The belief that Spain is the homeland of the guitar, if considered from the viewpoint of a music historian, is a banality, because throughout the centuries, Italy has produced as much relevant guitar music as has Spain. Still, it is unquestionable that in Spain, the link between popular music and the guitar has made the guitar a sort of flag, or a symbol, not only of Spanish music, but of Spain’s culture and traditions in the broadest sense. The Spanish national school of composers is largely founded on the popular tradition. The composers associated with this style were born in the second half of the 19th century, and came to prominence at the beginning of the 20th century, including Romantic Spanish pianist-composers such as Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados, and later the greatest Spanish musician, Manuel de Falla. Strangely enough, these masters showed their affection for the guitar in an indirect and oblique way: instead of writing music for guitar, they preferred to evoke the sound and the harmonies of the instrument in their works for piano and, in the case of Falla, for orchestra. We have, in the history of the late 19th and the first two decades of 20th century Spanish music, two guitars: a real one, beloved by all composers, but for which almost none of them wrote; and a virtual one, a sort of ghost-guitar, appearing in many piano pieces and also in orchestral works, such as the piano and orchestra masterpiece by Falla, Noches en Los Jardines de España, which is — aesthetically speaking — a disguised guitar concerto. In this attitude, Spanish composers were not alone: in 1903, Claude Debussy wrote one of his piano Préludes, La Soirée Dans Grenade, with the guitar clearly in mind. He also recalled the soul of the guitar in other piano Préludes, such as Minstrels and La Sérénade Interrompue, in the orchestral Suite Iberia, and in the Quartet. And it would be easy, and perfectly legitimate, going backward in the history of music, to find the influence of the guitar on keyboard and orchestral music, dating back to the Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. It was then with quite good reason that the leading Spanish guitarist-composer of the late Romantic era, Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), started exploring the piano music of his contemporaries, and discovered that some works by Isaac Albéniz sounded very good on the guitar. His transcriptions — according to anecdotal witnesses, of which we have no documented evidence — were praised by Albéniz. Certainly several minor piano works of Albéniz and Granados have survived more in the cloths of the transcriptions created by Tárrega (and later by Llobet, Segovia and other followers) than in their original form. In a way, transcribing for the guitar works which were created by composers who wrote for piano while thinking of the guitar, was a sort of restitutio in pristinum. A significant example of a piano piece which has become a standard in the guitar repertoire, though it never entered the common repertoire of the pianists, is the Serenata Española by Joaquín Malats (1872-1912). Malats was an outstanding member of the glorious piano school of Barcelona, and he earned a worldwide reputation as an extraordinary virtuoso. He was one of the first pianists — perhaps the first in absolute — to perform the whole cycle of 12 piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz, entitled Iberia, and in a letter dated 1907 the composer openly declares: “I am writing Iberia essentially because of you and for you.” Malats was also a gifted composer, though he restrained his creative activity to short piano pieces. Two of them called the attention of Francisco Tárrega, who transcribed the Serenata Española and the Serenata Andaluza for guitar. The first piece was transcribed during the spring of 1900, while Tárrega was visiting the South of France (the manuscript is dated May 5th, 1900, Marsella). It was the beginning of a triumphant career for the piece: few virtuosos after Tárrega missed the Serenata Española in their recitals and recordings, and all their transcriptions (Segovia, Presti, Bream, etc.) were openly based upon Tárrega’s, perpetuated by his followers with just some individual adjustments. In fact, Tárrega’s transcription is excellent in giving full expression to the beauty of the melody. With the transposition from the original key (F minor, though in other versions it appears in G minor) one major third higher, the singing line shines, especially with the warm and lyrical expression added by the guitar. On the other hand, this transcription makes the harmonic-rhythmic texture of the accompaniment a bit too thin, and it changes the rather somber and “nocturne” character of the work, exposing it in perhaps too brilliant a light. This is why the author of these liner notes, in view of this recording, devised a transcription which is closer to the original piano text, with the goal of restoring the character of the work (here transcribed in E minor, with the possibility of performing it in F minor, the original key, with the use of a capotasto on the first fret) and the harmonic-rhythmic texture, which follows the melody and avoids leaving it with no structural support. Around the beginning of the third decade of 20th century, the arrival of Andrés Segovia on the international scene changed the attitude of composers toward the guitar. Segovia was able to capture the potential availability of many composers who felt moved by the sound of his instrument, and he stimulated them to write new works, regardless of their lack of competence in guitar technique. Such an open and encouraging attitude produced an enormous consequence: the birth of the new guitar repertoire of the 20th century. Since then, the ghost-guitar of Debussy and became a true guitar in flesh and bones through the works of many distinguished composers. From another side, the repertoire created in the decades between the two World Wars was only partially exploited by Andrés Segovia, whose style as a performer represented a discriminating filter of the new music. He was not a judge of the works written for him in strictly critical terms: he decided to include a certain work in his concert programs, or not, according to whether or not its character and its colors were suitable to his tone and to his phrasing. So, we inherited Segovia’s two repertoires: the pieces which he brought to fame with his concerts, recordings and editions, and the pieces which, in spite of their quality and dedication to him, were never blessed by his favor. The manuscripts of these latter works remained neglected in the personal library of the Spanish Maestro until when, in 2001, fourteen years after his death, the author of these notes was entrusted with the task of breaking the seals of the silence, and of bringing to light the little mine of music buried — but not burned — by Segovia. In this recording, Martha Masters performs some significant Spanish works coming from the “Linares discovery” (the manuscripts are guarded in the Segovia Museum at Linares, the little Andalucian town where Segovia was born), and it is no surprise to realize that they are, in their different styles and characters, in no way less significant than the celebrated pieces by the authors beloved by Segovia, such as Ponce, Moreno-Torroba, Turina, etc. The Suite entitled Cuadros (Scènes d’Espagne) was written by the French composer Raoul Laparra in about 1924. Laparra was one of the outstanding figures in the French music world at the time. Besides his activity as a composer, he was also a writer and a reviewer for Paris newspapers. Laparra spent most of his life in Spain, a country which he loved more than his homeland. Spain had been a source of inspiration for many French artists — writers and painters. It represented a sort of symbol for those Romantic composers who were fascinated by exotic worlds: first, Georges Bizet, and then Lalo and Chabrier. This passion was inherited in the beginning of the 20th century by new composers such as Debussy and Ravel. Laparra was fully immerged in that wave and, after meeting Segovia and listening to his concerts, it was natural for him to decide to write for guitar. Unfortunately, he did not go beyond this Suite — of which only Pueblo Castellano (A Castilian Village), survives in his original guitar form (we have the other two items only from the published piano version, which the composer prepared after his disappointment for Segovia’s indifference). All three pieces are built upon the rhythms of Spanish dances (Zortzico, Jota, Tiento), but upon such a popular background the composer displays his own imaginative ideas, with clear and winning melodies and an exquisite harmonic palette. While the outer movements are inspired by Spanish regions (Castilla and Aragón), Brujerías refers to legends of witchcrafts and sorceries, in the way of a musical tale. More or less in the same years (1924-25), in Madrid, Vicente Arregui Garay (1871-1925), at the end of his life, dedicated his last efforts as a composer to the guitar of Andrés Segovia, offering him the considerable gift of no less than five pieces, collected under the title Piezas Líricas. These works call for special attention, because they are the unique case of Romantic Spanish music written for guitar by a pianist-composer who gave up with the purpose of evoking the guitar through the piano and took the risk of writing directly (and quite successfully) for guitar. Such a change of attitude was clearly motivated by just one powerful influence: the rise of Andrés Segovia. Arregui’s pieces are delightful drawing-room music conceived with popular music in the background: the next step from Romanticism toward modernism would produce Federico Moreno-Torroba’s guitar works, and no one among those who are acquainted with guitar repertoire will miss the contiguity existing between pieces like Arregui’s Campesina and Moreno-Torroba’s Albada (just to suggest an example). However, we observe a certain difference of character between folkloric pieces such as the mentioned Campesina or the Tonada de Ronda — which create an elaborated echo to the songs and the dances coming from the road — and a piece like Confidencia, which suggests the atmosphere of the intimate, sentimental music which was in fashion in the parlors of all Europe around the end of 19th century, while Intermedio has a brilliant, capricious allure. 1925 was a special year in the career of Segovia and, in our eyes, it clearly represents the two faces of Segovia’s new repertoire, and their opposite destiny. In that year, he received the Fandanguillo from the Andalucian composer Joaquín Turina and the work of the Basque composer José Antonio de San Sebastián (Father Donostia). Of the former, the guitarist immediately made one of his battlehorses, and he did not pay any attention to the latter, aside from writing to its author that the work was unsuitable for the guitar. Actually, it had been written along the suggestions of Segovia, who encouraged composers to write freely for the instrument, because he would have adjusted their pieces so as to make them work on the guitar. Discouraged, Father Donostia turned his “failed” guitar piece to the piano, and two years later he published it — as a piano piece — in Paris. The philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch, who was also a scholar of Debussy, gave a high, warm praise to the work, after listening to it performed by the composer: a praise that, though not strictly needed by the already celebrated Segovia, would have been much more useful to the guitar repertoire than to the piano. In the 1927 edition, San Sebastián provided an explanation which is useful for correctly understanding the dramatic form of the work, entitled in Basque Errimina (Nostalgia in Spanish, which means Homesickness): “Argument — An exiled Basque dreams of his homeland, upon a rhythm of the dances of his youth. A moment of elated hallucination transports him back to his country. He believes himself to be there and to dance the old dances. The hallucination over, he falls into sadness. He knows that he will never see his homeland again”. Such a program is exploited in the music with a sad song floating on an obsessive pedal, suddenly interrupted by a visionary, fierce dance. The return to the reality of the exile is made heavier by the reinforcement of the bass, resonating like a dark bell and fading out into nothing. Errimina is a great piece of music that uses the guitar to the deepest of its powers. Conveniently edited — with no alteration of its musical substance ‚— it lies far above the quality of the Spanish music Segovia used to feature in his concerts and records. However, for demonstrating how candid he was in his appreciations, it is enough to consider that, after having rejected Errimina, he included in his repertoire another piece by Father Donostia (Dolor), written for piano! No better luck was found, at the court of the great guitarist, by the Catalan composer Jaime (Jaume in the regional language) Pahissa (1880-1969), one of the most advanced composers of Barcelona — a town where the links to European culture were stronger than elsewhere in Spain. Here the case is really a curious and amusing one. In his autobiography, Segovia refers of his contacts with Pahissa in quite good terms. He believed Pahissa was a composer devoted to work for big orchestral masses, and thus he felt he would never succeed with bending him toward the small sound and the delicate texture of the guitar. But really, since 2001 we know that what happened was exactly the opposite: Pahissa wrote a little piece for Segovia (Canço en El Mar) no later than 1919, and he was perhaps even quicker than Moreno-Torroba in answering the guitarist’s call for new music; Segovia guarded that sheet of music in his archive, but he never demonstrated being aware of its existence. This paradoxical situation lead the composer — after his exile to Argentina — to the most unbelievable behavior: between 1938 and 1939, he wrote three pieces for Segovia, but he never gave or sent them to their dedicatee. It was Pahissa’s widow who forwarded the manuscript to the guitarist in 1979! The titles of these three pieces make easy to understand their characters. The Preludio (Por el Viejo Camino — Along the Old Trail) is a tender, melancholic meditation; the second piece, Dialogo, is a fresh, graceful melody; the third one, Danza Lejana (A Far Away Dance) is the echo of a distant fest. Of course, it is fundamental to appreciate the general title of the Suite: it is called Tres Temas de Recuerdos (Three Themes of Memories), so all the work is an evocation, not a description. Like Father Donostia, the Alicante born composer Oscar Esplá (1886 - 1976) also sensitively and unsuccessfully answered Segovia’s appeal in favor of the guitar, composing in the 1920’s the first movement of a Sonata, which did not match the guitarist’s expectations. Esplá converted it into a piece for chromatic harp which Nicanor Zabaleta, the great harpist, evaluated as more suitable for the guitar! But Segovia did not leave the composer without a sign of his esteem, and included in his programs two of the little pieces which Esplá had written for piano and collected under the title Levante. Segovia, who had a poetical imagination, rebaptized the pieces as Dos Impresiones Levantinas. Here we listen to them, and to two more little pieces, in the transcription of Jan de Kloe, the distinguished Belgian guitarist and scholar, who has devoted a biographic study to Esplá. It is exquisitely imaginative music, where the wealth and the refinement of the harmony appears in a special transparency. One of his talents, which Segovia complained not having exploited, was composition. Due to his overly busy career as a glorious concert player, he could devote to composing just a few moments between recitals, recording sessions, travels and family duties. This is why he wrote only a limited amount of short pieces for solo guitar and never ventured in more elaborate forms. Among his pieces, Estudio Sin Luz (Study with No Light) is surely one of the most significant: it is a sadly meditative song, with a somber harmonic frame and a delicate texture. We owe it to an extraordinarily difficult moment of Segovia’s life: at the end of July 1953 he entered a hospital in Madrid because his sight was threatened by a serious problem. He underwent an operation to correct a displacement of the retina, under the danger of remaining completely blind. During his days of recovery with bandages on his eyes, he conceived the piece, whose title needs no explanation. Nowadays in Linares, the bells of the municipality tower ring each hour, spreading in the air the incipit of Estudio Sin Luz. This recalls to our memory the words of Orazio: aere perennius… Angelo Gilardino produced by Kate Lewis recorded by Ryan Ayers at Loyola Marymount University photos by Scott Kugler graphics by GSP ABOUT MARTHA MASTERS The Illinois Times wrote that guitarist Martha Masters “...is on a swift and certain trajectory to star territory.” Masters’ playing has been described as “seductive” (Ft. Worth Star Telegram), “intelligent and natural” (Guitar Review), and “refined and elegant” (American Record Guide). She has received critical acclaim as a solo recitalist, as a chamber musician with Duo Erato, and as a soloist with orchestras. Recent concert seasons have included performances on concert series and at festivals in England, Poland, Denmark, Spain, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, and numerous US cities. Martha’s first CD, Serenade, is now in its second printing, and her Naxos recital disc sold over 10,000 copies worldwide in the first year of its release. In October of 2000 Martha won first prize in the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) International Solo Competition. In November of 2000, she also won the Andrés Segovia International Guitar Competition in Linares, Spain and was a finalist in the Alexandre Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities in Lodz, Poland. Prior to 2000, Martha was a prizewinner or finalist in numerous other international competitions, including the 1999 International Guitar Competition “Paco Santiago Marín” in Granada, Spain, the 1998 Tokyo International Guitar Competition and the 1997 GFA International Solo Competition. In addition to leading the guitar program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and extensive masterclass/festival teaching, Martha teaches annually at the National Guitar Workshop Classical Summit in Connecticut, and on WorkshopLive.com. She is also currently General Manager and Executive Vice President of the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA), dedicated to supporting the instrument, its players and its music in the United States and throughout the world. Martha received both the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Manuel Barrueco, and completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Southern California as a student of Scott Tennant. Other GSP recordings by Martha Masters: Viaggio in Italia (GSP1031) and Duo Erato (GSP1029 - with guitarist Risa Carlson)