Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Andres Segovia

NPR again.. Here is the audio clip. Fred Child claims that Segovia was actually not a good technician when it came to his performance. Chords buzz, strings squeak, but now players are getting beyond the mechanics of playing the guitar and so you only hear the music. Jason Vieaux and David Russell are some of the new stars. Melissa Block is still skeptical. I agree. Segovia single handedly brought the guitar into the mainstream classical music arena. And it was not only by his playing, but by his charismatic personality. Plus, if you take too much out of the sound of the guitar, you might as well just use a synthesizer.

Yesterday morning, I heard the Netherlands Bach Society perform the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 on a WGBH recorded performance. Now, this performance was wild and passionate, full of squeaky violins and flailing arms (you can almost hear it). It was just too much. Bach is one of those composers who created pure music, and I would rather hear just the music and not so much of the killing chickens (as we used to call young violin players practicing).

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