facile dance.
The "Minueto" is followed by a beguiling slow movement, "Pavana Triste."
It's no more a pavane than a polka, of course, and its nod to Neoclassicism
is more ironic than historically accurate. It gives us a haunting melody
in dotted notes: accompanied song--a wistful and bittersweet serenade
worthy of Falla himself--with more than a touch of stately and dignified
dance about it.
George Shearing once told my friend the late John de Rose that the secret
of musical success was getting the beginnings and endings right; as
Charlie Chaplin put it, "I'm an entrances-and-exits man, basically."
The crowning glory of the José Sonata is the powerful, climactic
"allegro con brio" which ends it, and which knits it all together.
Here we begin to appreciate José's knowledge of sonata form.
Interspersed with episodes of the movement's driving, syncopated, toccata-like
theme, fragments of the other three movements slip into the action,
making one appearance after another. Some are disguised, some (quoting
the first movement) are literal, but, as Iznaola says, "with an added
dramatic urgency that only finds resolution in the triumphant, climactic
ending"--which I find almost orchestral in its effect. It may even be,
as Iznaola suggests, that we can hear in the last six chords of the
piece the six syllables of the last words José is said to have
spoken before the fusillade: "¡viva la música!"
Nothing remotely like this exists in the recorded Segovia canon--nothing
written by Spaniards, at any rate. Most guitar sonatas are light, short-winded
and lacking real drama; most of them cannot bear comparison with a halfway
well-written piano sonata. This piece is the exception. This is priceless
stuff--buried treasure exhumed. Watch for Iznaola's edited version one
of these days.
Voltaire once said that the worst fate he could imagine would be to
be executed in obscurity. This happened to José literally, and
to his generation in spirit. But there's a last act to this opera, and
maybe we can learn something from history this time after all.
This is the second in a series of articles adapted from "the
repertoire" columns by George Warren, published in Guitar Review.
This article first appeared in Guitar Review #80, Winter 1990. George
Warren, a Carmel Classic Guitar Society member, has written music reviews
for American Record Guide, Record Review, and Guitar
& Lute.
Links to related web pages:
History
of the Guitar in Spain (Guitarra Magazine article, including photo
of Regino Sainz de la Maza)
Generation
of 1927
The
Music of the Generation of 1927 in Spain: The Group of Madrid (pdf
file; essay by Rodolfo Betancourt, published in Guitar Review
in 1998)
Ricardo
Iznaola
Guitar
Review
