From: radams@cerritos.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Subject: Re: Recuerdos de la Alhambra 
Date: 22 Jan 93 17:59:47 PST
Followup-To: rec.music.classical.guitar
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA

In article <basinski-220193141323@lully.biosci.arizona.edu>, 
basinski@biosci.arizona.edu (Mark Basinski) writes:

> - I gave the example of performing the piece as a 2 part
> thing for singer and guitar. Do you really think that having a guitarist
> play the tremolo and having a singer sing the the "accompaniment" would
> be a convincing musical performance? This is not to say that the
> accompaniment
> should not have musicality, but that the top voice is a song!
> 
>    You're comment about "the first time I heard the piece" only shows 
> how often the piece is misplayed. Performing Recuerdos in such a way the
> the tremolo takes on the characteristic of a singing voice is actually very
> difficult, and the natural gravity of the thumb makes the bass part
> overwhelmingly "noticeable" if the performer isn't careful. The melody
> *should* be in the foreground, and giving the proper continuous and
> dynamically varied phrasing to that melody is much more difficult and
> advanced than just playing ami over and over.
> 

I agree completely. Although I am sure that Segovia brought the thumb part out
as the melody on purpose, for some romantic or poetic idea (such as the
footsteps effect that another poster mentioned) , I also suspect that most
guitarists playing the piece with the thumb part predominating unwittingly
do so due to the heaviness of the thumb.  This discussion has brought out
the fact that a performer's artistic and even poetic intentions can interfere
with the musicality of a composition. That is, a story that the performer
develops about the music (possibly derived from the composer or influenced
by the composer) may cause the performer to trash the music, although he/she
may do so with the best of artistic intentions and even do so with commitment
and intensity. I do not intend to belabor this discussion of Recuerdos, but
the concepts that have been covered with just this one piece of music have been
very interesting. There are not too many pieces like this that everyone 
plays or has played that can be used as a springboard for discussions of
musicality, composer's intentions, historical context, performance precedent,
etc. 

I once was in a master class in which the teacher indicated that
performance precedence was much like legal precedence in the law profession
in that even if an interpretation is not what a composer intended or not
in line with the musical structure of the piece (as in Recuerdos) that it
nevertheless becomes an authoritative interpretation if its recorded by
a famous artist in that way. You then may have to take the pressure of
bucking the establishment of this precedence, even have people perceive
your more musically enlightened performance as "incorrect" :-).

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Mark Basinski      Internet: basinski@biosci.arizona.edu
-- 
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	Roger Adams
	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
	11110 Alondra Blvd                             A Hindu Proverb
        Norwalk, California 90650
	USA        		          293 Dwapara :-)
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Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar