Andres Segovia
1898-1987

How Segovia Invented The Guitar.

The artistic achievement of Andres Segovia is different from almost any other musician of our time.  Like a Hiefitz or a Horowitz, he mastered every technical difficulty of his instrument and devoted his virtuosity to all the subtleties of expression of the singing line.  Yet Segovia is unique in that he virtually created his own instrument, created a repertoire for it and created the audiences that filled almost any auditorium in the world to hear him play.

The most difficult part of Segovia's long journey was identification of the guitar's worth in the hostile environment which faced the instrument in the early twentieth century.  Serious young musicians were diverted from the crudeness of the guitar to the magnificence of the piano, violin and 'cello with their established repertoire and prospects of employment.  The guitar found its advocates among the gypsies and amateurs.

Occasionally, something better would trickle through the barrier of prejudice against the guitar.  Segovia, at age twelve, heard the music of Tarrega and his response was dramatic:  "I felt like crying, laughing, even like kissing the hands of a man who could draw such beautiful sounds from the guitar."

In the quarters where help for the guitar might have been expected, Segovia encountered hostility and that desire to keep the guitar among amateurs which both preserves and threatens the artistic well-being of the guitar.  Segovia vowed to rescue the guitar from the small-minded by, eventually, approaching leading composers and asking them to write for the guitar.

Of course, most of this music was composed specifically for Segovia, who shaped the works with his individual rhythmic fluidity which characterized his approach to the guitar.  At the time of his death, Segovia had established a repertoire of over 300 works, both transcriptions and new compositions, including concertos and chamber works and had opened the door to the guitar's expressive destiny.

Before Segovia, the guitar had a long history but it was Segovia who brought all of these historical traditions to the listener on one stage.  In earlier times, ``~one went to hear the latest works of Giuliani or stood in line to purchase the latest composition of Sor.  The idea of playing the music of the past is a recent one and Segovia established a tradition of scholarship and knowledge which has found the guitar a place in our highest institutions of learning.

In 1964, the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford established the first degree program in classical guitar performance.  The first graduate of the program received his degree in 1968.  Since that time, most major universities and conservatories have established not only undergraduate classical guitar programs, but many have instituted graduate and doctoral programs as well.  While the Eastman and Julliard Schools of Music had not yet established their programs before Segovia's death, he did live long enough to see classical guitar study offered my most universities and conservatories of music.

In the area of pedagogy, Segovia established a clear line, linking technique to musical expression.  Paradoxically, the classical guitar, with its roots in the mid-sixteenth century, has little pedagogical history.  Some methods date back to the early eighteenth century, but these consist mainly of studies and pieces rather than discussion of physical movements.  In the last ten years, a body of literature has emerged providing much needed information on the physical and mental aspects of guitar playing.

Source Notes

Andres Segovia by Otto Freidrich  Time-Life Records, Alexandria, Virginia 1982

Traditions of the Classical Guitar by Graham Wade, John Calder, pub., London, 1980

"The State of the Classical Guitar" by Richard Provost, American String Teacher Assoc. Magazine, Fall 1996