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Segovia video
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Segovia video (in reply to Morante)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Morante
I saw Segovia live many years ago when he was about 80. But he was sensational, very clean and expressive, without amplification.
But he seems to have been very prepotente: didn´t treat people very well, even Ramirez 
I never met Segovia, nor heard him in person, but I am old enough to have experienced the finale of the era of the Great Maestro.
Both my trumpet teacher, Lloyd Geisler, Principal Trumpet of the National Symphony in the 1950s and first President of the International Trumpeters Guild, and R. L. Moore, Member of the National Academy of Sciences, President of the American Mathematical Society, immensely productive researcher and author, and mentor of 50 PhDs who dominated their field in the mid-20th century, were Great Maestros.
Also, during all four years I was in high school, fourteen generals lived on our street on Bolling Air Force Base. My father was one of them. He was a kind and loving father, but he was easier for the average person to get along with after a few years of retirement.
Having once attained the status of Great Maestro, such figures, like the Pope, were infallible when speaking ex cathedra. One did not question their direction as a student or their opinion in their field of expertise. The student was expected to behave with the humility appropriate to his lesser status.
A pair of anecdotes might illustrate.
The great violinist Isaac Stern did not insist upon the status of Great Maestro, nor did he take offense when students exhibited a degree of famiiarity. There is a video of him teaching an Israeli string quartet, advanced musicians at the graduate level. The quartet plays Beethoven vigorously, with technical mastery. At one point Stern raises a hand. The quartet stops instantly. Stern says, "Remember what we talked about yesterday?" and gestures for them to play. They repeat the passage, with different phrasing and expression. Stern nods in satisfaction. Afterward Stern is interviewed. He is asked whether he expects the quartet always to play the way he taught. "Of course not," Stern replies. "They are mature musicians. They are responsible for their own choices. But they need to know what the tradition has to offer."
The notorious video of the Segovia master class with Michael Chapdelaine affords a contrast. Chapdelaine starts to play a piece which was edited and fingered by Segovia. Segovia stops him, and corrects his fingering. Chapdelaine starts over, with the same fingering. Segovia stops him again. "Why do you change the fingering?" he asks. Instead of explaining, Chapdelaine, nervous at Segovia's obvious annoyance replies, "I thought it was a good idea." Segovia says, "If you come to me to learn my piece, I teach you my piece. If you want to learn something else, you go to someone else. Fuera!."
Kicking Chapdelaine out of the class is often cited as evidence that Segovia was an a**hole. Not necessarily. There had been a radical shift in manners between the time when Segovia became a Great Maestro and Chapdelaine's experiences as an advanced student. Chapdelaine intended no offense. In his experience it was okay to have a conversation with a teacher. Flustered by Segovia's annoyance he failed to explain himself. Segovia interpreted Chapdelaine's remark as rudeness and defiance, which it would have been 40 years before.
My two Maestros had great respect, even affection for their students. They were never rude. But if they were dissatisfied they expressed it quite clearly. Moore in particular never made a negative or critical remark to a student. He simply exposed the student's error with a penetrating question. If the student was embarrassed, so be it. Both Maestros had the student's best interests at heart.
But neither of them was your friend. Moore deferred to no living mathematician. He made many enemies on the University faculty by his superior attitude and biting wit. His successful students were utterly devoted to him.
Gelsler had a friendly and collegial relationship with his peers. He brought advanced students along to an occasional ensemble gig for performing experience.
Talking to Contreras padre, Manzanero, and Jose III, it was clear that Ramirez was himself a Great Maestro. But Segovia's approval was absolutely needed for Ramirez's business plan, so he had to treat the guitarist with the courtesy and respect due to a valued customer.
Jose III liked to tell the story of his great-uncle Manuel's generosity in giving Segovia a fine guitar for his Madrid debut. Could it have inspired Jose III's plan to enlist Segovia's support?
Many in Montevideo were harshly critical of Segovia's infidelity to his second wife Paquita Madriguera, but as adults Madriguera's daughters spoke well of him.
John Williams hasn't hesitated to bad-mouth Segovia. Williams's relationship with his father-his first teacher-and the egalitarianism of his Australian childhood contrasted sharply with Segovia's authoritarian manners and presumptuous attitude--as told by Williams.
The former Artistic Director of the Segovia Foundation, himself a noted guitarist and composer, never mentioned Williams's name. He called him "a mere virtuoso." The A.D. never deified Segovia's memory. He may not even have particularly liked him, but clearly saw him as a serious and important artist.
Several other Segovia students had nothing but warm praise for him.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 15 2021 23:07:25
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Segovia video (in reply to Morante)
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quote:
I saw Segovia live many years ago when he was about 80. But he was sensational, very clean and expressive, without amplification.
During a Washington assignment at the US State Department in the early 1980s, I had the great, good fortune to see a live performance of Segovia in 1982 at the Kennedy Center. He was 89 years old at the time, and his performance was magnificent.
It is awe-inspiring to be in the presence of greatness, whether it be Segovia; the great diplomat and Russian expert George F. Kennan, who was the god-father of the "containment" policy that eventually led to the demise of the Soviet Union; Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Heisenberg in physics; and any number of other men and women whose singular vision and follow-through changed the way we view the world and our place in it, be it music, diplomacy and international relations, cosmology and quantum mechanics, or anything else.
Such people possess more than genius; they possess something additional that is hard to define. I am reminded of something T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) wrote in his magnificent book "Seven Pillars of Wisdom, " his account of his two years leading the Arab revolt against the Turks in the First World War.
"All men dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the day to find it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
For they may act their dream with open eyes
to make it possible."
Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is a work of history, literature, and a description of desert warfare as he experienced it. It is still used in military command and staff colleges. That quote, however, hits the nail on the head in describing the type of genius that forges new paths that heretofore were thought to be impossible, if they were thought about at all.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 16 2021 0:11:25
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ernandez R
Posts: 739
Joined: Mar. 25 2019
From: Alaska USA
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RE: Segovia video (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
Here’s my mom:
What strikes me about this photo isn’t the obvious, it’s not the expressions of each listener, not the fact that she could be playing an original Torres, not her stunning beauty, but think about it, could any of us perform in front of a Segovia, a Bream, a Paco, without trembling hands?
HR
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
_____________________________
I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy,
doesn't have to be fast,
should have some meat on the bones,
can be raw or well done,
as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
www.instagram.com/threeriversguitars
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 16 2021 21:01:39
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. My mom said she was friends with Carlos Montoya. He asked my mom if she would be willing to share a concert and do a duet with him, and she told him he needed to work on his tone first.