Cavatina

Description

Recognizable from the very first notes, Roberto Aussel seduces through his warm sound and his resolute playing. He is at home in Baroque music as well as in contemporary and South American repertoire. Roberto Aussel was born in Buenos Aires where he gave his first recital at the age of thirteen. His solid foundation under the instruction of Maestro Jorge Martinez Zarate has opened the door to numerous important international competitions in which he has played brilliantly, winning first prizes. Impressed by Roberto Aussel’s musical personality, his fellow countryman, Astor Piazzolla, composed five gorgeous tangos for him — original for the guitar. These pieces have toured the world under his talented fingers.

Roberto Aussel teaches at the Musikhochschule in Köln, Germany. Since 1983, he has had a guitar music collection at Henry Lemoine in Paris.

> French guitarist and composer Francis Kleynjans, born in 1951, student of Alexandre Lagoya and Alirio Diaz, is the author of numerous pieces for guitar including études, waltzes, preludes, chamber music, music for films, as well as a concerto for guitar and string orchestra premiered in April 1984. « A l’aube du dernier jour » (At dawn of the last day) is a work dedicated to Roberto Aussel which won the prize of the 22nd international composition competition of Radio France in 1980. Conceived in two parts, the piece describes, in dramatic fashion, the last moments of a man condemned to death. « Attente » (Waiting) is a brief prelude expressive of the anguish of the man, alone in his cell, « waiting » to the rhythm of an obsessive tick-tock. The second movement, « L’aube » (Dawn), is built on a four-note ostinato, sometimes heavy, sometimes neutral, which leads the man toward his fate in a long and painful march. Three brief tonal passages intervene to lighten the tense atmosphere dominating the work : the condemned man is lost in the realm of memories … A discorderly fugue, in which the ostinato reappears, disformed, suddenly brings him back to reality : the pace is more and more precipitated, as are the heart beats, until a sharp dry crack gives way to silence …

> Encouraged by his musician mother, Manuel Poncestudied the piano, the organ and composition at an early age. After his studies at the Conservatory of Mexico, he attended master courses in Bologna and Berlin. Ponce went back to Europe at the age of 43 to study composition with Paul Dukas at the Ecole Normale in Paris, along with Joaquin Rodrigo and Heitor Villa Lobos.

Nothing in particular seemed to predispose Manuel Ponce to write for the guitar. His first piece for the instrument, the Sonata Mexicanawas written in 1923, the year of Andrés Segovia’s first recital in Mexico. Out of the relationship of mutual admiration and deep friendship between the Spanish virtuoso and the Mexican composer were born some thirty pieces for guitar which are among the most beautiful and the most interesting of the contemporary repertory. They range from sonatas to the concerto, and include preludes, air and variations, and pieces of a more popular character. Segovia put works by Ponce in the programs of all his concerts and helped him effectively with his editions. It is on his friendly insistence that Ponce wrote the Sonatina Meridional, at the same time as the Concierto del sur was « progressing and maturing » (1). The piece, of a pure Andalusian character, was finished in 1932. Segovia, who immediately premiered the work in Geneva, wrote to Ponce : « after the concert I didn’t meet a single musician in the hall who didn’t speak to me of the Sonatina with enthousiasm ».

> Born in Lodz (Poland) in 1897, Alexandre Tansman settled in Paris at the end of 1919. Maurice Ravel introduced him into the parisian musical spheres, and after a few months Tansman belonged to the international vanguard. Among his very delicate compositions exist several pieces for guitar and the first one is a Mazurka (1926) dedicated to Andrés Segovia. His Cavatina composed in 1950 carries off the first prize at the Accademia Chigianaof Sienna. Segovia played it in public for the first time in Buenos Aires on the 16th of June 1952, the same year he presented this very elegant and sober Cavatina in Oxford, London and Paris.

> Trained by French masters Dukas, Pirro and Emmanuel, Joaquin Rodrigo nonetheless maintained a sufficiently deep bond with Spanish culture that his music has a profoundly Spanish flavour. Even though he never played the guitar, he was well acquainted with a number of guitarists — Segovia, Presti, Lagoya, Yepes, los Romeros — who thus participated in the creation of an extremely abundant body of guitar music*. In addition to the five concertos, there are sonatas, a Tonadilla for two guitars, an elegy to the guitar and numerous pieces of Spanish character, among them the Fandango dedicated to Segovia and En los trigales dedicated to Narciso Yepes.

> The Sonata para guitarra opus 47, the sole work for guitar by Alberto Ginastera, is dedicated to Brazilian guitarist Carlos Barbosa Lima. It was written in 1976. Exploring the varied resources of the guitar, the composer provides an annex to the score explaining the different signs he has used signifying special effects such as awhistling sound,a slow vibrato, an indeterminate chord as high as possible, a gradual ritardando or

The first movement, Esordio,an unmeasured piece of a solemn nature, gives way to a Scherzo « fantastico » for which the author suggests an interpretation of great dynamic contrasts, while constantly maintaining a ternary rhythm. Passages of rigorous rhythms alternate with sections senza tempo. Here also there are special effects such as the pizzicato ribattente (snapping), playing on the pegbox or on the bridge, as well as glissandi on single notes or chords. The Canto « rapsodico » is conceived in a very free style. Like the first movement, it is an unmeasured piece with frequent changes in tempo, dynamics and timbres. In the Finale « presto e fogoso » which follows the Canto, the composer asks the guitarist to observe strictly the percussive effect combining rasgueado and tambora ; this special way of playing chords came out of the popular Argentinian style dear to Ginastera. The interpreter is encouraged to maintain a passionate atmosphere in this movement — here sforzatissimo, there frenetico, working up to delirante …