Re: Algunos apuntes y reflexiones sobre la persona de Andrés Segovia
Angelo Gilardino dijo:
si Segovia hubiera sido politicamente orientado a la derecha nacionalista, que luego exploto en el levantamiento militar, como habria podido ser huesped calurosamente acogido en un regime sovietico, endonde la policia se enteraba de todo y de todos, y endonde un extranjero filofascista seguramente no habria sido admitido? Cuatro veces, aun mas evidente!
No creo que es posible llevar el hecho de cuatro visitas de Segovia la Union Sovietica como indicación de su pensamiento político
antes de la guerra civil española. A menos que me confundan, todas las declaraciones de Segovia que tienen cualquier connotación política en todos, fechan a partir después de 1936. Nada Antes. Por lo tanto, es enteramente plausible que como un artista sensible él habría entretenido el izquierdista e incluso ideas revolucionarias, pero después de estar presente en la Union Sovietica en 1936 y del tener testigo el exterminacion total por el régimen Stalinista de muchos artistas talentosos, algo de quién puede haber sido sus amigos, él se desilusionó.
Según escritores soviéticos como Agafoshin, Vaisbord, Volman y otros, Segovia, para ellos, era una persona con sentimientos distintas a la causa del marxismo-leninismo. Aquí está, por ejemplo, un artículo que Segovia publicó en Moscú durante su primera visita allí en 1926. Cuál es importante aquí no es lo que dice el artículo realmente, pero el hecho simple de su pulication en un revista oficial del "arte".
The Art to the Workers ISSKUSSTVO TRUDIASHCHIMSIA, 1926, no. 13, p. 13
Andres Segovia
The Guitar in Favor:
For many centuries the guitar was placed in a sort of vicious circle from which i'm trying to liberate it. There were no composers who would write music for this instrument because virtuoso guitarists did not exist: and virtuoso guitarists did not exist because there were no composers. Guitar was doomed as a sacrifice to the amateurs. With the exception of Sor and Giuliani, who lived in the beginning of the 18th c., and Tarroga (sic) who died 18 years ago, everybody who played or wrote for guitar were a pitiful mediocrity. That's why classic and contemporary composers regard the guitar in a patronizing manner.
If I can put it this way, the guitar was 'asleep' in the arms of the Spanish people who choose it to glorify their love impulse [affection]. However, the fate of this instrument was more significant and more lofty. Because the softness and tenderness of the sound, the richest polyphonic means, finest variety of timbre make from it an orchestra which is as though looked from the wrong side of binoculars and put it into front row of solo instruments.
The origins of the guitar are Arabic. I have neither time nor place to describe its history. In the 18th century, it was enriched by the literature for lute which is its famous sister. Then it falls into oblivion as a result of the appearance of harpsichord which was getting closer and closer to the piano. Composers stopped writing for the lute. At the end of the 18 c. the interest in the guitar reawakened in society and then Sor and Giuliani appeared. Perhaps thanks to these virtuosi, music for the guitar was reborn. Kreutzer's brother wrote several trios for flute, viola and guitar, Boccherni, several wonderful quartets, Weber, Theme and Variations for Guitar and Piano and several romances with guitar accompaniment, Schubert, Quartet and many songs. Paganini, charmed by the beauty of this admirable instrument, dedicated to the instrument three years after which the professional guitarist Giuliani and Berlioz the composer were astonished by his technique.
I mention here compositions written by composers who were non-guitarists only because with the exception of Sor and Giuliani, and later Tárrega, all writers for the guitar as I said already, were insignificant and banal. At present, thanks to my efforts, the guitar is in favor once again. The most important contemporary musicians dedicate to the guitar a part of their talent. I would like to awake empathy among Russian composers to this beautiful instrument, a wonderful transmitter of expressive folksongs.
I was asked why do I play a six-string and not a seven-string guitar. You can ask would a virtuoso violinist and cellist play on four and not on five strings. All the possibilities of playing on this instrument are included on six stings: an extra string strengthening the bass breaks the balance of the guitar's traditional volume and doesn't add any likeness. Dilettantes were always adding an extra string, being content with finger picking several trivial motives, instead of serious work on the instrument's technique. I would recommend they put one more finger on their hand instead of putting one more string on their guitar.
My article is too long though I didn't say even one hundredth of what I would like. But I cannot say goodbye without saying thank you from the bottom of my heart to the audience for really moving welcome they have given me."
El artículo fue seguido por una revisión de Segovia de un escritor oficial.
The Folk Instrument: E. Gall
In this concert one doesn't know what to be amazed of more, the mastery of Segovia or the guitar itself. And sometimes even more than Segovia it is the guitar itself which astonishes us more. Segovia we didn't know before, but who here hasn't known the guitar? Who is not used to treating this instrument with some scorn, the instrument which for its age, its dissemination and the role which it plays in our everyday life has full right to be called a folk instrument.
And who would think that this somewhat trivialized instrument the 'ugly duckling' could become a snow-white swan and could transform itself into an unrecognizable entity under the touch of a master?!
Segovia in the full meaning of this word recreated the guitar for us: and only Spain the country of the guitar and guitarists from time immemorial could create Segovia. Only on the basis of Spain's centuries-long culture of the instrument, a master of such magnitude, the master who knows the hidden and innermost possibilities of the instrument could be born. Enormous technique and purest intonation, the most refined nuances and taste conquer the listener and provoke admiration for his playing.
The artist had a purely exceptional success with our audience." (trad. del ruso por me, con al ayudo de mi esposa. Ya publicada en la thesis doctoral de Peter Segal, el reciente falecido traductor de las letras de Segovia a Ponce).
Es simplemente inconcebible que cualquier extranjero habría podido publicar a un artículo en una publicación soviética, sin primero ser aprobado por el censor político, y a la persona misma mirada por el policía secreto como amigo del régimen. Todo esto, por supuesto, no nos dice cualquier cosa sobre los sentimientos verdaderos de Segovia en ese entonces.
