"the potential to illuminate the conception, realization and 'consumption' of music in entirely unusual ways" โข ๐๐ซ๐จ๐. ๐๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฃ๐จ๐๐ง
"a water colour-like transparent palette...intimate understanding of the repertoire and...innovative transcriptions... His dedication to the 10-string guitar runs parallel to the great Narciso Yepes" โข ๐๐ก๐๐ซ๐ฅ ๐๐๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐๐ก๐ญ
"Mr Van Niekerk will make a strong contribution not only to the academic community but also to broader society" โข ๐๐ซ๐จ๐. ๐๐ข๐ค๐ ๐๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐ฌ
He is the ONLY guitarist that stands next to Segovia. He truly is the best - what he did for guitar and his UNIQUE skill. What I would give to have a masterclass with him.
soy Colombiano, pero hablar espaรฑol y tener cultura hispanica, es un gran motivo de orgullo para mi, aunque muchos espaรฑoles se sientan avergonzados de su propia cultura.
ยกMuchas gracias por subir esta excelente entrevista! Recomendable tambiรฉn leer ese discurso de ingreso en la Real Academia de Bellas Artes, disponible en internet.
I woke up this morning with a tune in my head which I couldn't identify. Fortunately it only took about fifteen minutes for the title to come drifting in. I thought I'd listen to the Chieftains' version and put RU-vid on. While I was listening to it I was astonished to see this video being suggested. I have loved Narciso since the mid 70s, when apart from a guitar album I had two albums of him playing the Bach lute suites. I see you have some more of him available, so thank you very much in advance .............
A revelacion. An epiphany. It has been a few days since a radical cancer operation. My morale has lifted enormously. I have lived in Aranjuez and will go there when I can. I should have been there for two weeks around the time of my operation. My surgeon urged me not to. I have loved this concerto for over forty years. I am a guitarist and now I REALLY want a ten string guitar.Viva el Maestro don Joaquin y don Narciso!
I think I should add some explanatory notes concerning this video because, as Fritz also recently remarked when I visited him in Australia, Narciso had the habit of putting things very succinctly (often metaphorically), with the expectation that it would be sufficient for people who could understand it (to unpack it for themselves) and, perhaps, pointless to say more for those who couldn't (i.e., those who would forever cook up some negative response to any reasonable assertion). A prime example of that was when Fritz had just adopted Narciso's 10-string guitar and said, "Narciso, I feel like I can't play anything anymore," to which Narciso replied: "You have entered a room with many doors." (This is a much better, deeper metaphor than the apocryphal one that some people seem intent on bandying around about how he supposedly said he had entered into a "marvelous mess" when he received the 10-string guitar made to his specifications from the Ramirez shop.) Another example would be when Narciso simply states that the 10-string guitar is "a musical necessity" (and leaves it at that), or when he says that the 10-string guitar is "still a 6-string guitar." While I largely share the sentiment that those who (don't) understand will (not) understand no matter how much detail one includes in a thing's explanation, still, I don't see the matter being entirely black and white (i.e., as a false choice). There probably are some things that Narciso could have explained in a little more detail and, perhaps, that might have avoided some persistent misconceptions. Hence there are a few things I've wanted to comment on in this video, for which I haven't had time until now. 1. When Narciso talks about "overtones," he doesn't literally mean overtones in the sense that acousticians or physicists use the term. That is, he doesn't mean either "1. a musical tone which is a part of the harmonic series above a fundamental note, and may be heard with it," nor does he even mean "2. a subtle or subsidiary quality, implication, or connotation." Instead, he uses the term as a metonymy, i.e., as a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another with which it is associated, the classical example being "the crown" used to refer to the person who wears said crown. It's less verbose (less convoluted) to use this figure of speech than it is to verbalize what is actually happening on his 10-string guitar in terms of its acoustic properties. But, on the other hand, this leaves the matter open to misinterpretation. Anyway, there's no need to get waylaid by the whole issue of the "overtone spectrum" and anyone who does so in an attempt to 'explain' the 10-string guitar has already missed the plot. One just has to know that any musical or natural sound always contains within it several higher sounds (overtones) and that an object like a string will not only vibrate spontaneously when its fundamental pitch sounds in its vicinity, but it will also resonate at one of its overtones when one of those frequencies are sounding near it. And, very importantly, when dealing with a tempered instrument like the guitar, in short, this means that an untouched bass string will spontaneously vibrate at a higher pitch whenever one of its higher octaves or their fifths are played on other strings. (Any other overtones such as Major 3rds are too far out of tune with the tempered notes of the fretboard to be of any consequence because the phenomenon of resonance depends on a sameness of tuning; so, to bring anything other than octaves and fifths into the discussion would be misguided.) 2. When Narciso says "in every guitar this note [E] continues," he means every guitar that is or still contains within it a traditional 6-string guitar. Of course, a hypothetical guitar that, for whatever reason, no longer has either an A or an E bass string will not have an "overtone" to resonate with an E played on a treble string. 3. Where I indicate at 05:08 and 05:27 what I call the "Standard 11-" and "Standard 13-course baroque lute tuning for Yepes's 10-string guitar," it's important to bear in mind that this varies in actual praxis from composition to composition, as it does for the standard tuning of the baroque lute (i.e., the French "nouveau ton" or minor tuning) with its variable "accords." The particular "accord" or re-tuning demanded by a particular piece of music is often indicated in baroque lute manuscripts by means of French tablature symbols, often in a bar added on to the end of the piece. Likewise, the actual baroque lute tuning of Yepes's guitar will depend on the particular demands of a piece of music and will deviate from the theoretical standard that I've indicated in the video. (I mean the strings can be tuned up or down within reason. I don't mean to replace basses with strings of other diameters!) Nevertheless, it's important to realize that these (with piece-specific adjustments) are the proper baroque lute tunings of Yepes's guitar--not some setup where D, C, B, and A basses are put on a guitar that consequently *looks* like Yepes's new guitar but *sounds* nothing like it. (To my ear, 10-stringed guitars with such [DCBA] basses almost invariably sound out of tune, owing to their acoustic properties.) 4. When Narciso states that he plays the music "like it is written originally," or (elsewhere) that he plays it "without transcription," this isn't exactly true in every instance. Actually, it's grossly oversimplified. He made transcriptions; he made changes. In my view, he should have made the effort to explain a bit more than he did. But this is a big topic and one best left for a series of tutorial videos concerning the practicalities of transcribing music for the 10-string guitar, on the one hand, and the philosophy of music, on the other. I'll not get into it here. I'll only say, there are no good artistic shortcuts; it's always important to make informed and intelligent editorial decisions (which Narciso did), and I'll leave it at that, for now. 5. What is meant by "contemporary composer" is always relative to the present moment. It would be a grave error to misinterpret Narciso's 3rd reason for playing the 10-string guitar as if the meaning of "contemporary" were limited to 20th-century avant-garde music. 6. *NB!* When Narciso speaks about "justified transcriptions," he gives the example of returning to the guitar music inspired by it (e.g., Albeniz's) but written down for other instrumental means such as the piano. However, from the broader context of his work and statements, it's important to add to the category of Justified Transcriptions also those of music written for instruments with timbres analogous to the guitar's (i.e., the lute, harpsichord, harp, etc.) and those of works that may be performed on the guitar without deleterious changes to the essential aspects of said works. In other words, it's possible to take into account such notions as fidelity to the work or to the composer's intentions and not fall victim to mindlessly false choices such as "play only what is written" or "anything goes." Within this (I'd say) more critical, more reasonable, more thoughtful conception of fidelity, what would *not* count as Justified Transcription, however, would be to play on the guitar such things as piano sonatas or orchestral works by Mozart, Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Wagner, etc., where the work wasn't inspired by the guitar, wasn't written for an instrument with a timbre analogous to the guitar's, and where essential elements of said works (e.g., the proper relations within lines, harmonies, or orchestral colours) get sacrificed for the sake of a guitarist's ego, that is, for the show of playing big-name composers (tacitly oversimplified) on the little old guitar. This consideration of whether or not a transcription is justified (and not for lack of technique or imagination) is why Narciso never made or performed such transcriptions. And I agree with him; it's not the way to go for serious musical artists. 7. Lastly, when Narciso says "when I have 10 strings I have always 6, but if I have 6, I have never 10," this is again one of those statements of his that have layers of implicate or folded-up meanings. I won't unpack it all but only emphasize that his 10-string guitar is still a 6-string guitar. Unlike the "Decacorde," the 11-stringed "Alto" guitar, the 13-stringed "Dresden" guitar, or the 8-stringed "Brahms" guitar, you can still perform all (or very nearly all) of the 6-string guitar's repertoire on the "Yepes" guitar without any additional obstacles or deleterious changes. On the contrary, you have more possibilities (more than the 6-string guitar, that is) in terms of fingerings, more possibilities in terms of interpretive control, potentially more sound, and more possibilities to execute what composers (e.g., Castelnuovo-Tedesco or Rodrigo) have actually written instead of having to play workarounds because what's been written is impossible to do on a 6-string guitar, or at least not very convincing. The difference here with some other types of guitar with more than 6 strings is that the traditional 6 strings are either wholly absent (the "Dresden") or displaced (the "Brahms"), or separated by other new strings (Carulli's "Decacorde"), or at the very least, tuned to the wrong pitch for playing 20th-century music where (unlike early music) such things actually matter. To play, say, Villa-Lobos on them would range from either unnecessarily awkward in the case of the "Brahms" to downright disastrous if not impossible on the "Dresden." The "Yepes" guitar is still a 6-string guitar and it's not meant for playing only music specifically written for it.
8:31 He picks the wrong string here. He seems a little unfocused here because he seems to enjoy it as an easy exercise. But the mastery is to just keep going. It's impressive that this was the only wrong note I ever heard from Yepes.
There are a couple of others in other performances. As Fritz always says, Narciso didn't practise; he did his practising as a boy; this is just how he played off the cuff. But I wouldn't say "an easy exercise." I'd say he's doing something with the music; he's interpreting; he's expressing something; he's doing something more and different than just playing the notes (more than an easy exercise); so the focus isn't only on note 'accuracy' but also on saying something with/between the notes. I'd go further and say some people today play so-called flawlessly, but it's often one big mistake from beginning to end, either because the tone isn't what the guitar *can* be when approached a different way, or because they're not expressing much of anything more and different than the written notes (regardless of incongruous *facial* expressions), or both. That's the difference between an artist like Yepes and today's crop of 'flawless' players. I'd take a miss-struck note in a *musically* expressive interpretation over a 'flawless' execution with incongruous *facial* expressions every day. :)
No. Some of the treble sets I prefer for strings 2 & 3 have a very thin 1st string, which I don't like. So I sometimes like to use a thicker 1st string from another set (another type) of string.
One of the legends is that this was the music played to commemorate the journey carrying Brian Boru's body from Clontarf to Armagh where it was buried. There too, listening to the music as Yepes plays it, one can picture the procession moving over the hills and through the valleys in the rising and falling of the volume as the geography changes.
Unfortunately the audio restoration here is still a bit primitive. I'll be uploading it again with better audio restoration. Thanks for the encouragements, though.
Interesante formato el de concierto/entrevista. Poco o nada asรญ se hace hoy en dรญa. Bastante interactivo con el pรบblico. Me gustรณ la tรฉcnica del cromatismo con un solo dedo en la obra de Bacarisse como el explica en otros lados, y las escalas de la misma obra.
Narciso toca con la digitaciรณn de la mano derecha: p a m i. Hay una anรฉcdota histรณrica sobre esto, contada en mi prรณximo documental por Fritz Buss, amigo y estudiante de Narciso. Narciso se encontrรณ en la calle con Emilio Pujol. Pujol exclamรณ: "ยกQuerido Narciso! Te escuchรฉ tocar El abejorro. ยกFue fantรกstico!" Narciso dijo: "ยกGracias! Lo toco con la digitaciรณn p a m i". Pujol respondiรณ: "ยกImposible!" Da media vuelta y se aleja.
Excelente vรญdeo, gracias por arreglar el audio. Ademรกs se puede apreciar muy bien la mano derecha y aprender de la tรฉcnica de Yepes. Una fuente de aprendizaje este vรญdeo.
Probably one of the strangest pieces written for the classical guitar that I've ever heard. Yet something is so intriguing about it to me, I couldn't stop listening. Amazing, as is Narciso Yepes!
Unfortunately, sound quality is very low in the source material. It improves significantly after a couple of minutes. But even restoration can't salvage the intelligibility of the first minute or so.
