Erik van Goch -> RE: Segovia and flamenco (Feb. 10 2013 14:38:39)
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ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha Bearing all that in mind a few years ago I went back and listened to all Segovia. Spent about two weeks listening to it every day whilst running. It was hard work. Lots of shallow self indulgent readings of half baked pieces. Some creditable Castlenuevo Tedesco, dreadful Bach, the excellent Mompou I mentioned above. There was no Britten, no Frank Martin no Walton. True there was a lot of colour. But there was also an awful lot of changing colour in the middle of a line, ruining the line. Trampling on the structure and harmonic rhythm. A lot of the time it seemed that he was just trying to use the pieces to show off his style and to hell with the form. ME ME ME his playing says. Your remark about changing color in the middle of a line (ruining the line) reminds me to a similar remark i made in this link, claiming that in Segovia's world the distinction between important and less important notes was not linked to musical function and melodic importance but to the question "can i make this note sound great". Notes that offered the guitars best possible sound often received his major attention (like it was blasfemie to deny the audience any less) but this preoccupation with sound (favoring the best sounding notes over others) structurally undermined melody/rhythm/interpretation. Since he gave "the Segovia treat" to all pieces they all end up sounding the same, with indeed little or no attention for style and composition. At the time Segovia was second to none as far as sound was concerned and he opened the eyes of a whole generation by showing the full and unexpected sound potential of the guitar. But his over-fixation on producing "the best possible sound" makes it impossible to me to enjoy his recordings (as far as i can remember i never did). Segovia was very proud that he was a self made man, but in retrospect that was also his weakness (as far as form and interpretation is concerned). But like i said, he did show us the full and at the time unexpected sound potential of the guitar so he certainly deserves a place in history. there was quite a stir about my remarks in this treat. http://www.foroflamenco.com/tm.asp?m=205171&mpage=2&p=&tmode=1&smode=1&key=ramirez
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