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.paragraphtitle Barrueco and Fernandez On Turning 50...
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Manuel Barrueco: If you were the president of the guitar world, what would you do?

Eduardo Fernandez: Quit!

MB: [laughter] There is something very curious that I am seeing in connection to us turning 50...

EF: Oh, you are 50 too? How wonderful!

MB: No, I'm 49 and will be 48 next year... By the way, we are not the only ones turning 50 you know. Within a period of one year, a number of us will...

EF: Yes, Elliot Fisk, Alvaro Pierri, David Russell, Sergio Assad...

MB: Thinking back, we met when you played your New York debut...

EF: Yes, and you know how special it was for me.

MB: I can only assume that. I was very impressed with that concert and all the events that surrounded it. I've never seen before or since, such a powerful review. The whole thing was magical. I remember the review said that you ranked among the top world guitarists, and what people perhaps don't understand, is that in those days for a reviewer to say something like that about somebody who had just made his debut, was pretty damn amazing. The review also said that it was the most impressive debut concert that reviewer had seen in any instrument! Eduardo, seriously, I've never seen that before and have never seen it since!

EF: It was a very special case. I had come to New York thinking that if it didn't work out, I would go back to Montevideo and finish my studies of economics and forget about guitar... it was a gamble.

MB: That's a connection I feel that I have with you. I was there with you and we were both young and sharing experiences.

EF: Yes, your record had just come out with Villa Lobos and Chavez... wonderful record.

MB: It was a different world than today... At that time there didn't seem to be many players between the age of 40 and 50. There was Segovia, and there was Bream (who must have been in his 40s) and Williams, but there weren't many players in between like you could see with pianists. Therefore there were not a lot of different influences when we were young. But I think around that time, with our generation, there was an explosion of young players with distinctive styles of playing, like your style, Elliot Fisk's style, etcetera.

EF: It's not healthy when you have only one model, it's much better to have 20,000 models...

MB: To be fair, it was also more of a virgin territory back then. I remember when I started in my very early 20s to go out to play concerts, people would tell me that I had the strangest right hand position! It was a more naive time, there was more ground to be broken back then. It is more difficult for young players to break through now.

EF: Yes, the noise level is much higher now. It is so much easier to make a recording now than it was in our early days.

MB: Also when we were young, some people that were considered top players then, would not be considered that today. Some people were able to break through on the basis of speed for example, today I don't think anyone is going to make it just because of how fast they play.

EF: No, any midi instrument can do it much better, any computer can do it better. I always go back to this: Playing the guitar is not a sport, it's not a question of running faster or jumping higher or lifting heavier weights. It is about an art that has its basis in sound. I find so many students that don't listen to what they do. They don't notice when things are wrong because they are not listening. They only focus on how fast they can play which I think is a completely wrong attitude to have. It doesn't work.

MB: Maybe we're beginning to sound as if we're 50!

EF: We sound like 80 by now!

MB: I remember the only opportunity that I ever had to play for Segovia, he kept telling me: “Too fast, too fast! “ ... and I wanted to tell him: “But Maestro, you recorded it even faster than this...!”

EF: I'm not saying that one cannot play fast, I'm simply saying that it is not the objective. Actually I think speed comes as a result of control. Many students try to play faster by putting more effort in it and it never works, it never works! It's completely counter productive for them. I know because I went through this too. I felt very empty when I was doing this, I felt so empty that I didn't want to go on any more. At some point I just threw the metronome out of the window, literally, I just opened the window and threw it out, and started playing. I think I was reborn as a musician at that moment.

Aaron Shearer: Manuel, you have said this on many occasions as well, that the young players today don't seem to have the intellectual curiosity...

EF: I can't understand how people can play a piece by Bach and not be interested in knowing about Bach. Who was he? This music didn't come out of the blue, someone wrote it for some reason. Maybe I'm just too gossipy, but I can't stand playing a piece and not knowing about the composer or the piece, at least try to find out something about the text. You have to do a reading as a player, it's not just about playing the notes, any computer can do that much better than any player. You have to understand what's happening. This is a human function and we should exercise that to the utmost. Imagination, fantasy, knowledge, they are not opposites. ... and this all has to do with being able to listen.

MB: There are also certain luxuries that we can have in our position, that a young player does not have. They have to prove themselves in many ways and I think as I get older, I see beauty where I didn't see it before. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm hearing that a bit from you also. You are hearing different aspects of music making that perhaps you didn't before?

EF: Yes, I think I was much more closed before, I've opened up a lot in the last few years.

MB: I'm wondering if it has to do with the 50s and maturity and so on...

EF: I don't know about maturity, I don't think if one ever matures... I try to be as immature as possible, for as long as I can. But I think that if I had to give one advise to young players, it would be to have fun with what they do, have fun in the most informed possible way, because it's more fun that way. Don't just go for the hamburgers, if there are steaks, go for the steaks. We live in a world where you can go and buy anything. There is a story about someone who wants to kill his neighbor, in the old time he had to learn martial arts to do that so he spent years learning martial arts, and in doing so he learned some kind of discipline. So when the time came that he was ready to kill his neighbor, he wouldn't do it, it wasn't interesting any more. It's very much like that when you learn to play an instrument if you want to become a musician. You have to develop yourself in such a way that when you get to the point that you actually can play the piece as fast as you wanted when you were 18, it's not so interesting any more just to play fast, because you've discovered so many interesting things about the piece that it doesn't make sense to go for speed only. And I'm not against speed. But there is much more to things than this physical dimension.

MB: The physical dimension is very limited.

EF: Of course, but you don't realize it if you are 17 or 18 and you are just trying to play as fast as so and so's recording...

MB: Well my experience is that those players are not going to go very far. They won't, you can't just hear someone play fast for an hour and a half. It's very boring. One can be very impressed with fast scales, but I don't know if I want to go to hear someone play scales for an hour.

EF: Absolutely. Well, I'm against people practicing scales in general.

MB: Really, why?

EF: Because it has nothing to do with music!

MB: But there is a physical aspect to it, and I'm sure you agree with this: The more technique you have, the more you are able to realize your musical ideals.

EF: Yes of course, but technique is not gained by working on technique, I think. Of course it is a paradox, but the more you concentrate on technique and the physical aspects of technique, the less you are able to do it. I've seen this happen many times.

MB: Some young players think of technique just in terms of playing fast scales, but that's just one aspect of technique. Technique is much more complicated than that... to me a great technique should be invisible!

EF: Of course, technique is about control. But to control, you have to aim at some kind of target. Playing the guitar is really about control and about how can you make the sound you have in your head come out physically. Of course there are many ways to this, many different approaches but basically it's about sound, here and now. It is not about practicing exercises for about two years and then being able to play, it doesn't happen that way, this is counter productive. You have to focus on the result you want, and work towards the result. This takes a lot of moral courage in a way because it is much easier to sit down and play through a book of exercises.

MB: So, if you think someone shouldn't practice scales, then how does somebody develop scales?

EF: You work when you need that and you work towards that specific target. If you're playing “Un tiempo fue Itálica Famosa” by Rodrigo, of course you have to practice THOSE scales because there are thousands of them. But you practice those scales, in this context, with this particular music in sight. You just don't practice scales in abstract.

MB: But do you ever practice scales?

EF: I did for about 2 weeks...

MB: Really? Because my experience is that there are so few scales in the guitar repertoire that to depend on that would not be enough. I actually encourage my students to practice scales because of that.

EF: I think someone asked Alvaro Pierri in an interview how much he practiced scales and he said: “Never! If I ever play a concert of scales I will practice them.” I think that's absolutely perfect.

MB: So, how do you feel about guitar audiences?

EF: They are a special group. Sometimes you have to decide these days - and it is a very sad decision to have to make - if you are going to play for guitar audiences or for general audiences. And I don't think you should aim down when you play for guitar audiences because then you are really underestimating your audiences.

MB: There are a lot of different types of audiences. At least in the US you may play in a cycle where there are mostly pianists and violinists and they put in one guitarist. And that is different from an audience of a guitar series, which is also different from a series where there is a variety of programming, where you might have a pianist and following that a jazz group and maybe a circus and maybe then a guitarist...

EF: In what sense is it different?

MB: Obviously the expectations are different, why they go to the concert is also different...

EF: I think there is a basic question here, the question between art and entertainment and I think it is what Schoenberg said about water and wine fits: “Wine has water, but if you put water in wine...” Nobody says that art should be boring, but to oppose art to entertainment is to imply that art is boring, so you end up with a very low form of entertainment.

MB: But that is the reality we have to face...

EF: I didn't make this split you know, and I'm not going along with it, but I think good music is very entertaining as well as being something much more than that. And I love entertainment and I'm not disbursing here but I think we should try to play works that really challenge us to do the best we can, not merely to satisfy an appetite for something preestablished. This is a moral question. I'm not a puritan and I don't want to be a puritan, but I think we really should aim higher in programming. We are musicians and music is an art - a very deep art - and it's something that should be transcendent. On the door of every concert hall there should be a sign saying “This is an entrance to a different world.” If we all thought of that, maybe things would be different.

MB: But I still think that in a practical sense, if you go play in a series that has just had a folk group and before that a jazz trio, this audience is going to walk in with different expectations. I'm not saying WHAT we should do...

EF: I had a very interesting experience about this in Argentina. Juan Falú organizes a festival there that covers about 60 cities in the whole country. They send everyone that plays in the festival to 4 or 5 places besides Buenos Aires and you may end up playing in a place where nobody has heard a classical guitar before. I did that tour and I was playing a whole Bach program. You play for 20 minutes and have a chance to talk also. I explained to them who Bach was, when the pieces were written and what they meant for Bach at the time, what I thought of them and then I just played. And they loved it! It's not a question of having access to information or education or whatever, it's about sensitivity and people have that. People really have that and we should never underestimate audiences in this sense. We should never play down to what we think they want or what a promoter thinks they want because people are not stupid. At least I believe that very strongly. People can tell the difference if someone is just trying to impress them or if someone is moved by what he/she plays. Like François Couperin said: “A player must have a sensitive soul,” and this situation of the player being moved by the music, is what moves people. This is as true now as it was in the 18th century and people can feel this, people can feel if the player is just going through the moves or if the player is really into the music. I'm sure you've felt that too. This distinctive response when you know that you are tuned into the music. I saw you in Nettuno and I remember, years ago.

MB: To be honest with you , I wish I could feel that as strongly as you do. I don't quite feel that strongly about it, although I understand and I've had that experience also. I've found wonderful audiences where I never thought I would, and bad audiences in places where I did not expect to have bad audiences.

EF: Of course. In many places people have lost touch with what it means to make music. But even with this audience you may have 10% that were genuinely moved, and that's what we are here for, to move people.

MB: So, what do you see as being our job in the society?

EF: I think music has the same role as dreams have in a life of a person. Something that is not in the forefront but many times it directs the whole sense of life so maybe like Schoenberg said again: “Music expresses the essence of this and other worlds.” And people feel that we have some kind of truth to give them, and they feel when it's true and when it's fake. They can tell the difference. I don't mean that one should play only contemporary music for example, it is the attitude of the player - you have to have some kind of integrity - you shouldn't play pieces that you don't love. It's all about love, really. It doesn't have to be solemn, it doesn't have to be serious or profound, but there has to be love in what you do. Love, fantasy, imagination, you know.

MB: You should be able to feel in order to be able to communicate it.

EF: Yes, this is not a naive way of feeling because you are a professional and you have to understand what happens in the music and you have to be able to feel it thoroughly. It's not just a physical sensation, it implies all your being, it implies all your intellect, all your memories, all your life experience and what ever you are able to read into a work is many times what you bring as baggage to the work. So your reading of a work is going to be different from mine because we are different persons, but also there is a lot that is objective, that is in the score. Those are the intentions of the composers and you have to go through all this analytical baggage of music history, styles, biography of the composer and analyzing the work and then try to make it sound as you want and somehow you have to forget all this in the moment of playing because you can't play from the professor's chair. You have to play the music and become the music at that moment. And I think people can feel that very well. Maybe they cannot verbalize it or conceptualize it but it's there. That's why people love rock and roll, because it's authentic. I think it is very primitive most of the time, but it's real. And there is no reason why classical music should not be even more real than that. It takes time and it takes dedication and you can't talk down to audiences but you have to try to reach them in some way and not only by the way you play. I think music-making is a very serious thing. I'm not saying it's boring I'm saying it's very serious work.

MB: To be honest with you, it's really nice to hear you talk that way because I tend to think that we are living in cynical times.

EF: Yes, and sometimes you see it in the performer's attitude. Some people put the music at the service of their ego, the music is something that makes them shine or be accepted. Music should not be means to an end, it should be the end. You should put yourself at the service of the music, because music is much greater that you will ever be. If you are going to do justice to a work, if you are going to play a work as it should be played, you have to put yourself at its service.

EF: I think guitarists usually don't really use their intellect very much, I'm not talking about you. I think that you are quite a lot more intelligent that I am in many ways. I think we guitarists have been out of the loop for so long in musical terms. I think we are more or less in the same situation as the black people were in the 50s. To be accepted, we have to be 20 times as good as players on other instruments. We have to be able to sight read at least as well as a pianist, to analyze things at first sight better than a conductor, and so on.

MB: Do you really think that the music world can tell the difference? You forgive me but I'm not even sure that all conductors can tell the difference between a good violinist and a great violinist.”

EF: Well, I think maybe some professionals can't tell the difference, but the audience certainly can. I think people have an instinctive feeling for quality and I think we should never underestimate that. I remember once I did a one-hour TV program in Montevideo, and the guy had interviewed me several times before so he suggested to do something different this time. And I suggested to do something on Berio's Sequenza for guitar. So, we talked about the piece for 45 minutes and then I played some excerpts and analyzed what was happening, and in the last segment of the program I just played the whole piece. The next day I went to the market to buy tomatoes and the guy who is selling them to me said: “What a wonderful piece that was you played yesterday!” and this guy has absolutely no instruction, no education.

MB: Well, I don't think he represents most tomato sales people, although I do understand your point. There have been periods in my life and even today, where I put much more value on what someone with no knowledge but sensitivity thinks or hears in my music, than somebody that has already some knowledge and some preconceived ideas of how it should sound. I guess it's the typical “A little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all.”

EF: Yes, a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing of course. Sometimes intellect can be an evasion. You have told me that before. I don't think I use it this way. Maybe I'm not intellectual, but just repressed?

MB: But that's not what I hear in your playing. I mean a lot of the things that you said in your class here at Peabody were very intellectual, although you emphasized a lot the mechanics of making music as well.

EF: I think the basics are very important and many people don't even think about that.

MB: About your program, I thought about it a lot when you were playing, you said how rare it is to see a more substantial pieces being programmed and it was nice to see the reaction in the concert, you got a standing ovation...

EF: Yes, people like it. People actually go to concerts to listen to music so we shouldn't be shy about what we do.

MB: I've had similar experiences, f. ex. in some countries when someone says: “Oh you can't play a Bach suite here,” and I've played it and people have liked it. I also think that the contrary can be very unsatisfying, when one plays a whole program that is light and mediocre pieces, and you feel that you just had a meal of junk food.

EF: You feel cheated, because you were cheated, because went there to have some kind of a musical experience and you didn't. Even if it's very well played and it's the case nowadays very often when you find people that play very well with a lot of control and they play not very good music. It's not good for the instrument.

MB: By the way, I loved listening to he second Lute Suite in your program... I've played it for so many years, it was part of my first program and I have worked it and reworked it so many times. You said in the master class to look at a piece of music from a rhetorical point of view and I meant to tell you a couple of times that sometimes I tell my students to put words to the music from beginning to the end. It forces you to not only to think of the phrasing, to find the right words and the right accentuation, but also to identify emotionally what is happening at each moment of the piece.

EF: I think it's a very good idea. In fact I think not enough is done about Bach this way, certainly not for the guitar. We have lots of good editions, we have facsimile editions, all kinds of fingerings, but nothing that really helps you to understand the text. You need to know not only stylistic usages, performance practices and so on, you need to know about how Bach thought, how this Allemande relates to another Allemande and what Bach does with the genre Allemande for instance. , I'm writing a book on the interpretation of Bach, which is almost finished. I'm very linguistic oriented. How a text is read is very important.

MB: The way that I always see him, he was not an innovator, he just happened to do it better than anyone else.

EF: Yes, this is the accepted reason, but I think it's completely wrong. I think it's the opposite. If you read Cristoph Wolff's new biography or Lawrence Drayfus' book about Bach, it's quite clear that he never took things for granted. Let's talk about the 3rd Lute Suite/ 5th Cello Suite: This is really a way for Bach to legitimize the cello as a solo instrument. He takes the style of the French viola da gamba and he writes a piece for solo cello that should sound just like viola da gamba solo music, like Marais or Forqueray or whatever you want. Of course he does many more things and this is all translated into a suite for lute. So, we have to read this through many layers of meaning really. You have to know about French style, but it's not enough to know about French style, you have to know how French style applies to this particular case in Bach. If he wrote dotted rhythms, is it really just dotted rhythms or is it written-out inequality in the French style? When is it dotted rhythms and you should over dot them, and when is it just written out unequal?

MB: To which conclusion have you arrived and how did you get there?

EF: I think that for instance in the slow section of the Prelude, when he writes 8th notes dotted and 16th notes, it's written out inequality. And when he has quarter notes dotted and eight notes it's really dotted rhythms and it should be overdotted. Basically that's it.

MB: And how did you arrive to that?

EF: Well, it is context; you could not write it out because it's a performance effect. But you have to know how to read it. So dotted rhythms can be underdotted or overdotted, according to the context. It's all about context in Bach. It's not so easy, you can't follow rules, there are no rules in Bach, he never followed the rules. In fact he always tried to break them. In this regard I think Bach was very modern, he was so modern that people thought that he was old-fashioned. I think Wolff's biography is absolutely clear about this.

AS: When is your book coming out?

EF: The first volume should come out by July I think, in Spanish at least, and I hope in a couple of months to have it in English. We're going to do two volumes, the first one more general: rhetorics, semantics, ornamentation, and the second volume an analysis of specific pieces. Maybe it's not the definitive work, but we guitarists need something to start from. In my book, I specifically start with the Prelude of the Second Lute Suite. I think you can identify every part of rhetorical speech there.

MB: Have you ever put words to it like what I was saying?

EF: Not in this sense.

MB: I haven't done it in the way in which you've done it. That would be interesting for me to try.

EF: What I did was to first identify the section of the speech and then try to work out the relationship between the parts. I think it is best expressed with prepositions. You have for instance: thesis - “Because;”- arguments in favor - “Nevertheless;” arguments against- “And;” conclusion. Something like that, this works fine. Also, the Allegro from the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro is a good example of this.

MB: In your performance of the Prelude of the first Lute Suite, in the introduction passage, sometimes you would put some tenutos on some notes, are those notes that you have decided to hold, do you always hold the same notes?

EF: Most of them yes, but there is always room for some spur of the moment decision but basically I have it thought out. I remember once we talked about this motivic relationship thing in the 1st Lute Suite I think you are very right in this.

MB: I'll be happy to take credit for it, so what was it that I said? At the end of it all, I was a bit distracted with the Gigue and the Double in the concert. You didn't take the repeat of the second half?

EF: No, because I think they were always meant to be used as ornamented repeats. But if you do this in the Gigue, you have a huge anticlimax in the start of the second section of the Gigue. So I found the solution was to play the Gigue without repeats and the Double without repeats. It could also be done the other way but I just think it doesn't work very well. What I don't think makes sense, it to play both with repeats.

MB: Are you trying to tell me something??? [laughter]

EF: Oh, is that the way you do it? Oh, that's right. [Laughter] I think this Gigue was meant as a kind of light hearted ending to a very serious piece. It has a lot to do with the St. Matthew's Passion... Christoph Wolff dates it in 1740 in Leipzig. Both the Second Suite and the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro have to do with the St. Matthew's Passion.

MB: Well, the Sarabande is almost exactly from the final choir of the St. Matthew's Passion.

EF: Also the theme of the Fugue of the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro is a not so free inversion of a famous Chorale that appears on the St. Matthew's Passion. And the Fugue comes from there, and you can read it in my book!!! [wink]

AS: I was surprised at of how quickly the time went by at your concert.

EF: Thank you, that's a big compliment!

MB: Also it was a lot of fun for, because we have met each other in very important times in our careers and specially from the beginning with you, I feel like I was a witness to all the things that happened and sitting there I couldn't help thinking about these things and what I enjoyed a lot was your experience. The experience of the guy that has done it. I sat there thinking: He's going to do it! It's comforting.

EF: Enjoyment is a very important concept. I see so many guitar concerts in festivals where you see people that are good, but they are suffering on stage, and the listener absorbs this too.

MB: I was surprised of how much you were not looking at the guitar. Not only surprised, but impressed by that.

EF: You don't really need to look most of the time.

MB: I think that might depend on the confidence of the player, I think if you can have the right frame of mind that you trust your body to do the things that it has always done, that requires a certain amount of confidence that perhaps I don't have very often.

EF: Oh, come on...

MB: No, but I'm being sincere with you. Often I work from a certain kind of negative energy, that things are not going to happen, which in turn makes me then try harder...

EF: I don't know if it's a question of confidence. I think it's maybe you take things too seriously.

MB: Also my whole attitude has always been that I go out there and I'm not going to remember any note, and should I remember some, I will miss them...

EF: But this is very negative meditation that you are doing.

MB: It is! Negativity has always been a part of me. I've always had to fight with that.

EF: You read too much Sartre I think...

MB: Maybe... Some people do have a positive attitude and some people don't, and for me I have had to fight that and to try to learn to have a more positive approach to it. I once played with a conductor here and I happened to ask this guy: “Do you get nervous?” And he just said, “Nervous, of course I don't get nervous, that's a very selfish thing. If you concentrate on the music the way you should be then it's not about you, it's about the music.” And I thought, God he's right! But I'm telling you, when he started conducting, I saw the baton shaking...

EF: If you are really into the music there is not much room left for nerves. But you can't do that on stage if you haven't practiced it. I tell this to the students all the time, you have to practice the way you are going to play, you have to try to make music every time you pick up the guitar. Because on stage you will have to and if you haven't practiced it before, maybe you were practicing baseball and you have to play football, so it won't be very good.

MB: I also tell them the same thing. I tell them, you could sit here and pretend you are going to be there and be all relaxed, but you may know now by experience that has not been your reality and that you might be nervous and that you might be doubting yourself. For example the memory part: If you are the type of player that will be doubting your memory during a performance, then you can better prepare yourself for that by making sure you have things extremely clear so that when the doubts come in, you have the answers. The same if true for some difficult shifts if you know that if you trust your body that it's going to do it. But also you have to ask yourself: Am I the type of player that when I go out there I will trust myself? Am I going to let my body do it? If not,then I must prepare accordingly.

EF: It's actually two different levels you know, if you are thinking about the music then you are actually giving up control of your body, you are not aware of what you are doing physically, not very much. But if you concentrate very much on what is happening physically, then it's very likely that you are going to loose your thread. It's like riding a bicycle, if you are looking at the horizon that's no problem but if someone crosses in front of you, then your attention goes to that and it's not the same. This shift of attention is what causes most of memory problems.

MB: Yes, doubting oneself, distractions, going back into it.

EF: All this comes from an attitude towards music making really. If you go on stage thinking: All these people came to the concert to listen to what I want to do, to listen to music to enjoy themselves, they are not here to judge me, maybe some guitar students are here hoping for some accident to happen, but that's his or her problem, not mine. But most people are there because they are prepared to like what you do.

MB: ... and those are the people we should be playing for anyway.

EF: Of course, even if they are virtual, I don't mind. You are not going to take a poll of people to ask them why they are here. You have to suppose that they have a positive attitude and you are part of an experience being the instrument by which music becomes concrete in the physical world. Which is a very mysterious thing. If you think that someone thought of this idea for a piece and wrote it maybe last week maybe three hundred years ago and this is not material and you are actually the link in this chain between the composer and the listener. It's a wonderful thing and very mysterious.

MB: Sometimes I talk to my students about what I call perspective on the a piece, how close or detailed or how far one should be. And of course in my usual poetic way I tell them to imagine that they are looking at a big mural on a wall with a farm scene. There are some cows and one just took a poo-poo and then you get right in front of it looking at it very closely, and you ask: What is this mural about? And you say it's about cow poo-poo, but you move further away and you see it's a farm scene. I think with each piece of music we have to see how close or how far we need to be, in order that the music flows.

EF: Yes I agree completely . Actually I think I have both points of view because on one hand music is outside time so you have to pay attention to structure to functions rhetorical functions or whatever, these are all bird's-eye view of music and then you have the moment-by-moment thing which is very important also because that's the way you get to the other, to the listener. The two should be there. This also happens in composing. Sometimes you structure a work from a bird's-eye point of view, but then you have to work it out on the terrain. So, both things should be there and most people are good at one, but not the other. Some people have a very good sense of shape, form of a piece, but they don't make the “why it happens” interesting. They just walk you through the parts. And some people have a very good understanding of what happens moment by moment, this phrase, this color, this note, but don't relate them to the general shape.

AS: How do you put together a program?

EF: Well, you may organize half of a program around one work that you want to shine particularly, so you would put things that would relate to it or contrast it. Once I did a first half that was all about Folias, started with Ohana's Tento, then Giuliani's Variations on Folias and then Ponce. Just for the heck of it, it works. And once I did a half of a program of pieces by guitarist composers...

MB: OK, I'm curious, what did you play there?

EF: I don't remember, but certainly Brouwer would have been there, Narvaez, Giuliani and Sor...

MB: Oh, ok. I was wondering if it was contemporary composers.

EF: I think I played some of my pieces in that program too. Which is very rare, I almost never play my music.

MB: You probably should play it more, I would have liked to hear it. I suspect you play it very well, with a certain amount of understanding of what went into it, and also it would show another facet of your artistry.

EF: Yes, but maybe it's a face that many people don't like. I write very strange music you know.

MB: Personally, I don't think it matters. They may not like it, but they may respect it anyway, and it is an artistic statement.

EF: I find it very difficult to write for guitar, it's much easier to write for string quartet than it is to write for a guitar. Specially if you know it. I mean if you don't know it, it's difficult because you don't know how to work it out, and this happens to many composers, but if you know it, it is also difficult because it's very hard to avoid all the cliches.

MB: I've always had a difficulty with, composers asking me how to write for guitar. I think we sometimes get over enthusiastic and say well the guitar can do so many things, it can do four voices and this and the other. And the composer sits down and says how come I don't seem to be able to write anything that works that way. I think it's almost better to look at it from the inside out and say it's not much that the guitar can do and I think if you look at it that way you can find a lot of freedom. If you can imagine writing for solo violin, it's like that, but you can do more.

EF: I think it's sort of midway between solo violin and piano.

AS: Like simple piano music

EF: Yes, like writing for a left hand piano. It's very simple and every note counts. Every note has to be essential.

MB: That depends on the style of the composer

EF: Of course.

AS: Any pieces that you have not played, but that you would like to play?

EF: Many! Quite a few. This year I'm taking up two works that I've been wanting to do for a long time. One is the Denisov Sonata and the other is Guastavino's first Sonata, which I think are both in different ways very good pieces of music.

AS: They are certainly not pieces that are very often played.

EF: No, and I wonder why, because Guastavino is very accessible. Maybe it's because it's published in Argentina. And nobody knows about it. It's very good music, like Brahms using folk melodies from Argentina. And Denisov's is a very original work, I think it's a masterpiece, very difficult. My wife Ana (Torres) has a wonderful piece for solo guitar also. We recorded it for Decca and I've played it many times. It's about 15 minutes in three big sections, quite difficult, but very accessible. Actually, when I played it in New York in an almost only 20th century music program, the New York Times said that it was the best piece in the program, which included Berio, Takemitsu and others. It's a good piece. She's a very good composer and I've only been able to get her to compose one piece for guitar so far, but now she's working on another one.

AS: Is the CD available

EF: I suspect it's the first CD Decca deleted from the catalogue, being contemporary music...

MB: What seems to be happening a lot in this country, is that radio stations don't want to play contemporary music. I've had a number of situations when I've had recitals and I've been asked specifically: No contemporary music please!

EF: In this country it happens a lot. I think it's very dangerous, it's a form of censorship really. Music has a function in society, it sounds puritan but music expresses something important to people. It's a voice that tells people many essential things and when you don't want to confront this voice something is deeply wrong. Something is completely out of place in the makeup of the society, and it doesn't happen only here. Of course music went through a not very pleasant period in the 50s, but this is over now. People don't write this kind of impossibly complicated music very much any more. I think that if you play a difficult piece for the listener with no warning, without explanations, without context, the listener is going to feel aggressed. Because it's something that might be out of his listening experience. Maybe they have no way of knowing how to listen to that, so you have to give some context and information and program notes and maybe talk about the piece, and this way the reception is a thousand times better.

MB: There are some people that believe that if you have to explain it, it's not working...

EF: This is fine in theory, but what happens is that people are surrounded by music, they are surrounded by tonal easy listening music all the time, in planes, elevators and shopping malls. Your ears are set to a certain type of thing, want it or not. So, if you are going to do something different, you have to put it in context. It's not explaining to put a spin on things and convince people that this piece is wonderful when it isn't, it's just giving the work a fair chance of being listened to. It would be fine if people were not conditioned, but people are conditioned, specifically guitar audiences. If you take someone who has been listening to Piazzolla all his life, and he thinks this is the ultimate achievement of music, if they are going to play even Bach, you have to give some type of context because they are waiting for the drums to come in any time. What has happened really is that audiences have increased incredibly, how many people listened to Mozart or Bach in their time? Maybe you can count them in the thousands, but today it's in the millions. And of course many people come to listen to the music maybe for the first time with a completely different set of expectations. If you watch MTV music is mostly trivial and they make up by visuals or dancing or whatever, what is lacking in the music itself. And if you are conditioned to that, you are not conditioned to listening, you don't know how to listen.

AS: The attention-span of 15 year olds with the video clips with edits every second, I don't know how they can sit down and listen to a classical concert...

EF: It's not good training. And it's also not good training for studying or reading. You can't become a surgeon if you don't have a good attention span for instance... People also have to exercise their judgment a lot more these days than they used to, now we have the Internet, you enter and everything is there instantly. People have to start thinking for themselves which is a very good thing I think. This is good training for listening, very good training.

MB: For a while there, you were bringing out a recording every week it seemed. That must have been so difficult for you.

EF: Well you should know, you know... It was very stressful. I've seen friends like Shinichi Fukuda do that much more than I did. If you turn your back on Fukuda, he puts out a new record. I don't know how it's possible. I spent 10 years of my life just living for the studio. I want my life back, please!

MB: That was very impressive though...

EF: I don't know if it was impressive, I'm not very happy with much of what they did at Decca in terms of sound, I think I'm not very much in agreement with what the engineer did, I'm much happier with Arte Nova in this sense. I have a feeling that I worked a lot and the results were not what I wanted.

MB: How many recordings have you done with Arte Nova?

EF: Only two so far. One of Bach Suites and one of 19th Century works with a period instrument.

MB: Any plans?

EF: Yes many, maybe I'll do some Latin American, or slightly crossover or maybe some Sonatas record.

MB: Slightly crossover...? How slight is that?

EF: Say some Argentinian folk songs by Juan Falú...

MB: Are you going to sing on the record?

EF: No I don't think so. But I have a lot of admiration for Falú, he's one of my idols because he has this composer's head doing improvisation and folk music and I think it's fantastic. I think there are very few people that can do that.

AS: I would like to know more about the Villa Lobos Etudes you played in the second half, the manuscripts... Why do you play the manuscripts?

EF: I think they are more faithful to the original idea.

MB: Why?

EF: Well, there is this manuscript in the Villa Lobos museum which is completely fingered by Villa Lobos with lots of implications that are not in the printed score. And Segovia in the preface to the printed version refers to the fingerings that Villa Lobos wrote and he says that he didn't even think of changing the fingerings even if they are uncomfortable, “...it's what the composer wanted and he knows the guitar very well.” And there are no fingerings in the printed edition, so what Segovia was referring to was something different, this manuscript I think.

MB: But do you think Villa Lobos was the type of composer who would have allowed Segovia to make any changes to his music? Because I don't sense that.

EF: I don't think so, Villa Lobos was very strict with his music and he wanted to be in control of things, but you see the Etudes were written in 1928 and they were published in 1953. That's a long time. There was a World War in between and they didn't meet very much. Everything must have been conducted by mail and there must have been some kind of misunderstanding there. I'm sure.

MB: But do you think Villa Lobos was waiting for Segovia's approval?

EF: Of course not, no, but if you think that Segovia was maybe the only guitarist who would ever hope to play these Etudes at the time, he had a very special place in the music world then. So I don't think Villa Lobos felt bound by Segovia's opinion, but Max Eschig probably would. We don't know the whole story. I would love to see any letters from Villa Lobos to Segovia on this, or to Max Eschig, but they are not published or available.

MB: If I remember correctly, I remember reading a letter from Segovia to Ponce basically saying that he didn't believe in the Etudes anyway, that only a couple of them were worth playing...

EF: Yes, he never understood what Villa Lobos was trying to do and it is not surprising because Villa Lobos was about 50 years ahead of his time in this sense. So I am not surprised by this, but I think that the 1928 version is much more modern than the published version in many ways, and it makes a lot more sense musically I think.

AS: Why is that?

EF: Because it's more faithful to the idea, say in Etude no. 1 for instance, there are no repeats which musically makes more sense. Also in Etude no. 2 all those awkward endings are not repeated. They make sense if they go to the next measure but if you repeat them it is not logical. The section in Etude no. 10 which was suppressed in the Max Eschig edition, I think it's wonderful. The cut made in Etude no. 10 was done very poorly because they should have kept the transition that happens at the end of the second A section of the Etude and what they did was to use the transition to the first section to the B section, and use that into the next pentatonal section. It doesn't make sense. You have to end with a glissando to a determined place and then go to a pentatonic part and it doesn't make sense musically but the original version makes a lot of sense.

MB: What happens after the glissando?

EF: You go to an unpublished section, 35 bars which are fantastic, it's completely Indian music and it makes even more emphasis on the native Brazilian elements of the music. So this is very strong music. Sergio Abreu told me that he thought that Etude 10 was better without this section and maybe he's right, I'm not fanatic about this but I think it is very important to make it known at least. It should be heard and then you can make your decision, I think Max Eschig should have published both versions and leave the player to make the choice. Because this manuscript, when you see it, is so intended for publication, it's so carefully written and everything is indicated, fingerings, dynamics, much more than the printed version. So I think it is a shame that it was not published like that. I don't think they would have done that if Villa Lobos was German. They did it because he was Brazilian. This Indian you know, ok he doesn't know so we do something better with his music. I think there was an element of that.

MB: This is assuming that Villa Lobos himself didn't edit it out?

EF: Yes, of course, I don't know, we don't have the data on this. Maybe Villa Lobos after 1948 he had a heart problem and was in the hospital when this edition came out maybe they said this section in Etude 10 is unplayable it doesn't make sense so let's cut it out. And he said ok, let's cut it out. He had written 800 works in between...

MB: I don't know if it is the last bar or the next to the last bar, in the 2nd Etude, the harmonics, are they clear in the manuscript?

EF: Yes, very much.

MB: What does it have there?

EF: What you do is that you play the written notes normally and you also play with the i finger the notes behind the finger.

MB: You pluck with the left hand... now I'm going to argue that one for the hell of it. Those notes are out of tune...

EF: Exactly, but you have something quite close to D sharp, D natural.

MB: But if Villa Lobos had never written anything like that anyplace else, how can we assume that this is the right answer to that?

EF: Because he wrote it in Portuguese: “Play with i finger of left hand.”

MB: It's the first writing of micro tonal music at the time...

EF: Not micro tonal, let's say out of tune music... I don't think he attempted anything micro tonal.

MB: Because that is the reason why I never played it like that, and I had heard about that before. I just could not understand or think of any other examples where he used that.

EF: No, he never used that before or since. But then I think he had in mind very much the example of Paganini playing pizzicato with left hand on the violin and he wanted to do something similar.

MB: Except that these are out of tune..

EF: Yes, but Villa Lobos ate spaghetti with his hands, you can't expect him to be very much refined. So if it was close, it was good enough I think.

MB: Which do you think are the top 5 composition for guitar? Have you thought about that?

EF: I've never thought about it. I don't know if you can consider Bach there...

MB: Let's say originally written for guitar...

EF: Well, Sor's 2nd Sonata is one, Villa Lobos' Etudes for sure, Britten's Nocturnal for sure. These are what I'm very sure about. Maybe La Espiral Eterna as well. That makes four...

MB: You feel that strongly about the Spiral?

EF: Oh yes, absolutely. I wrote an article about it that you can find on my web page.

AS: What about Rodrigo?

EF: Well the Aranjuez of course is a masterpiece.

MB: Do you want to put it as number 5? ...and I grant you the right to change your mind later...

EF: Thank you, sure, let's put it number 5. There are many others though. But I don't think a student should graduate without knowing these.

AS: Do you have any advise to students in general?

EF: Some obvious things that are not usually remembered: If someone is studying guitar it is because basically they want to be musicians. It's not any different than if you want to be a singer or conductor or a violinist, you have to know about music. You should never start a piece unless you feel that you understand what the piece is about, the general shape or form of the piece, do a very specific analysis of what's happening, and get all possible context such as the composer's biography, other works by the composer and so on. It is a lot more fun that way also.

AS: What else are you doing?

EF: I've been doing a research project on learning mostly based on the ideas I wrote out in my book “Technique, Mechanism and Learning.” It's quite radical but I think we have to go back to the basics in many ways. In this research project, we created a group of more or less representative students in the university school of music in Montevideo, 27 students out of the whole group, and I did 4 very intensive seminars with them about mechanism, group improvisation, sight reading and technique. You know, working on specific problems and we have to see how they improve compare to the rest of the students in the school. If it works we implement the ideas into the school program. I hope it works. But even if it doesn't work, we have learned a lot from this. One of the things I learned and which surprised me a lot was that if you work specifically on sight reading, it doesn't matter which level of competence you are at, everybody advances exactly the same! We had people that had maybe two years of guitar studies and people who were in their last year of studies, and they all had the same level of improvement with this. So, it's a skill that has nothing to do with how well you can play the guitar. Sight reading is something that you can develop at any level. For me it was very surprising because I thought that people that were playing at a more advanced level would do better. Two of the seminars were on mechanism and I know they work because I've worked on them with individual students, so I wasn't surprised to see that they worked.

AS: And by mechanism you mean...

EF: I mean basically the set of reflexes that enables you to play the guitar. Mechanism is what you mean when you say: “I play guitar.” How you sit, how you move, how you make slurs, how your right hand moves, this is all mechanism. Technique would be how you use this specific skill to resolve a problem. If you want to make a parallel: Mechanism would be how you learn to walk, technique would be how you learn to run the steelplechase for the Olympics. Technique is more like training for a specific target. Those two things I know they work so that was not surprising to me. Group improvisation was interesting because I worked on basic musical elements in the group, like tempo or dynamics or color, and I had very structured exercises for this. That was interesting. The students who were basically beginners in playing, advanced as much as very advanced students in sight reading. This could mean either that the advanced students were not so good in sight reading to start with, or that sight reading is a skill that it completely independent of competence. I don't know, but we'll find out once we finish the research. Regardless, I think we all should work a lot in sight reading.

MB: Why?

EF: It's a basic skill for music making, if you can't read a text well, how can you be an actor?

MB: But sight reading is more than that, it's being able to read it on the spot, right away.

EF: To read and to understand, it's all together. It's not only decoding the part of it, it's also being able to understand what the code means and I think we need to work on that a lot, all of us. It is a basic part of music making, how you relate to a text.

AS: How do you work your memory?

EF: I don't work specifically on memory most of the time. A few times I've had to memorize something in a hurry, and I try to go into the structure very rationally, to map out the piece and try to remember the general shape and modulations. Because I think it's much easier to remember something that you understand, you need less bytes. It's like compression software, if you have to describe something pixel by pixel it takes forever, but if you can define it as set, then it's much easier. The same thing happens with memory. Also repetition plays a part, everybody remembers his or her phone number or social security number or passport number...

MB: You mean everybody remembers that? I don't! You may not believe me, but I do not know our cell phone number. Actually, I have NO idea what the number is. No idea whatsoever, every time I have to give it to somebody, I have to look to see what the number is. I don't remember people's ages or birthdays, except that I am very much aware of people that are turning 50 this year... But, I've finally come to realize in my old age...

EF: Huh, old age...

MB: ... that spending my life going around making music is not the worst thing in the world.

EF: Of course, I think it's wonderful. Everyday I thank my stars on heaven that I'm able to do this and actually make a living out of this. .--------------------------------------------------------------------- .divider

.paragraphtitle Manuel Talks to David Tanenbaum
.build anchor interview-tanenbaum

Manuel Barrueco: I was thinking back about our history together and all the work that you have done with contemporary music... I thought it would be fun to do an interview together and reminisce.

David Tanenbaum: I'll tell you something about our history that I remember. We used to have races with the Villa Lobos Etudes. We would start: One, two, three, GO!

MB: I don't remember that, but I do remember the first time I heard you. It was in a repertory class at Peabody when we were both students there. I walked in late (if my students only knew what a bad student their strict teacher was!) and you were playing a piece from the Joffrey Ballet's "Viva Vivaldi", and I just remember how awful it was...

DT: OK, end of interview...

MB: No, kidding aside, I do remember being impressed by how beautiful it was. I thought the piece was so pretty. It was part of the ballet, but it wasn't really Vivaldi, was it?

DT: It was the first movement, which was composed in the style of Vivaldi. The ballet used a three movement Vivaldi violin concerto that works pretty well on guitar, and the solo piece was played before the three movements.

MB: Had you played that professionally?

DT: I had. From my last year in high school, I toured it around the US. And during my first semester at Peabody, we went to the Soviet Union.

MB: I feel touring something like that is hard. I don't know how it is to tour with a ballet, but I imagine that it's a whole different game -- that you can't skip a beat.

DT: There is some flexibility, but you have to be rhythmically there. The challenge is to find something new in the piece all the time, to keep it fresh. And I got into the dancers. I would go into the wings a lot and watch them work.

MB: When I've toured a concerto, I find that it gets more difficult as the tour goes on. Every day, it gets harder and harder to find the energy and concentration to do it.

DT: Exactly. I just have done two sets of four and I find the same thing. You do it the first night, and then there can be a sense of let down. I find it easier to get on stage, but more difficult to keep the energy high.

MB: And the concentration, right? It's easier for the mind to wander.

DT: It does, and you know, the different acoustics can throw you. If you are in a different hall every night, it's a new adjustment.

MB: You got the Joffrey tours from Rolando Valdes-Blain. He was your teacher, right?

DT: Rolando was my teacher for about 4 years. You know him; he was dealing art and doing other things, and he would have only two or three guitar students at a time. My lessons began every Saturday in Greenwich Village at 1 o'clock, and he would just be waking up. He would get a cigar and a bottle of wine and sit on his couch, and the lessons went on until 5 or longer. We just played all afternoon.

MB: I remember you saying that he was a very generous man.

DT: Yes. He didn't have a systematic way of teaching, but he did teach me how to think on the instrument, how to finger, how to conceive things on the fingerboard. And he cared a lot. He spent endless amounts of time and charged very little.

MB: So what do you remember about your years at Peabody?

DT: I remember Michael Hedges being a very average, sort of dull student, showing no signs of what he would later do. And I remember you and I feeling that we were rebels. We were together one year at Peabody, your last year was my first. Now at Peabody, there are several people doing different things on the faculty, but back then, there was only one way to do things. And I would say that we fit into it "more or less".

MB: The thing about Peabody right now is that even though Ray Chester, Julian Gray, and myself in some ways are different, we all came from Peabody, so there is some common ground, and we certainly understand each other. I think that is positive.

DT: But in terms of teaching, you're probably very different, right?

MB: It depends on the perspective. From a certain perspective, I'm sure that it may all look very similar, but from the inside, it can look different.

DT: When I was forming the guitar department in San Francisco, I wanted people that had different interests and approaches, and who came from different backgrounds.

MB: So one day, you came to me and asked me if I wanted a job teaching at the Manhattan School of Music.

DT: Pretty nice guy, huh? Yes, my father was teaching there for years, and Dean Simon came to me and said "Who should I hire?" I chose you and recommended Rolando as well.

MB: Yes, you know students often ask me, "How do I get a job teaching?", and I tell them that I'm the wrong guy to ask. I don't know really. I was offered a job before graduating.

DT: It was such a different time, with so few people around.

MB: I thanked you then, and I thank you again.

DT: Make sure you write that.

MB: I will.

DT: It's an interesting idea to go to a freshman at college and ask him to form a guitar department.

MB: I have to say also that for me it was kind of difficult. I went to the Manhattan School of Music, and I think I was maybe 22 years old with no experience and with a lot of the students being older than I was. I often didn't know what I was doing. I remember at that time trying to be very open minded, to let the students do their own thing. And I remember having a conversation with Dean Simon about that, saying "Well, I'm trying not to influence the students too much", and he said: "OK, ok, that all sounds very good, but you HAVE to influence them, you have to tell them what you think, because it's the only thing you know." That was a turning point for me, because I realized that when I was a student, the teachers that had the greatest impact on me -- and I am not necessarily referring to guitar teachers -- were the ones that would go out on a limb to tell us what they thought and made a strong point. Then it was up to us to react to it.

DT: I remember playing in an artistic retreat for the California State University system a few years ago. All the artists said they found their direction because a strong teacher influenced them, sometimes directly and sometimes because they rebelled against the teacher.

MB: Actually, I think I've become a better teacher since learning to just say what I think. And being able to say "I don't know that."

DT: Well, I think that's a sign of being a mature teacher. When I was younger, I would let the students just do what they wanted more. For instance, in terms of levels of repertoire, I would let people play things that were too hard for them. I think it's a sign of a maturity to say "You can't do that now." Now I exercise way more control of repertoire and things.

MB: Yes, that would constitute bad teaching. All it does is let the student get into bad habits, get frustrated, and get used to playing things badly.

DT: Teaching is a big responsibility. The truth is that you know a lot more than they do, and they've given you their trust and you have to lay some lines down.

MB: Another thing that was important to me at the time was when Stanley Bednard, who was the head of the string department, advised me that as a player I should always teach. And I've found that has been a great thing for me.

DT: I love the balance between the two. It makes me articulate my understandings more than anything else. And it tells you what you know: if you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it so clearly.

MB: I know that for me it keeps me pure...

DT: Pure?

MB: Yes, in the sense that it makes me keep trying. There have been points in my life when I found myself kind of sitting back, sort of like "Ok that's it, I'm doing it -- I can just rest on it for a little while," and then you teach and you realize you can't. It's a challenge. Especially if I have to play the same repertoire my students are playing and they are playing it well, it really pushes me to keep trying my best.

DT: I sometimes look for shortcuts, but teaching students makes me realize that there just aren't any shortcuts, you have to go through the whole process every time with every piece to get to the point of understanding.

MB: I saw you a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco, and one thing that I'm extremely impressed with is all the work you have done with contemporary music. Not only that I can't think of a contemporary piece that you haven't played, but also all the composers that you have worked with.

DT: Let me tell you how all that got started. When I was crawling around the living room, my father -- who makes his feelings very clearly felt to everybody around him -- was playing Stockhausen and other crazy things on big loud speakers. I was just a little kid getting blasted with this stuff, and I think I've just never been scared of that music since that age. I studied first piano and cello, and when I got to the guitar, I remember my father coming by and saying: "You gave up Chopin and Lizst for Sor and Giuliani? Who are these guys? This repertoire stinks." So I finally said: "Why don't you just shut up and write me something?" And so he did, and I had this piece that was all mine. I got to explore it, I was the first one to play it, and I loved that so much that basically every time I met a composer I just said: "Why don't you just shut up and write me something?"

MB: Your father is a composer and a teacher at Manhattan School of Music and Aaron Kernis (whom you have worked with a lot) studied with your father there, right?

DT: Aaron and I met in 1978 at the San Francisco Conservatory, and then he went to the Manhattan School of Music and studied with my father. I think my father's influence on him was pretty strong; I think my father freed something in him. And it was when he was studying with my father that he began the "Partita" in 1981. We've been friends since then.

MB: So was your father influential in you getting to know some of these people? For example, Steve Reich -- how did you get to know him and work with him?

DT: Well, it's interesting that you ask that because I can't think of one composer that my father started me off with. I have an old friend from high school who played percussion in Steve's ensemble. After Pat Metheny recorded Electric Counterpoint, Steve was looking for a guitar player, and my friend connected us. I toured the piece for two years with Steve Reich and Musicians. He's like a rock star in Europe. It was like preaching to the converted -- you walked on stage and they already loved you before you played.

The scariest moment was early on, during a concert in Stuttgart, when the tape just stopped in the middle of the first movement. I wasn't really sure what to do, but I thought that it might come back, so I just kept the beat very steady and I played by myself for about 15-20 seconds. When the tape came back, I was luckily exactly with it.

MB: I came to see you in one of those concerts in Cologne, Germany. Anyway, how did Electric Counterpoint come to be named Acoustic Counterpoint?

DT: That was done by my record company after I recorded it.

MB: So what's the story about Nagoya Guitars?

DT: I got a call from Aaron Kernis one morning, and he said: "I heard a piece in New York last night that I think is a two guitar piece." So it was entirely his idea. He had heard "Nagoya Marimbas", which is the original version. I called Steve (Reich) and he said: "People have been trying to transcribe this piece for all kinds of instruments, but I don't think it's going to work." It's actually sight readable in the original key, so I sent a tape to Steve and he rejected it. Then I changed the key, added some harmonics and generally made it more guitar-like, and now he loves it.

MB: I've come to the conclusion that probably as much, if not more than any other country in the world, the U.S. is the place right now for new guitar music.

DT: It very well may be. It's happening everywhere. There's a small army of us going out and getting all the composers to write for the guitar. I think the greatest composer now who has not written for the guitar is Ligeti. I have approached him and I know Starobin has approached him, and he always says that he's too old to learn a new instrument. I know that you are currently working with $(*part="Arvo Pärt"), and one has to give a lot of credit to David Starobin for getting Elliot Carter to write for the guitar.

MB: It seems to me that there is a core of players of our generation here in the USA that have kept their focus on composers that are mainstream composers, and not only guitar composers. And it seems to me that here, more than in other places (and this could be simply because of the size of the country), just more things are happening. So, what other American composers have you worked with?

DT: I've done a lot of work with Terry Riley; he's writing me a series of 26 guitar pieces. We just made a CD, and I think it could end up being three CDs at least. He's just going nuts with the guitar. What's particularly interesting about that project is all the combinations he's writing for. He's got five pieces for flute that can be done with violin, two with percussion, a new one for guitar, viola, and bass, and there is one for 3 guitars, percussion, violin, and piano. So, it's a really long project that started with a lot of bugging on my part and is starting to turn into something.

I've worked with Lou Harrison. He hasn't written me anything directly, but I've played his guitar pieces and arranged and published a lot of his other pieces. I'd love to get another piece from him. I think his guitar pieces are beautiful.

I've also been working recently with John Adams, who lives less than a mile from me. He has used the guitar in five of his most recent pieces, if I'm counting right. He used the guitar prominently in the second movement of his Naive and Sentimental Music, a 50 minute orchestral work that I just recorded with the L.A. Phil and Esa Pekka Salonen. And I had to do it on a steel string guitar. How much steel string guitar have you played?

MB: Not much; doesn't that destroy your nails?

DT: It was really tough on them. I had maybe played steel string guitar for about 5-10 minutes in my life.

MB: Can you play with nails on it?

DT: I put all sorts of stuff on to harden them, and it was okay for the weekend of recording. It was sort of a crisis, because I played for Adams two or three days before the recording, and he said "Well, beautiful playing, but wrong instrument." So I had to borrow a steel string guitar and learn how to deal with it. It was hard.

MB: One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you about all this is that I think that you don't get enough credit for all you've done. There are people who have done a fraction of what you've done and they are getting all kinds of recognition. You are not someone that goes out blowing your horn and bragging about all this stuff.

DT: Yes, I know. But the truth is that what really interests me is the musical part. That's where my focus is; that's were I want to be.

MB: That's something that I love about the work that you have done, that it is about that. It's very pure -- I hate giving you compliments [laugh] -- but it's very much focused on the music, and I really can't think of anyone that puts more love into it.

One of the biggest influences I ever had in my life, somebody who opened a lot of doors for me, was Toru Takemitsu. I still remember the day in New York that you played "Folios" for me, and I thought at that moment, that it was the most beautiful music I had ever heard. This was in the late 70s, way before the whole Takemitsu wave.

DT: Yes, "Folios" was written in 1974, and I think the only Westerners into that piece in the early days were Michael Lorimer and me. I felt like a missionary; I played it for everybody like I went to you. I remember going up to Bream after a concert, and I said: "Great concert, Maestro Bream; do you know Takemitsu's 'Folios'? You should play that piece!" He just looked at me like "Who's this kid?"

MB: Did he say whether he knew it or not?

DT: He said: "I know the piece, and I'm actually carrying it around in my suitcase on tour." I think he never ended up playing that piece, but of course he ended up loving Takemitsu. The kind of relationship that you and I both had with Takemitsu is one of the most meaningful things to me, to work with a masterly musician like that.

I don't know how you feel, but I think you can learn from anybody. Any guitar player that has spent a lifetime working at this instrument you can learn from, and I've learned a lot from students as well. But my most profound teachers are these composers like Takemitsu. His ears revealed worlds of sound to me, and some of those experiences were unforgettable.

MB: When we were talking about him a couple of weeks ago, you said how he could get under your skin. He did that with me. I loved not only the music, but the person as well. I was so surprised to see how much it affected me when he died. I knew I would be affected, but to this day when I think about it, it makes me choke a little.

DT: Me too. I knew he was ill and on the verge of going, but I tell you honestly, four years later the world still doesn't seem the same without him in it. There are people in your life who have great power, and sometimes you don't realize the extent of it until they go. I had a grandmother like that.

MB: We did the last orchestral piece he wrote, "Spectral Canticle" for violin, guitar, and orchestra, and for me, it is almost unfinished in the sense that he never got to hear it. I feel sadness about that. We never talked about it, he never heard it.

DT: His widow told me that he also didn't hear "In the Woods" or the last flute piece.

MB: You had a certain quality when you played "Folios". When other people played it, it sounded angular, but when you played it, it sounded like a folk song. You also had that kind of quality when you were doing the "Royal Winter Music". I remember you playing it for me, and I couldn't believe how beautiful this piece was. So, I wasn't a bit surprised when Henze decided to write a concerto for you.

DT: That's very nice. Here's my Henze story: I don't know if you remember a pianist at Peabody called Carlos Turriago? He was a fine musician who knew a lot of contemporary music, and part of my great education at Peabody was hanging out with him and listening to his record collection. We used to stay up all night listening to new contemporary records that came out. And one of them was "El Cimarron". That knocked my socks off. I could not believe what he came up with, and I always wanted to do that piece. I was out in San Francisco in 1980 when the phone rang offering a tour of the first English language production, and I jumped on it. Andrew Porter, the New Yorker critic, heard one of the performances and he told Henze about me. So when "Royal Winter Music" came out, I was working on it right away, and when the Second Sonata came out, I wanted to make a recording of the whole cycle. But there were so many differences between Bream's recording and the score that I was just dying to play for Henze, to get some ideas, but mostly to get the score corrected. So I hung around this festival in California for a week listening to his music and waiting for a chance to play for him. Finally on Sunday morning, the last day of the festival, he called. He was in his bathrobe, drinking coffee and waking up. We went out on the porch and I started playing for him, and after the second movement, he said: "I'm writing you a concerto." It was such a shock, I almost started to shake. I had just wanted to get the corrected notes and to play for him. Finishing the last seven movements was hard after that. You know, Henze is an extremely generous man. He didn't need to write me that concerto, and he also could have said that and not followed it through, but sure enough he did. He found the commission himself, and three years later, he did it.

MB: I remember you telling me that in a certain place in the score, there were a bunch of notes and that he just asked you to make a chord out of them.

DT: It surprised me because here is a guy who has written hours of guitar music, including one of the longest guitar pieces for solo guitar, and he's writing chords that have 10 notes in them. He told me, "Look, these are all the notes I like, and you just pare it down and make the chord you want." So, for instance, in the last movement of the concerto, "An Eine Aölsharfe", a lot of the chords are my voicings. And sometimes he would describe in words the sounds he wanted, and then just ask me to come up with some way to do it, as in the last chord of the piece. So he wanted a very active participation, which was great for me.

MB: For me, with Henze, there is never a note that I wish was a different one.

DT: Yes, he is so incredibly expressive. Something like "Royal Winter Music" just makes the guitar a bigger instrument than it was before. It just rings with expression. And I think "Drei Tentos" are as beautiful a little set of pieces as we have. If you made me choose what I think is the most beautiful guitar piece, they would be high on my list.

MB: Yes, they are jewels. I also feel that way about "Royal Winter Music", and I plan to learn it one day. I see it as one of the greatest works for guitar.

DT: I think so. It's not played so much right now. We are going through a period where that kind of language is not in favor, but I think it may come back. It's just twenty five years old now, and I'm playing it again and really enjoying it.

MB: I also think that it's not the kind of thing that everybody can play. Just because one plays the notes and more or less the right rhythm, it does not mean that one plays the piece.

DT: I read each of these plays five or six times to really understand the characters. The thing about Henze is that he very rarely writes abstract music -- it's about people. And the people that it's about are usually those whose voices are not as heard, and he's taking their side. His father was a Nazi soldier, and he writes in his book about hearing his father roaming through the streets, drunk, with Jewish blood on his knife, singing songs about killing Jews that day. Henze was drafted, he was forced to serve, he was in a POW camp in England and got out. Also, he was a young gay man, and he had to suppress that. So he moved to Italy in 1951 to get away from all those memories and to have the freedom to be who he was. I think those early experiences effected all his later music.

MB: And now to your latest project, the Kernis concerto. Tell me about that.

DT: First of all, to get any other concerto than the Rodrigo booked is very difficult. Then trying to book a contemporary concerto is even more difficult. So I thought that a new, relatively short contemporary concerto that could be played alongside the Rodrigo might get some play. I approached Aaron with this in the mid 90s, and we mutually came upon the idea of him arranging material he had written before into a new concerto. He took two movements from his piece "100 Greatest Dance Hits", which is for string quartet and guitar, and then added strings to a movement that he had added to the "Partita" in 1995. I was really satisfied, but I thought that a new concerto had to have a cadenza. And so he said to me: "I really don't have the time; can you write it?" It's the first thing that I have ever written. It's about a minute long, but it took a month to write and I could never have done it if he hadn't held my hand through the whole process. But that was fascinating, because I got lessons on the real process from a master composer.

MB: It is curious that although he is such a big name in the American contemporary music scene, he is not all that well known in the guitar world. Of course, that is going to change. But other than you, I really don't see anybody else playing his music.

DT: That has been the strange thing to me. Well, you are playing this "100 Greatest Dance Hits" this summer?

MB: Yes, I am.

DT: I really don't feel greedy about these pieces I get. I want to do the premieres and take them around a little bit and do the first recordings, but I'm not one of these people that want to have rights for 3 or 4 years. "100" is about 7 years old, and I have been trying to get other people to play it, and I'm really glad that you are going to do it. I think it's a real winner of a piece.

MB: I don't know if I am remembering correctly, but it seems to me that I heard your father say many years ago that commissioning new pieces and working with composers was a way to make a career...

DT: I didn't make a plan like that -- I just followed my musical instincts. .--------------------------------------------------------------------- .divider

.paragraphtitle The Mango that Grew in Winter
.build anchor mango

Manuel Barrueco Masterclass: June 1999 The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

"You know, the mango, you can't get it to grow in the snow."

-- Cuban artist, Jorge Caunedo

By David Reynolds

"It's autumn and winter's coming," mutters Manuel Barrueco nostalgically, with a cautious sweep of his arm. It is mid-morning on day two of the Cuban guitarist's annual masterclass in Baltimore, Maryland. The British student on stage begins to play the opening passage of Ya Llega el Invierno (Now Comes Winter) from Torroba's Aires de la Mancha. For Barrueco, despite his Cuban nationality, the foreboding imagery of autumn leaves slipping toward an impending burial beneath the winter snow, so implicit in this piece's conception, is not an unfamiliar one. As he meticulously encourages the student to consider the phrase's shape, one might be reminded that the Cuban has seen more than a few winters pass by the window of his studio at the Peabody Conservatory where, this year, he begins his tenth year of full-time teaching.

The same, however, cannot be said for guitarist Rafael Padron and his wife, a musicologist, sitting in the audience on this June morning. The two have recently left their home in Cuba and now have traveled from Florida to Maryland to audit the masterclass. For Padron, the class, like Miami itself, might seem to be an unavoidable cultural destination. Indeed, Barrueco has made it a point over the years to meet and teach several guitarists who have made the decision to leave the island and pursue a new life in the states. "The Cuban artist has always felt an acute tension between career advancement and cultural authenticity. Leaving Cuba means risking the loss of cultural cachet, a break in association with a mythic, forbidden place that provides artistic inspiration. Staying in Cuba means struggling in a small crowded market with a lessened guarantee of making an international mark," says Jim Nesbitt, a Washington D.C. news correspondent.

But Barrueco, it would appear, is one Cuban who has beaten the odds. It has been precisely on the wintry streets of Newark, New York, and Baltimore, far from his home of Santiago de Cuba, that the musician has forged his conception of playing the guitar, and has done so in a way which has consistently startled the guitar world for the last two decades. His most recent CD, ¡CUBA!, is a beautifully recorded collection of works by a variety of composers from his homeland. Nevertheless, his interpretation of these works has, no doubt, been tempered by those experiences engendered by his membership in the Cuban Diaspora. He is a musician who knows both the frozen face of Torroba's Madrid winter and the warm breezes of Cuba where, today, Barrueco might well be considered to be the mango who grew in the snow.

North Hall has disappeared. Upon my arrival at the Peabody Conservatory, I discover that at the front of the spacious hall where, in the fall of 1985 I played my senior guitar recital, a behemoth pipe organ has landed and taken over the space. In addition, the venue has now been remodeled, refurbished, and renamed. The pipe organ's presence seems to have annihilated the grand hall's former acoustics. Fifteen years have passed since I have played in this hall. In those years, as a student at Peabody Conservatory, I played several times in classes given by Manuel Barrueco. Now, after all this time, during this second week in June I return here to encounter twenty-six students, ages 15 to 50, assembled from around the world to audit or perform in the class. Of course, only 5% of these students can even come close to correctly pronouncing Barrueco's last name -- but little matter; they have heard the recordings, attended the sold out concerts, and have traveled miles in order to lay claim to their own private piece of the Barrueco phenomenon.

During the eighties, Manuel Barrueco mainly confined his private teaching to Manhattan School of Music. "I guess I was lucky in that even before I had graduated from Peabody I had been offered a job at the Manhattan School of Music. While I was a student at Peabody, I taught in a local music school in Baltimore where I was working with beginning students. I have to tell you that the situation at Manhattan was very interesting for me as I obviously lacked experience and therefore confidence. This was also complicated somewhat by the fact that when I began to teach there I was only 22 years old and a lot of the students were older than I was," confesses Barrueco.

"When Aaron Shearer resigned in 1981, I knew it was essential to involve Manuel at the Conservatory. It had been obvious since his student days that he would become the premier artist of the guitar. I wanted the students to see a great player working with the same problems they have and observe his total approach to the art," says Ray Chester, chairman of the guitar department at Peabody who, years ago, met with a dean of the conservatory at a Kentucky Fried Chicken outside of Baltimore to help broker a deal for Barrueco to join the Peabody faculty.

Though Barrueco would probably never refer to himself as a pedagogue, it is precisely this role into which he is cast during this 5-day annual session. I come to the class aware of the bridge which spans the gulf between "those able to" and "those able to teach". I wonder whether the Cuban will be able to articulate any of the insights that have made his technique and artistry so attractive to the musical world? And can participating in a short-term class like this really have lasting effects on the musical life of a student?

Each student performing in the Barrueco masterclass receives two 45-minute sessions and may take additional tuition from one of the teaching assistants. I question Barrueco concerning his self image as a teacher. "It is funny that you should ask me that now, because it has only been recently that I have realized that I am a pedagogue. I guess I should not be surprised, because after all, I have been teaching now more than twenty years between my years at the Manhattan School of Music and at Peabody. You see, I never really thought of myself as a teacher, but as a performer that would teach. I teach for both selfish and unselfish reasons. Selfish, because I enjoy it and I learn so much from doing it. Unselfish, because I share with Segovia the same commitment to try to gain respect for our instrument and a concern about the future of the guitar. I see passing on to others the information that I have gathered through the years as a vital part of this process."

Lack of preparation seems not to be a problem for students participating in the masterclass process since even the best prepared guitarist seldom makes it past the first phrase of music where Barrueco seeks to replicate his own stamp of perfection in the smallest nuance of every phrase. The Cuban is laconic during the classes to the point of not even announcing what piece a given performer is playing. This ritual renders, for those old enough in the audience to participate, a running classical guitar version of Trivial Pursuit as auditors scramble to identify the current work being played on stage.

One student, performing admirably a work by Kaspar Mertz, receives praise for his obvious 'musical intention'. When the issue of tone comes to bear on the piece's opening, the student proceeds to pound out the first chord, attempting to remedy the harsh quality through brute repetition. Barrueco slouches in his chair, awestruck. The Cuban sticks out his lower lip and folds his arms like the Buddha incarnate. Apparently the mere thought that the student would continue to repeat the chord without first thinking of how to improve the tone appears wholly incomparable to the artist's nervous system. Barrueco eventually walks to the other side of the student's guitar and plays the chord himself while the student's left hand fingers remain on the chord. When, much later in the class, the issue of balance comes to light, the harsh quality of the student's tone finds a degree of resolution.

"I think that both teacher and student are equally important in the teaching-learning experience. I once said that you can't teach somebody who does not want to learn. Though I still believe that firmly, I wonder now if it would be more accurate to say that you can't teach someone who does not 'know' how to learn. In my experience, it most often means that the student does not know how to listen (and I don't mean that in a musical way) and perhaps even gets defensive. As far as masterclass teaching vs. individual teaching, all that I can tell you is that although often people say that one cannot learn from a master class, that is simply false. To these people I would like to ask if they were listening or who was teaching the masterclass!

"I can tell you that sometimes I have had students progress more from participating in a master classes than some students that I have had on a one-to-one basis. Again, it all depends on whether or not the student is capable of learning and the quality of the teaching. Having said that, and all things being equal (the student and the teacher), of course that long term individual instruction is better than an occasional masterclass. To become a good player you basically need three things: talent, hard work, AND the right information. If the only way to get top quality information is to go to the masterclass of someone who can provide you with the best information around, I think it would be an error not to attend!" affirms Barrueco.

At the close of the masterclass, many of the guitarists in attendance are blissful as they describe their positive experience participating in the class. "In a word, he's a real pedagogue. I think his way of teaching is not in giving the answers, but in making you find them by yourself. That week will make me work for several lives!" says Alain Wixon, a twenty-year-old guitarist who traveled from France to play in the class and hopes to return to Peabody in 2000 to study full-time.

"What was really motivating was also that we saw some results of his teaching: during the week, we attended three great recitals by some of Mr. Barrueco's students (Paul Moeller, Berta Rojas, and Franco Platino). I'm definitely coming back next year! Manuel has the clearest vision I have ever seen in a guitarist. He understands that the music comes first and the guitar and its technique are instrumental (pardon the pun) only in making the music a reality. He does not slight the guitar or performance technique. He simply has a perspective that is crystal clear. He is eloquent in the way he communicates his ideas to the performers. I understood everything he had to say once I understood his vision of being a musician first, who happens to play the guitar. His approach to technique is very logical, not in an overbearing 'Why are you doing that, that way?' manner, but in a way that invites you to find the best way to express the music. Then it is not his logic that he offers, but the logic of expressing yourself in and through the music. Again, excellent advice," explains class participant John Kizzie.

Those with a bent towards administration seem to be almost equally as excited about the high level of organization brought to the masterclass as they are about the teaching itself. Director Asgerdur Sigurdardottir (perhaps the only last name in existence harder to pronounce than "Barrueco") is a continual presence during the class and ensures the smooth operation of the smallest of details. Steve Turley, who recently was featured on charismatic Pat Robertson's 700 Club, gave a lecture on practice techniques. Among his top ten suggestions were to practice repertoire with the left-hand thumb off the back of the neck to help minimize left-hand tension. Another technique offered was to practice pieces with the left hand positioned one fret higher than written to test finger memory (better for the faint of hearing than of heart).

A highly elucidating round table discussion with members of Barrueco's teaching studio took place on day three of the masterclass (see Getting the Buzz on Manuel Barrueco!) and on Saturday morning, Ray Chester lectured on the art and benefits of visualization as it pertains to the guitar fingerboard and repertoire. "The classic guitar is one of the most complex solo instruments and the fingerboard is very confusing. Performing and studying without clear visualization is like walking around with one's eyes closed. The visualization process allows our students to continually train their minds to the utmost and gives them much greater freedom and confidence technically, musically, and in terms of performance and memory. How sad it is that so many players never have this opportunity," informs Chester. Social aspects of the masterclass have, in the past, included meals at an Indian Restaurant and a poolside BBQ at Finca Barrueco.

Barrueco is thoughtful on his teaching. "I would have to assume that Aaron Shearer is the greatest influence, but I would also have to assume that, after all these years, both the content of the teaching and the delivery are quite different from his. Mr. Shearer's approach, I believe, is more from the standpoint of the scholar and the pedagogue, whereas I am coming more from the performance angle. Probably, when it comes right down to it, I am basically rolling up my sleeves and letting the students look over my shoulder."

I mentioned earlier that lack of preparation seems not to be a deterrent to participation in the class. This, of course, is not true. Students encountering their playing through the ears and intuition of Barrueco emerge from the sessions with a new level of artistic criticism. This standard will, no doubt, filter to every level of the student's productivity.

In the practice rooms where Barrueco once watched the winters pass as a student, he now guides a succeeding generation of players. The mango that grew in winter has put down roots in Baltimore, sowing seeds for the next generation of artists and teachers.

For more information about the Manuel Barrueco Masterclass: Manuel Barrueco Masterclass at http://www.barrueco.com/ or by writing to: P.O. Box 4466, Timonium, MD 21094

¡Getting the Buzz on!

Locked away from their teacher, I hosted a roundtable discussion between four of Manuel Barrueco's longtime students, Paul Moeller, Franco Platino, Risa Carlson, and Steve Turley. While curious to encounter Manuel Barrueco the pedagogue, I also introduced a variety of topics to the group, including the value of guitar competitions, finding your musical voice through singing, and the special value of working with this artist/performer.

Broadly speaking, what has your teacher brought to your musical lives?

PM: He gives you a concrete path to both technique and musicality. That was the biggest thing for me helping to define my objectives for practice and my goals.

FP: I went to a Manuel Barrueco masterclass in Rome because I wanted to check him out and find out how he would teach. I decided to come to the states, to leave all of my friends and family and the culture which I also miss, and to come for one year to see what was going on; that was my goal. That was four years ago and I'm still here. I've found it really inspiring. He gives you a lot of information. You come back from the lesson really thinking.

RC: For me, Manuel in the beginning was more of a spiritual teacher. He really emphasized for me finding my voice. Finding that part of me that can say something in the music.

On the pressure of playing in a masterclass versus a recital.

ST: Comparing playing in masterclass versus playing in a recital is like comparing the Terminator roller coaster to the Volcano roller coaster. They're both horrifying, so if one is more horrifying than the other... oh well. I played for masterclasses here for nine years and never got used to them. After a while, you learn to sleep at night beforehand.

On playing in competitions.

PM: If you want to go back to what's nerve racking, I find competitions most nerve racking. But for me, at least, it makes me prepare more fiercely than anything else does. It helps me establish a regimen. I think they can definitely help your career -- you don't even have to win. However, I don't think it's a good thing to get obsessed with them.

FP: I think that some competitions don't really help you to prepare for a recital because you are working for just that half-hour of music. I would prefer competitions where you need to prepare maybe an hour and a half of music, rather than only half an hour or 10 minutes as I have seen sometimes.

ST: I've found that if you have a competition that you've won, even if it's at the Arkansas Backyard Bluegrass Festival, it adds credibility to what you do. A lot of teaching opportunities and performing opportunities come from presenting yourself in a way that separates from the crowd. Competitions have that instant power.

On the supposition that those who can play can't teach.

RC: With Manuel, as far a technical advise, he knows from having tried things in concerts. But Manuel always says you have to try it and if it doesn't work -- change it.

PM: Well, sometimes. (laughter.) Manuel has opinions, and when he believes in something, it's not like you can talk him out of it. It's funny; Manuel's always saying "Don't listen to my recordings; I don't want you to copy my recordings," then says "Do it like this" and the way he tells you -- it's just like the recording. I think sometimes he just wants you to go through a process and come to your own conclusions. Manuel is constantly pushing the practice and the dedication.

ST: You can break things down into primarily three levels: Theory, illustration, and application. I think you need to have a point of reference for these three objectives. For us, Manuel is that point of reference. At some point, you have to trust someone with your playing; you have to trust that he or she is looking out for your best interests and that they know what they are talking about, and you have to go with it. You can't fight the teachers for eight years; they're not going to deal with it. So out of that point of reference, you can experiment.

On Singing.

FP: You know I was so shy about singing even for myself. Once I was in Italy before a competition and Manuel sent me email. He said go somewhere where you can be by yourself, where nobody's there; go to the mountains and be sure you sing it out loud. I actually did it. Well I went to the beach, but it really helped a lot. When you start doing it, you really hear the difference.

On practicing slowly.

ST: Peabody breaks down playing the guitar into such minute movements that you can't help but practice at microscopic speed. First of all, they label each joint, the knuckle joint, the middle joint and the tip joint. So there's no way you're gong to be able to play fast when you are thinking about all that. (laughter.) But when you play slowly, it allows you to observe. There has to be a tremendous amount of observation behind your technique. I'm always amazed when I hear Manuel talk that way because I always thought it was those of us who aren't so naturally gifted, who didn't have hands of glory so to speak, who had to think about that. You have to practice at some point within the context of the speed that you are going to play at. I just think there needs to be a balance between slow and fast practice.

FP: Yeah, but you have to practice slowly and make sure you are thinking about what you are doing; otherwise it's useless. Otherwise you get bored after two days and you won't practice slowly.

PM: Right. I think it's possible to practice slow and poorly, too. The slow speed buys you the time to do the things you need to do.

On developing Artistry

RC: We'd be working on a piece of music and I'd play two measures and Manuel would ask "What are you trying to say here?" I'd say, "I don't know; it's kind of happy." He would work with me until every single note was full of meaning, as though you were painting a picture with the notes.

ST: One of my flaws, Which Manuel still brings up to this day, was that when I was at Peabody I didn't play nearly enough chamber music. I have suffered in terms of musicianship and especially in the area of rhythm because of that.

RC: Manuel talks about the fact that many guitarists sound like they are playing "guitar music" because they get stuck in that thinking. He tries to imagine what it would sound like if it were played on the piano or another instrument without any of the limitations of the guitar.

ST: If you listen to Manuel play a piece of music and compare it to another recording of someone else playing the same tune, you will hear an absence of, for lack of a better word, an absence of "guitarisms", things that musically are not that great but technically are just the easy, obvious things to do.

PM: I think with the teaching it's important for Manuel to see that you'll try the concepts. In a way, he does have an open mind. He'll say "I just want to make sure you can do it this way." But for me, the biggest inspiration has been by example. Just watching him do his thing, which is consistently laying it down. It's not an accident that he comes out and plays a great concert night after night. That's really inspirational, and to see the work and the love that he has for what he's doing... He really loves it. And that's why you can't talk him out of certain things because he really loves it. Just like you can't talk someone out of loving someone. He's a lover! (laughter.)

FP: He really opened my eyes when I first came here. I was somebody who was just trying to play faster. He made me listen to other performers, read about the music and understand the history of the music. I was working on transcriptions of some Schubert songs. He advised me to get some recordings of the singers. I worked on the melody in the way a singer would. These pieces were for a competition, and it was obvious that a lot of other players had no idea what the original song was.

RC: Manuel has a vision, and it's amazing how pure and how high it is -- he never cuts corners. There have been so many different challenges that he's posed for me. He really helps you get through every hoop that you have to jump through. We all have parts of our technique that seem insurmountable and we have to somehow get past that point. And through his vision, he has really helped me do that. We are taught the whole process and approach, not just given answers.

PM: I've taken master classes with a lot of famous guitarists and private lessons all over the world, and the level of instruction is the best I've ever seen. I'd venture to say it's probably the best in the world.

ST: Yeah, but maybe your perspective is motivated by the fact that you're still getting a grade here, Paul? (laughter.)
DBR
.--------------------------------------------------------------------- .divider

.paragraphtitle Manuel Barrueco Talks to Larry Harris
.build anchor interview-harris

The following interview was conducted with writer Larry Harris prior to the release of Manuel Barrueco's latest recording "¡Cuba!" on Angel/EMI Classics.

Question: It is an old story now, how you and your family came to the United States from Cuba when you were barely in your teens. You obviously still have a great affinity for your native country and this record is a tribute to Cuban music. How did it come about?

Barrueco: Well, I originally suggested it during a recording session at the Abbey Road Studios some years ago. We were talking about record ideas and I just sort of threw the idea out because I did not know how people would react to such a recording. After all, Havana is a long way from London. I was surprised by the positive reaction it got. Now I can understand it more because Cuba, its music, politics and of course, cigars, seem to be presently in vogue.

Q: How did you go about choosing the music for the recording?

A: I wanted the music to be very beautiful, really powerful, and I wanted it all to sound Cuban. The main influences in Cuban music are the Spanish and the African elements, and my desire was to let these flavors come through. The composers range from the ever popular Ernesto Lecuona, a Cuban Gershwin of sorts, to the evocative Leo Brouwer. Some of the pieces I have known through the years from when I was only a child.

Q: You have now made some 15 recordings for EMI in the past 12 years and your association with the company has been long and fruitful. On this recording, however, you chose to make a dedication, reproduced here: "To make a recording of Cuban music has been of profound significance to me for many reasons - not all of them musical. Between Havana and Miami lies the Straits of Florida, and in these waters many Cubans have died in pursuit of their dreams. To those victims and to their dreams, I would like to dedicate this recording." That is a powerful statement, one you must have labored long over. Why did you do it?

A: Well, the No.1 reason is that I wanted to be absolutely certain that my intentions in making this recording could not be interpreted as any kind of approval or support for the current situation in Cuba. After all, not all Cubans outside of Cuba would approve of my including music by composers currently living in Cuba, as I have done here. On the other hand I did not want to make it obviously political, I wanted to reach on a human level, address the human element. I can't help but to think about what kind of desperation these people must have felt. I just felt the need to say something.

Q: Some of the old barriers seem to be breaking down between Cuba and the U.S. Recent overtures seem to have been made by both sides toward better understanding, but there are others who are not convinced these movements are sincere.

A: One can't help but to be skeptical. I believe life is very precious. I believe deeply - profoundly - in the right of self-determination and the freedom to live one's life the way one chooses to live it. I could not possibly support anything, anywhere in the world, or even give the illusion that I support a situation that drives its people to risk their lives in such a desperate way.

Q: It is quite likely that, given your current stance, you will never again set foot on Cuban soil, even though you yearn to. Have you given much thought to that?

A: Yes I have, and it disturbs me very much. In fact, it breaks my heart to see how families have been divided, how people are growing older and dying outside of Cuba without having had the opportunity to freely visit their homeland and people they love. This situation makes me sad and more so as I get older. I hope that one day I will be able to go back.

Q: In recent recordings, you have branched out into other areas other than the classical with the Beatles recording and with the music by Simon, Jarrett and Corea on Sometime Ago. Has this signaled a change in the way you approach your musical recording?

A: Yes, I think it has. If I imagine all the recordings that I have made as a great big banquet, then these recordings that you mention are the dessert! I am now past the point of seeking virtuosity for virtuosity's sake. My need to communicate - to touch someone with the music - has become much more important. Now I know that it is not the number of notes or how fast you can play them, but the power of the notes. It takes some years to understand that.

Q: So, what part of the meal is "¡Cuba!"?

A: Cuban coffee and a cigar, of course! .--------------------------------------------------------------------- .divider

.paragraphtitle Manuel Barrueco Talks to David Russell
.image russell-interview1.gif Manuel and David

We're sitting in a restaurant in Baltimore after David's class at the Peabody Conservatory, and his recital last night. We are having dinner with about 20 students. Manuel has long wanted to do an "interview" with David, pick his brains a little bit. Here is a transcription of the conversation.

Manuel Barrueco: Is it my imagination or did I see your little finger shaking a little bit last night?

David Russell: I always shake a little bit just to make sure that the audience and the guitarists know that I'm not using beta blockers... (laughter)

MB: I wasn't expecting that answer.

DR: You're supposed to ask me if I can expand on that...

MB: Can you expand on that, please?

DR: I always get a little bit nervous when friends like you are in the audience. I want to play well and it puts a little bit of extra pressure. Sometimes I will finger things so that I don't have too many open strings. I hate having all the fingers in the air because they will all shake like hell, so I'll stick down fingers in odd places on notes that I'm not going to play even though I'm not particularly nervous. It doesn't seem to cause any great problems unless I get REALLY nervous, but it's a tremor that has been there since I was young. I've learned to live with it and it doesn't really cause me any problems. But I hate the fact that the first row or the first few people or sometimes even the whole audience can see it. I really don't like that, I wish it didn't happen. If they see it they sometimes think "He must be nervous, his fingers are shaking" even when I'm not particularly nervous my fingers shake a little bit, it's just the excitement of the situation.

I kind of like the challenge of a little bit of nerves.... it gives me an extra something. We concert players are a little bit like race-car drivers or mountain climbers, we do it because it's dangerous, except that we don't put our lives in danger, we just put our ego on the line. It's my challenge in life to do a concert as well as I can. Ok? expanded?

David continues: ... and I mentioned the joke about beta blockers, I've never taken them, never tried them. I've asked a few doctors about them and it is a subject, that if anyone is interested in taking them, they should always discuss it with a doctor first. I joked about it before, but it is really a serious thing.

MB: Have you done any other drugs....? No, just joking. I think that sometimes people that don't play concerts think that we don't get nervous. What was happening to me yesterday in your concert, was that I felt nervous before you came out. I was nervous for you. Then, all of a sudden, I was nervous for myself. I was thinking: "Oh my God, I'm going to have to do this..., why am I doing this to myself [playing concerts]? Am I crazy?" It's an incredible fear.

DR: We should really think quite harder about why we do it. We sometimes joke that there is a better way of making a living, but on the other hand there is something exciting about doing something that has a touch of danger, or that we feel a touch of danger, and that we are laying ourselves on the line. I really quite enjoy that challenge. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to move forward and try again or try better. We're lucky, when it goes well it's great, we get our egos stroked a lot, people say lots of nice things, audience are clapping for you and standing up. It's a really great high, and it's fun! But, it means that we have to continuously do things to maintain that. This is looking at it from a selfish point of view, regardless of whether you're in music or something else. Being on stage doing something that gets this kind of communication going, you find that you're actually manipulating people's feelings. You're doing something with music that makes them feel something within the music, that if you didn't do it, they wouldn't be able to feel it.

MB: What do you do to manage your nerves?

DR: I get really upset when I do have an off night. It's really not a nice feeling, very upsetting, embarrassing or whatever . But if I have done my work and I've done my best, my conscious is clear, I feel ok, at night I sleep. I've done my best and that's very important.

When I do mess up, instead of having this massive bad reaction and whipping myself and getting angry, I try to keep my mind on: "It's really sad that the people haven't been able to enjoy this phrase and the music so much". I have to avoid thinking: "The people haven't been able to think so much of me". If you keep that in mind, it avoids this thing about you being on a test. Also, when it goes well, I try to think: "It's great that you were able to hear how great this phrase could be".

For example [to a student] you played Barrios' Julia Florida in the class today. I know the first time you didn't play it so well and that you can play it better, but there were some bits that were great. So, as soon as you hit the good bit you have to say to yourself: "Oh that was great"! It's a strange thing that happens, you sit at home and practice and it's late at night and you say: "Oh this sounds great!" But you sit on stage and you say:" Oh that sounds horrible!" It's the wrong way! It should be that at home one is concentrating on practicing, and when in front of an audience you should think: "Beautiful piece, beautiful moment". You mess one up, but so what? The next one will be better. For me this is really important , it's very easy to be negative with yourself.

MB: We've talked about this often [to the student], when you see someone making a mistake and they get very angry and punish themselves. It seems like a humble thing but in fact it's not! One thing that helps me a lot, is to realize that I am going to make mistakes, so when I make one I'm not going to punish myself because I never expected perfection to begin with!

DR: I haven't heard you make one...

MB: Well I did, it was nineteen eighty...... (laughing) it took a lot of alcohol to get over that one.

DR: No, but you're absolutely right, and sometimes people make faces and I must say I've sometimes done it, but I've basically gotten rid of it. When you make a face, it's a bit like telling the audience: "I don't normally make mistakes!" It's silly, you only transmit your bad feeling to the audience. Next question!

MB: What happens when you're playing, for example, a piece like the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro [Bach], which everybody knows?

DR: [Laughs] ...

MB: No, really, I'm not putting you on the spot. Let me tell you a story, the first time I played it it was in Japan, and my agent was waiting for me when I got off stage, and he said: "Oh..... Prelude, Fugue and... Andante"

[lots of laughs from David] Obviously when you're playing something the audience knows very well, and especially if you're in a certain position the people expect a certain level...

DR: Yeah, when you play a well known piece, unfortunately, you've got to nail it! It is a different kind of challenge than when you play a lesser known piece, especially if it's the PF&A because it's one of the pieces that many, many people know.

If I feel that a lot of other interpretations of a piece are stronger than mine, I probably won't play it. At least until I find that my interpretation is valid enough, or strong enough, or different enough. There are some modern pieces that I feel that other people play better than I do, so I don't play them! Maybe one day if I really put my heart into it, I will be able to play them well enough that I feel that my contribution is worth it. Then I'll do it. With the PF&A I feel that my version is valid enough and personal enough for people to really enjoy it, and I feel that I play the piece well enough to where I'm going to be satisfied.

MB: So now you're at the concert and you're going to play one of these pieces.... because you've had this process beforehand, by the time you go to play the piece you're not aware of the fact that you're going to play something everybody knows?

DR: I understand what you mean, and no, I don't really think that's in my mind. I'm really not that aware of it. It's not so much if people have heard Pepe Romero or Manuel Barrueco play it. It's more like if you play something all the students play, which are often half your audience. I really don't like on the day of a concert or the day before, to do a master class where some of my repertoire is played in the class. I don't really like it. Today some people played the PF&A I played yesterday, and I felt completely free to be flexible and to work within that person's way of interpreting it. If it was the day of a concert or the day before I'm going to play it, they would have to do it my way! Then I'm not flexible enough to accept other ways. And it worries me if I press my ways and tell them that they really have to try this, then in a concert I'm far too conscious. I'm not just "doing it", I'm consciously doing it, it's not free.

I remember you once saying, and I've said it in many master classes when people ask me about memory. It was on the day of your concert in Quebec and somebody asked you: "Mr. Barrueco what do you do for your memory?" and you said: "Rule number one: On the day of your concert, never talk about memory!"

MB: Did I say that? That was pretty smart...

DR: I'm telling you I've used that - and even given you credit for it - because I agree entirely. And also, if possible, not to have to work on the piece either on a concert day.

MB: Another memory story: I was giving a lesson on how to memorize to one of my students and in the middle of it I forgot what I was saying! Next thing I know the student was on the floor laughing and of course I didn't know why, so I asked him why he was laughing and he told me that I had forgotten what I was saying...

[laughter]

MB continues: You have a very distinct style, there is a David Russell Style. Where does that come from, what are the influences?

DR: This whole thing about a distinct style is a big subject and I think maybe quite an important subject as each of us develop and grow up or mature. I think it's quite difficult to develop your own style on purpose. There are some young people who try to do it and they usually sound quite cocky. You Manuel also have a very distinct style, I hear you on the radio and I know it's you. That comes through familiarization, people hear you often enough to recognize you. I don't think it's something that you can consciously develop. You slowly become more and more aware of your own ways of approaching a phrase, your own way of distinguishing a classical piece from a baroque piece, how you make them different, how you approach cadences when you go into a real romantic piece. Of course you do it just by feel at first, but eventually there is a whole reasoning behind it. You are able to give reasons as to why this note should be there or not.

Going back one step to answer your question of where my styles comes from, I come from a very artistic family, my parents are artists and all my brothers and sisters except one are artists. We lived like bohemians in a van for years, moving around different places. When I went to study in London, I was lucky to live in the basement of a violinist's house and I studied the violin.

I think certainly some people have stronger personalities than others and maybe the person that has a less obvious personality maybe needs to work on it and think about it, find ways to develop it.

[To a student] If you think of Manuel and I, it's kind of strange, Manuel comes from a Latin origin and then grew up in an English speaking American culture, and I was the opposite, came from Scotland and then grew up in a Latin place. All these little cross over things make you perhaps have a wider range of experiences in terms of culture etc. We're both bilingual, and all these things help you. The more varied your life experiences are, the more you bring to your music.

MB: When I hear you teach, the musical terms and the language you use, I don't hear it with other guitar teachers I've heard. Is that something you've learned in the guitar world you've known, or is that something you've acquired in other places?

DR: There are a whole lot of things that happen within a master class. The whole psychology game with the student, specially because in a master class you have the person for a very short time and you don't actually know that person. You hope to find a little something you understand, or something you can connect with. There are different ways of helping people and the way it worked out today was through convincing them musically, because I wasn't going to have time to help them directly technically. Does this make sense?

MB: Oh, yes. But what I was referring to was that the way you sounded to me was that you could have been any musician speaking about music. That's not usually what I hear in the "guitar world".

DR: Well, I lived in London in a not very guitaristic world for many years. But we have to be careful, there is certain amount of Guitar Whipping, and I don't think that f. ex. the violinists are any better because they are so mixed up in their own world, or the Horn players. I used to play the French horn, my mother was married to a French horn player and they are all caught up in their own world as well. Pianists don't listen to anything but piano. In some ways they all suffer the same things we suffer. But if you go to other master classes from other instruments, you hear them talk about slightly different things but they also apply to us. So, what you're saying is probably partly because I played these other instruments, because of the people I was mixed up with in London, my interests at that time. That's probably the reason more than anything.

F. Ex. I studied with José Tomás in Alicante, Spain, and that was great. Very direct and very clear ideas. That's the way I'd like to be taught. He was able to crucify me without depressing me and that for me is very important. He was able to get to my problems and give me solutions. Teaching must be positive, negative teaching is useless. Isn't it funny that if you play for somebody and they say to you " You're slurs are not very good but your tremolo is good" you go home and practice your tremolo whereas what you should be practicing is your slurs! In my teaching I use as many things as I can hopefully without depressing or pulling down the student, regardless of their level or their talent.

MB: Do you think one can become musically knowledgeable within the guitar world?

DR: I think you can. I think any one instrument can become musically knowledgeable within that instrument. We tend to say: "It's either a guitarist or a musician" and I don't feel that's quite right, even though, of course, there is a certain amount of that. I think that our little guitar world is something special, but I would like to encourage guitarists to at least learn another instrument and have some experiences actively in music that are not only with the guitar. At least play chamber music.

.image russell-interview2.gif Manuel and David

MB: If I told you that listening to your concert last night I heard Segovia in your playing, how would you react to that?

DR: For many many years I was kind of an imitation of Segovia. At the age of 14, I could hardly read music but I could play really badly Dance # 5 and 10 by Granados, and Granada and Sevilla by Albéniz. My father and I didn't really read music well, we basically had taken the music from the records. He had all these 78rpm records with Segovia. So, of course, I copied his interpretations as well. For many years Segovia was my idol.

MB: Let me rephrase the question. If I told you that I heard some qualities of Segovia in your playing, what do you think I was referring to?

DR: Maybe about some moments in Torroba, but I really don't know. You're going to have to tell me what you mean.

MB: What I mean by that is Segovia in his playing has a sensuality, which can be heard in the more lyrical passages of your playing. Does that make any sense to you?

DR: Yes, it does, it is something that I enjoy in his playing. The word sensual almost implies sexual, and I think there is sometimes almost a physical pleasure in music at times. I enjoy the way the notes are almost tangible, you can see them shaking, growing, and that is something Segovia did extremely well.

MB: I was curious to see if you would take my comment as something negative, because a lot of people have criticized him.

DR: I think it's really important for our generation and the next generation to find a different way, that is just as expressive and just as sensual. There are many, many ways of being expressive. I know that I was very influenced by Segovia and I had to take away some of that when I first came to London, because I realized that basically all I did was copying him. That's the way I had grown up.

MB: I was trying to put together in my head what it is that I hear in your playing, as I mentioned, I hear these qualities that Segovia had, like your warm sound, but at the same time you seem to have a very modern training. I was wondering if it is this mixture that makes your style? Nobody sits in a vacuum, we all pick from others. And also, there is nothing wrong in saying to a student: "You should not sound like Segovia", that is not necessarily a criticism of Segovia. If I was a painter and had a student that was painting cubism I would say: "Listen, let's go on" but it doesn't mean that I'm putting down Picasso because of it.

Segovia was great for his time and I think he is very unfairly criticized.

It's very easy to criticize somebody's work. I think the problem is that some people thought of him as being God, and when you compare him to God, of course the guy falls short...

DR: You know, sometimes it's worthwhile consciously copying exactly what somebody else has done in their phrases. When you copy really consciously you actually have the physical experience of making the same sounds and the same phrases and the same mixture of sounds and the same balance. It's very difficult! Not just make a caricature, but really get as close to what they've done to find out how they did it. I think you can learn from that. When I got to London I was tired of the Segovia thing and then suddenly it was Julian Bream! He was a big thing when I first got there. I tried to copy it exactly the way he did it, where he made the sounds,I tried to come as close as possible to what he did. For me it was a really good experience.

MB: Did you have contact with Segovia at all?

DR: I played for him in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, privately because I wasn't in the master class. He was very nice, wrote a letter for me, and he said to me that when he was in London he wanted his wife to listen to me. I was very flattered and a couple of months later when he came to London I phoned him up and he told me to come the day after his concert. I went there but there was no wife there! I played for him and he started to tell stories which went on for a long time, over an hour. Then suddenly from the bathroom we heard: "Cling, cling" you know the sound when you drop a glass bottle in a sink it makes a lot of noise. Then Segovia suddenly said: "Oh dear, you have to leave, my wife is in the bathroom..." so I left and never met the wife! I can just imagine her saying that she didn't want to hear another young guitarist, and went on to have a bath. He probably just forgot about her... that must have been it because he was in the middle of telling all these stories, he was all excited, it was great listening to him.

MB: So he was very helpful?

DR: Oh yes, very. He commented to other people about me and was very nice. At that time I was moving out of London and I really didn't take advantage of his help. I was pretty immature in some ways, like business-wise, and I think I missed an opportunity there a little bit. He was great, it was good for my ego.

MB: It's funny because as I was listening to you in your concert I kept wondering what Segovia would have thought if he had heard you.

DR: He was great. I played him Capricho Diabolico by Tedesco and some Ascencio music and some Granados...

MB: Did he ever write one of these letters about you?

DR: Yes.

MB: What did he say?

DR: He said "My congratulations for your guitaristic technique..." or something like that, you know this stuff we all write... Something about a guitaristic technique and musicality.

MB: Another thing I thought would be interesting for the students to hear, because you said you had developed a lot between the age of 18-24.

DR: Some people mature much earlier both physically and mentally. I lived until I was 14 or 15 in a village in Menorca, Spain, of 800 people, with no musical influence except for my family and Segovia's records and the other records that my parents had. So, when I got to London I was way behind in lots and lots of things. I could hardly read music, that was ridiculous when I think about it, but I could play pretty well. But it took me years to learn pieces because I did it just by ear, and sometimes by working out - F A C E etc. on the finger board, it was really bad. So I had a lot of catching up to do. Also, I grew at least 2 inches after the age of 18!

MB: Really?

DR: Yeah, [laughs...] So there were a whole lot of things that at the age of 18 I was way behind on. I see many people now at the age of 18 that play better that I could at that age - and I see many 24 year olds that play partly better that I could. By the age of 24 I think I more or less had it together, even though I wasn't really ready. There were lots of things that were unfinished, and lots of technique problems. It would be great if we were all prodigies and could play the Chaconne by the age of 16 but that wasn't my case. In some ways it gives me a certain attitude towards somebody who is 24 and is still having certain problems, because I can sympathize with them. I have some old tapes of myself of that time, they are ok, but there is a noticeable difference between then and when I was maybe 28. At that time I think I started to hit my level. At the age of 24 I won all these competitions, I was certainly well enough prepared in comparison to some of the other people that were around in those years, but nowadays there are lots of good players, the standard is pretty high. [To the students] So don't give up hope, there is hope after the age of 28. Also, you can become a wonderful musician without having an incredibly rapid or incredibly agile technique. Certainly, more technique will help you as long as your musical desire is in front of your technical desire. I know some people who are technically limited, they don't have Manuel's technique or whatever, but they can play really good concerts. So you need to find out your limitations and your qualities, and show your qualities, develop your qualities.

MB: I find that a lot of times people think that when you are concertizing it's all glamor. One memory that I have is of seeing you in Finland. I think you had flown from the US, went on to teach a master class, and then you played a concert that night after having slept a little bit. Your eyes were right on the floor, red, but you went on playing a hell of a concert. Do you remember that?

DR: Thank you but I don't remember the concert.

MB: I guess what I'm driving at is that sometimes people don't realize under what conditions one sometimes has to perform, and even on our level it's very hard.

DR: Yes, for example last week, in 24 hours I played 3 concerts... two programs!

MB: How did you do that? I mean how did you fit it in 24 hours.

DR: Well, it was a evening concert, the day after a mid-day concert and a evening concert!

MB: So which was the best one?

DR: Oddly enough, probably the last one. I was well prepared, I worked very hard for it. The agents do all these deals for you, and sometimes I'm not too careful as to what's happening. I should be more careful because these things sometimes happen and you very often end up in a very unglamorous situation... I played 4 concerts and taught one master class in a couple of days. I'm sure you have had situations that are similar.

But I've done ones that are more glamorous - I have sat in the back seat of a car practicing on my way to the golf course, played a round of golf and then practiced on the way back and then I played a concert...

MB: Oh, you were that handsome guy in the back seat of the Lexus?

DR: [Laughing] No, by the way, did you get to play golf after your Lexus gig?

MB: No.

DR: But really, I didn't mean it as a joke! The last concert I did in Seattle I really wanted to play golf with these friends, so I sat in the car and practiced all the way to the golf course...

MB: I practice in the car all the time.

DR: Oh really?

MB: Yes, sometimes I just don't have time to do all the things I have to do. The New Jersey Turnpike is polluted with my sounds. In fact, when I did that commercial I was used to playing in the car because sometimes it's the only time I get to practice!

Talking about glamorous, sometimes people say that so and so does 150 concerts a year, as if it was a great thing! To me it sounds like slavery, it sounds insane! I guess it does represent a certain amount of success and a certain number of trips to the bank you know, but other than that...

On a different note, what other recordings are you doing?

DR: I just finished a recording of Torroba that will be coming out soon on Telarc. It's all the well known pieces except the Piezas Caracteristicas.

MB: Do you like recording?

DR: Yes I like it more and more. I have had some bad experiences and some good experiences. As time goes on I kind of remember more the good experiences and forget about the bad ones. I'm basically positive, which is why Phil wrote that piece called "The Good Luck" waltz, he said "You're just such a lucky bugger". I've had some really horrible recording experiences that I don't really like to remember, that were too hard or too uncomfortable, f.ex. the recording of Tárrega. I had a great time even though some of them were really difficult. So, I enjoy listening to it, it was a good experience. The Torroba was a good experience. I'm really looking forward to the record because it was a great couple of days.

MB: Where was the Torroba done?

DR: It was done in a place called Mechanics Hall in Muster, Massachusetts. It was far too cold, about 18% humidity. I had to keep on breathing on the guitar, cover it with wet towels, it was crazy, there were a lot of extra difficulties, but I thought the playing experience was good. We also lost hundreds of takes because of a bus-stop! Every time a bus would stop, the rumble came through. During the Barrios one, hundreds of takes were also lost with women with high heals walking past the hall. It came through - tack, tack, tack, tack...

MB: So my final question: I'm told that your wife María is getting fed up with all the trophies you are winning playing golf...

DR: (laughing) You know I'm much more proud of having won the J&B Whiskey Championship for second year running, than my Barrios record... I love playing golf. I love doing things outside. I used to play tennis a lot, but tennis is not too good for your hands. It makes you a bit too muscle bound. I can play golf all morning and play a concert in the evening it doesn't really matter.

.image russell-interview3.gif Manuel, David, and Family