ESSAYS & REVIEWS

EXPLORING MUSIC

For Study and Pleasure

For Study and Pleasure

Author
David M. Greene

Publication
MHS Review 214 Vol. 1, No. XVI December 19, 1977

Listen

Etude is a tony word for "study" (unless you are referring to the late musical magazine of that title, or unless you are French, in which case you have no choice.) If you are an instrumentalist, playing etudes is supposed to be good for you, in that the composer believes--or pretends to--that they will improve one or another of your playing skills. At the same time, in the stick-and-carrot tradition, they should be sufficiently good, as music, to keep you interested and afford you some aesthetic challenge and aural pleasure as you slave away at them. Etudes seem to get written more for keyboard than for other types of instruments, though, as this record may suggest, the guitar gets its share. They subscribe to no special musical form, but they are usually fully worked-out compositions, as distinct from finger-exercises, which are just that, and will quickly rid you of the downstairs neighbors, unless you prefer to do them without an instrument. (Try it on the subway; it may even attract some curious glances.)

 

Studies were being written at least as early as the sixteenth century, though they were usually designated by such titles as Toccata, Lesson, or Exercise. (The collection of thirty keyboard sonatas that Domenico Scarlatti saw through the press in his lifetime were called Esercizii.) It was that astute piano manufacturer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832 not exactly unknown as a player and composer!) who seems to have written the first piano etudes so-called, though it was surely Chopin who put the genre on the map as far as the general public was concerned.

 

I'm not sure whether Senor Caceres claims that the 28 etudes heard here are the great guitar etudes, or whether this is just a bit of puffery from one or another record producer. I wouldn’t let it worry me, if I were you. My personal feeling is that these are interesting and enjoyable examples of the species, but that none of them are likely to challenge the Ninth Symphony or the B-minor Mass. Senor Caceres has chosen a wide range of examples written chiefly by guitar specialists whose lifetimes span the last two hundred years. The signal exception is, of course, Heitor Villa-Lobos who, as Andres Segovia tells us, "knew the guitar perfectly," but who composed prolifically in all fields, and who is, in my opinion, ripe for a serious reexamination.

 

Of the "old masters" of the nineteenth century, Fernando Sor is perhaps the best known. He was, in fact, quite influential in inspiring the first general guitar fad. The first guitar records I ever owned contained one of his "grand" sonatas, played by a fellow named Julio Martinez Oyanguren, at whose playing I marveled much. Mauro Giuliani, one of a plucky family, has come, in the last decade, from virtual anonymity to something like popularity, acquiring birth and death dates along the way (though they vary considerably from source to source). Carulli arrived in Paris in 1808 and drove the town wild with enthusiasm, thereby dethroning his younger fellow countryman, Matteo Carcassi. Dionisio Aguado, a Spaniard, was a pupil of Manuel Garcia, a fine guitarist and one of the supreme tenors. Napoleon Coste, one of the last of this first wave, had his playing career abbreviated by the paralysis of his right arm. Francisco Tarrega is properly regarded as the father of the modern guitar school, whose first, and perhaps greatest international exponent is Andres Segovia. Stephen Dodgson is an Englishman who has composed several important works, including a concerto, for an instrument he does not play. Agustin Barrios was a Paraguayan who is said to have lived a bohemian and disordered life, but this impression may have been drawn from the Repin portrait.

 

Oscar Caceres is an internationally acclaimed Spanish guitarist from Uruguay. That is, he is a Uruguayan player of the Spanish guitar. Or, to clarify, he plays that kind of guitar called Spanish, though his is also of Spanish manufacture.

For Study and Pleasure

For Study and Pleasure

Author
David M. Greene

Publication
MHS Review 214 Vol. 1, No. XVI December 19, 1977

Listen

Etude is a tony word for "study" (unless you are referring to the late musical magazine of that title, or unless you are French, in which case you have no choice.) If you are an instrumentalist, playing etudes is supposed to be good for you, in that the composer believes--or pretends to--that they will improve one or another of your playing skills. At the same time, in the stick-and-carrot tradition, they should be sufficiently good, as music, to keep you interested and afford you some aesthetic challenge and aural pleasure as you slave away at them. Etudes seem to get written more for keyboard than for other types of instruments, though, as this record may suggest, the guitar gets its share. They subscribe to no special musical form, but they are usually fully worked-out compositions, as distinct from finger-exercises, which are just that, and will quickly rid you of the downstairs neighbors, unless you prefer to do them without an instrument. (Try it on the subway; it may even attract some curious glances.)

 

Studies were being written at least as early as the sixteenth century, though they were usually designated by such titles as Toccata, Lesson, or Exercise. (The collection of thirty keyboard sonatas that Domenico Scarlatti saw through the press in his lifetime were called Esercizii.) It was that astute piano manufacturer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832 not exactly unknown as a player and composer!) who seems to have written the first piano etudes so-called, though it was surely Chopin who put the genre on the map as far as the general public was concerned.

 

I'm not sure whether Senor Caceres claims that the 28 etudes heard here are the great guitar etudes, or whether this is just a bit of puffery from one or another record producer. I wouldn’t let it worry me, if I were you. My personal feeling is that these are interesting and enjoyable examples of the species, but that none of them are likely to challenge the Ninth Symphony or the B-minor Mass. Senor Caceres has chosen a wide range of examples written chiefly by guitar specialists whose lifetimes span the last two hundred years. The signal exception is, of course, Heitor Villa-Lobos who, as Andres Segovia tells us, "knew the guitar perfectly," but who composed prolifically in all fields, and who is, in my opinion, ripe for a serious reexamination.

 

Of the "old masters" of the nineteenth century, Fernando Sor is perhaps the best known. He was, in fact, quite influential in inspiring the first general guitar fad. The first guitar records I ever owned contained one of his "grand" sonatas, played by a fellow named Julio Martinez Oyanguren, at whose playing I marveled much. Mauro Giuliani, one of a plucky family, has come, in the last decade, from virtual anonymity to something like popularity, acquiring birth and death dates along the way (though they vary considerably from source to source). Carulli arrived in Paris in 1808 and drove the town wild with enthusiasm, thereby dethroning his younger fellow countryman, Matteo Carcassi. Dionisio Aguado, a Spaniard, was a pupil of Manuel Garcia, a fine guitarist and one of the supreme tenors. Napoleon Coste, one of the last of this first wave, had his playing career abbreviated by the paralysis of his right arm. Francisco Tarrega is properly regarded as the father of the modern guitar school, whose first, and perhaps greatest international exponent is Andres Segovia. Stephen Dodgson is an Englishman who has composed several important works, including a concerto, for an instrument he does not play. Agustin Barrios was a Paraguayan who is said to have lived a bohemian and disordered life, but this impression may have been drawn from the Repin portrait.

 

Oscar Caceres is an internationally acclaimed Spanish guitarist from Uruguay. That is, he is a Uruguayan player of the Spanish guitar. Or, to clarify, he plays that kind of guitar called Spanish, though his is also of Spanish manufacture.
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