BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE JUNE 1994 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR The final two decades of Andrés Segovia’s long life coincided with many developments in the contemporary repertoire and a sense of change generally in the structure of guitar recitals. In particular the influence of the Early Music movement, at the peak of its progress in the 1970s and 80s, made it rather unfashionable to perform music of the vihuela or baroque guitar eras, let alone music for the […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE MAY 1994 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR In 1956 Segovia had begun a new phase of his recording career, with Israel Horowitz as his producer at Decca. Thus Segovia’s work in the studios between 1956 and 1977 produced over 20 recordings, some previously mentioned in this series. Allan Kozinn summed up Segovia’s total recording career, as follows: Segovia’s recording career falls basically into four main periods of coda; but since Segovia’s style remained basically consistent […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE APRIL 1994 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR During Segovia’s customary North American tour in the early months of 1963, during which he celebrated his seventieth birthday, he was invited to perform for the President’s cabinet under the honorary chairmanship of Mrs. John F. Kennedy. Note: This is part 15 of a 17-part series from the Classical Guitar archive. The concert, entitled An Evening with Andrés Segovia, took place in the State Department Auditorium on 18 March, 1963. The […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE MARCH 1994 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR Andrés Segovia began 1962 with his customary tour of the United States, playing in Chicago, New York, Columbus, Toronto, Montreal, Glen Falls, Rochester, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Diego, Baltimore, New Orleans, Atlanta, Savannah, Cleveland. Note: This is part 14 of a 17-part series from the Classical Guitar archive. For several of these concerts he performed a concerto and some solos, a blend which nowadays would […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE FEBRUARY 1994 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR Andrés Segovia began 1961 in his habitual manner, giving 39 recitals in the United States between 17 January (Akron, Ohio) and 29 April (the final concert at Town Hall, New York). On 27 January he also performed at Town Hall, New York. The programme, which included six pieces by Albéniz, was reviewed by The New York Times: …time has done nothing to weaken Mr. Segovia’s artistry. If anything, […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE JANUARY 1994 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR As we have seen, 1959 witnessed the celebration of Segovia’s Golden Jubilee Anniversary of 50 years of recitals since his debut at the Centro Artistico, Granada, in 1909. Segovia was 66 years old in 1959 and at the time it must have seemed that his career was now entering its autumnal and final phase, a rich Indian summer but with limited horizons for the future. But, as we […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE DECEMBER 1993 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR At the beginning of 1958 Segovia celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut in New York (8 January, 1928), with a recital at Carnegie Hall on 12 January. His programme included Sonata by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Roussel’s Segovia, Fandango by Rodrigo, and Madronos by Moreno Torroba. On 29 January Segovia played Ponce’s Concierto del Sur and CastelnuovoTedesco’s Guitar Concerto at the Brooklyn Academy, backed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. Note: […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE NOVEMBER 1993 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR In 1955 the image of Andrés Segovia received a particular boost by the publication of a book about him by Bernard Gavoty, musicologist and (at the time) music critic of the Figaro. Entitled Segovia and issued in the Great Concert Artists series (published by René Kister of Geneva), it was one of a series of books commemorating such luminaries as Artur Rubinstein, Wanda Landowska, Wilhelm Kempff, Yehudi Menuhin, […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE OCTOBER 1993 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR Our previous column looked at some of the publications which involved Andrés Segovia as editor or dedicatee between 1945 and 1954. These days of musical harvest continued well into the next decade, laying down a remarkable diversity of works many of which are still of immense interest in the guitar repertoire today. This flow of editions is comparable with Segovia’s prolific publishing output of new works in the […]]]>
BY GRAHAM WADE | FROM THE SEPTEMBER 1993 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR We have seen in earlier articles how Segovia commissioned and edited many works throughout the 1920s and 1930s, establishing for himself an even wider repertoire. But the patterns of his published works in the aftermath of the Second World War were even more varied. A considerable amount of music coming off the presses provided a stock of repertoire which exerted not only an enormous influence on the up […]]]>