Corpus

Description

Hughes Kolp, guitare à 10 cordes – Magali Rischette, guitare à 6 cordes – Adrien Brogna, guitare à 8 cordes

In CORPUS, Magali Rischette, Hughes Kolp and Adrien Brogna present their arrangements of compositions by Granados, Albéniz, de Falla and Turina. The link between the guitar and the country of Spain is so intense that the adaptation of these works originally conceived for piano or for orchestra finds in their version for 3 guitars an amazing character of authenticity. Spain appears in its diversity and in its splendor all over the 9 compositions of CORPUS. It is a farruca, a jota and a zortziko transformed into three Danzas fantásticas for piano under Turina’s pen, it is the bullfighter’s prayer of the same Turina, it is the impressive narration that Albéniz gives of a religious procession in Sevilla…

> Let’s take this opportunity to highlight the decisive action of composer and musicologist Felipe Pedrell in the growing awareness of a musical heritage that these four composers would explore with fervor. Pedrell also understands perfectly the importance of guitarist Francisco Tárrega when he writes, in 1915, « he made an instrument whose resources seem apparently so poor, one of the most expressive musical instruments.”

One might wonder, however, to which guitar does Manuel de Falla refer, in 1933, in his prologue to Pujol’s 3^rd volume of Escuela razonada de la guitarra? He evokes an “admirable instrument, as sober as rich, which harshly or gently knows how to subjugate the spirit and in which, time helping, came to focus, as a rich heritage, all of the essential values ​​of noble instruments of yore without interfering in any way in the true character due to its origin, the people itself”. Does Falla mean the revolutionary guitar by luthier Antonio de Torres or the street instrument, song and dance accompanist, “which has always occupied a favorite place in the sound space of the Hispanic home“? It now seems obvious that neither the so-called “classical guitar” – I mean its construction and its technique – nor the knowledge that these composers had of it, would have been able to work together, at the time, in order to achieve a real fusion between the “national instrument” and the nationalist musical expression. For lack of substantial repertoire, guitarists themselves write for their instrument or arrange topical works. So does Tárrega: amongst more than 200 transcriptions are six pieces for piano by his friend Albéniz. Miguel Llobet, one of Tárrega’s disciples, adapts for his guitar compositions for piano by Granados and by Albéniz. Composers and guitarists know each other. Granados frequents the so-called “vaqueria” in Barcelona where Tárrega, Llobet and later Segovia used to perform.

At this point of its history, the “modern” guitar makes timid debuts on the classical scene. In 1920, Manuel de Falla composed his Homenaje to the memory of Claude Debussy, his unique piece originally written for the guitar. Its dedicatee, Miguel Llobet, plays it immediately in the concerts that he gives through Europe and South America but it is a harpist, Marie-Louise Casadesus-Beetz, who premieres it in Paris on January 24th 1921! Finally, another disciple of Tárrega, Emilio Pujol, plays it on the guitar in the Salle du Conservatoire on December 2nd 1922.

As to Joaquín Turina, in November 1923 he writes his first composition for the guitar, a Fantasia entitled Sevillana. It is dedicated to Segovia who premieres it Madrid one month later. On April 7th 1924, Albert Roussel, Joaquin Nin, Paul Dukas and Manuel de Falla are present in Madame Debussy’s box seats at Segovia’s debuts in Paris in the prestigious Salle du Conservatoire. His program features a short piece by Albert Roussel archly entitled Segovia…

Françoise-Emmanuelle Denis

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(1) Escuela razonada de la guitarra, libro 3°, Ricordi americana, Buenos Aires, 1954. Basada en los principios de la técnica de Tárrega. A la memória de Francisco Tárrega, fénix espiritual de la guitarra. Homenaje de gratitud y admiración.

(2) La partition de cet Homenaje para guitarra est publiée, en décembre 1920, dans une édition spéciale de La Revue musicale. Son directeur, Henri Prunières, y réunit sous le titre de « Tombeau de Claude Debussy » une dizaine de pièces signées Dukas, Roussel, Malipiero, Goossens, Bartók, Schmitt, de Falla, Ravel, Satie et Stravinsky ainsi que des articles rédigés par Ravel, Satie, Bartók, Stravinsky et de Falla. L’illustration de la couverture est confiée à Raoul Dufy. Manuel de Falla réalise par la suite une version pour orchestre de cet Homenaje, elle est sous-titrée Elegía de la guitarra et dédiée à Claude Debussy.