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La filla del marxant and Miguel Llobet

I've heard "complaints" that I haven't posted anything for a while. This is true. But times have been busy and tumultuous.

This little posting, however, was motivated by a double encounter of Spanish speaking people today. First, at the optician's shop where I was helped to choose glasses by a friendly and pleasant Spanish girl from Segovia. Second, at a restaurant where I helped three Catalan ladies choose food (they didn't speak English well and the Indian waiter was confused).

I spoke about guitar during both occasions. In the second instance, I had a short discussion about Catalan folk songs and when I was asked what my favorites ones where I mentioned, among others, "la filla del marxant".

Here is the version I know by Miguel Llobet.



I discovered the following recording of Llobet himself playing guitar! This is quite rate. At the time (1920s) there was no Andrés Segovia and classical guitar had not become popular yet. Llobet was a student of Tárrega, both great guitarists and composers. The great thing about the recording is that we can hear something about the Tárrega style. This is quite amazing.



Two chance encounters led me to post this. Unfortunately, these people don't know my blog so they'll probably never find out I've been speaking about them here and will never read this. 

Manolis Kalomiris: mother's ring

An excellent piece by Manolis Kalomiris, most representative of his works, "mother's ring", in three acts:

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Manolis Kalomiris (1883-1962) was a post-romantic composer, whose rather dramatic work incorporates folk music elements and an idiosyncratic counterpoint. The libretto for "mother's ring" can be found here.

Turkish influenced Greek music by Japanese group

They're from Japan.
They're a bit crazy.
They're called PyramiDos.
They're pretty good.

I managed to navigate within the above Japanese webpage and found several of their music videos:
Here, here, and here.

Here is my favourite one:

This should be compared to the original, heavy duty (βαρύ κι ασήκωτο),  version by Stelios Kazantzidis:


P.S. Yavrum [γιαβρούμ] (turkish) = darling. 
Çiftetelli [τσιφτετέλι] = Turkish folk music incorporated into oriental dancing by Greeks.

Malagueña facil (and the last few seconds of it)

Malagueña facil is a piece of music for classical guitar, composed by Francisco Tárrega. The composer, Tárrega, bearing the name of  the small town in Cataluña, was a classical guitarist  

of the romantic period who laid the foundations of classical guitar, as we know it now. He was the teacher of  Emilio Pujol and Miguel Llobet. The malagueñas is one of the traditional styles of flamenco music from Andaluzía. In composing it, Tárrega was probably inspired by the gypsies: as a teenager, he ran away from home to join the gypsies in Valencia.This particular piece was titled "malagueña facil", i.e. "easy malagueña", but it is nothing but (too) easy. Indeed, playing it in its proper tempo requires the kind of dexterity that a folk guitarist (a gypsy, say) has when playing flamenco. There are many poor performances (including mine) on the internet and elsewhere, but the following one I find superb:

The last 15 seconds of the piece (from 1:05 until the end in the video above) are the most challenging ones, most difficult to get right. (To wit, click on other performances on youtube.) This performer gets them just right. And these 15 seconds make all the difference in the world.

Canción de la Hilandera

Canción de la Hilandera (song of the spinning wheel) is a piece of music written by Agustín Barrios Mangoré in 1933. It uses the tremolo technique and evokes the rythmic sound of a spinning wheel. Barrios was a genius. One of the most prolific guitar composers, his work was late-Romantic in character, music belonging to the past, even for his era. He spoke Guaraní and liked to dress like the native people of his country, Paraguay. The following performance of the canción de la Hilandera is very good:

Local music

Promoting the local rebetiko music group Trikala (Tony Klein - bouzouki, mandola, baglamas, oud, tzouras, guitar; Matti Pohjola - guitar, mandolin; Georgios Dimitroglou-Rizell - vocals, accordion, baglamas, guitar) from Uppsala that I listened to on Saturday night:

http://www.jeanfrancoisdelcamp.com/

Delcamp's guitar site rocks! It has become even better than before. I am thrilled with all the music scores made available there and also
here
and here
and here
and here
and here.

Joaquin Malats: Serenata Española

 I am reposting a piece of music which I had originally posted some time ago. Thanks to a comment, I remembered how brilliant this piece of music is, both as a composition and as a performance.

Joaquin Malats (1872-1912) was a Catalan composer and pianist from Barcelona. One of his most melodic pieces is the Serenata Española. It was written for piano but it is its guitar transcription by the great composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909)  that is well-known.  Often transcriptions surpass the original composition and this one (click here for the score) is so well-made that it really makes the instrument sing. Of course, it was not done by an arbitrary person but by Tárrega, one of the greatest guitarists. He knew the instrument well.

In the video below we can see Julian Bream perform the piece. Notice the nuances, the expressions, the slurs, the colour of its performance.  Truly outstanding!



Incidentally, the score linked above is provided by the site of Jean-François Delcamp, a site devoted to classical guitar, containing both music scores and audio files.

Space-time visual music instrument

It's called tonematrix. And it's very inviting. Rows correspond to frequencies. Columns to time (they are separated by equal time intervals). I learned about it here.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Chinsagu No Hana

Chinsagu No Hana (てぃんさぐぬ花): The Balsam Flowers

by Ryūichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍)


chinsagu no hana ya chinsachi ni sumiti uya no yushi gututoya chimu ni sumire
red of balsam flower colour finger tips but parents' words colour one's mind

yoru harasu funiya nirufabushi miate wannacheru uyaya wando miate
sailing in the dark, one is in need of the starlight but old parents are in need of me

ten no muribusiya yumiba yumarisiga, uya no yushigutoya, yumin naran
one can count the number of stars, but one cannot count parents' love and wisdom



Chinsagu No Hana is an example of Ryukyuan Music, the traditional music of the Ryūkyū Kingdom (Okinawa). Music from the Ryukyu islands uses tonal structure that is different from that of the main islands of Japan: different scales and different intervals. Mainland Japan uses the major pentatonic scale Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La. Ryukyuan Music uses Do, Mi, Fa, Sol, Si. The composed version of the traditional okinawan folk song was written for the film "Japanese Story". The lyrics are traditional Confucian teachings.

Four outstanding Greek women guitarists

For classical gutarists around the world, they need no introduction. I just list their names and sites and a few samples:

Antigoni Goni
Un sueño en la floresta (AgustÍn Barrios)
Concerto for Lute in D major (Vivaldi RV 93)


Eleftheria Kotzia
Se ela preguntar (Dilermando Reis)
Guarania (Héctor Ayala)


Elena Papandreou
El marabino (António Lauro)
Tango en skai (Roland Dyens)


Eva Fampas
Sousta (Dimitris Fampas)
Tango (Francisco Tárrega)

Joaquin Malats: Serenata Española

Joaquin Malats (1872-1912) was a Catalan composer and pianist from Barcelona. One of his most melodic pieces is the Serenata Española. It was written for piano but it is its guitar transcription by the great composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909) that is well-known. Often transcriptions surpass the original composition and this one (click here for the score) is so well-made that it really makes the instrument sing. Of course, it was not done by an arbitrary person but by Tárrega, one of the greatest guitarists. He knew the instrument well.

In the video below we can see Julian Bream perform the piece. Notice the nuances, the expressions, the slurs, the colour of its performance. Truly outstanding!



Incidentally, the score linked above is provided by the site of Jean-François Delcamp, a site devoted to classical guitar, containing both music scores and audio files.

This Side of the Blue

by Joanna Newsom