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On the Road to Mangoré: how Barrios was rescued from obscurity
Graham Wade is head of the School of Strings at the City of Leeds College of Music, and Guitar Tutor for the Universities of Leeds and York. He has written a number of books on the guitar and many articles for leading guitar periodicals. He is an adjudicator at music festivals and an examiner for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music.
A
gustín Barrios Mangoré died y years ago on August, . e posthumous history of his reputation from gross neglect to a position of permanence in the central pantheon of the repertoire is one of the most remarkable aspects of recent guitar developments. Laurindo Almeida, one of the earliest advocates for Barrios, recorded two of his works, Preludio para Guitarra opus and Chôro da Saudade, in the s on an album entitled Guitar Music of Latin America (Capitol ). Preludio (op. no. ) had been published by Ricordi Americana (Buenos Aires) in , following an early edition of La Catedral by Mondo Guarani (Buenos Aires, ). Vals op. no. was published in , also by Ricordi Americana. Laurindo Almeida’s sleeve notes re vealed the following information about an otherwise unknown and somewhat mysterious composer: Agustín Barrios was born in Paraguay and died in San Salvador in . But his success as a guitarist throughout South America truly made him a k ind of international citizen. He began playing the guitar as a young boy and quickly became a virtuoso. To expand the capabilities of his chosen instrument, he frequently tuned the two lowest strings a whole tone below the normal tuning of and and also used steel strings instead of gut… e same wording was used almost a decade later when Almeida’s edition of La Catedral appeared (pub. Brazilliance Music Publishing Inc. ), by which time he had also issued his version of Aconquija from Suite Andina (undated, Brazilliance Music, no. ). Laurindo Almeida must therefore be regarded as one of the pioneer advocates of the music of Barrios, though neither his recordings nor his editions seem to have attracted the attention they merited for bringing to light the music of an exciting artist long neglected. e next recording of music by Barrios appeared on Portrait of the Guitar ( ) by José Luis González () with an interpretation of Medallon Antiguo. e sleeve notes duly mentioned that little was known about the composer ‘except that he was of Indian descent and was a gied guitarist and composer’. e nal phase of Barrios’ obscurity was marked by a celebrated recording by Alirio Díaz of Aire de Zamba, Danza Paraguaya, and Cueca, on Guitar Music of Spain and
Latin America ( ) in . Díaz’ editions of Danza Paraguaya (), Cueca () and Aire de Zamba () were published by Edizioni G. Zanibon (Padua, Italy), but by then the veil of mysteriousness had been lied and the name of Barrios was beginning to feature in concert programmes and guitar periodicals throughout the world. is was a considerable change. ree popular histories of the classical guitar, e Art and Times of the Guitar by Frederic V. Grunfeld (New York: Macmillan, ), e Illustrated History of the Guitar by Alexander Bellow (New York: Colombo, ), and Harvey Turnbull’s e Guitar from the Renaissance to the Present Day (London: Batsford, ), had not deemed Barrios worth a single mention, such was his apparent insignicance in twentieth-century guitar history. is unfortunate embargo was broken in Guitars: from the Renaissance to Rock (London: Paddington Press, ) by Tom and Mary Evans, who provided the reader with several paragraphs of information on the composer though they dismissed his music, which ‘appears exciting and attractive (and is oen extremely dicult to play)’, as ‘ultimately “salon” music’. (p ) e dierence in the world’s awareness of Barrios over the course of the s was brought about by the work of John Williams, whose whole-hearted advocacy of the composer gave authority and meaning to new perspectives of twentieth-century guitar de velopments. Williams did not allow himself the luxury of dismissing Barrios as a mere ‘salon’ composer but recognised in his music enduring qualities of great importance to our understanding of guitar history. Far from being a minor and obscure gure f rom the Paraguayan jungle, Barrios was acknowledged as a central force in the evolution of the guitar aer Tárrega. Aer giving many recitals dedicated to Barrios, as well as numerous radio broadcasts and television appearances, Williams eventually released his long awaited Barrios album, John Williams–Barrios ( John Williams Plays the Music of Barrios) ( , issued in , and later issued on compact disc, Latin American Guitar Music by Barrios and Ponce, Sony , . Williams recorded his rst Barrios composition, Danza Paraguaya, in on .) His sleeve notes to the recording are an enthusiastic statement of missionary zeal: Barrios is increasingly appreciated today as the outstanding guitarist-composer of his time, I would say of any time, for the qualities of inventiveness and obvious love of the instrument. He was the rst guitarist to make records from , and the rst to play a complete Bach lute suite on the guitar. As well as being a virtuoso player, he composed hundreds of pieces, some in baroque style showing his aection and reverence for Bach, many inspired by the nineteenth-century romantics like Chopin, and others simply expressing himself through t he popular song and dance forms of Latin American countries. In the sleeve notes Williams thanked his friends Robert Tucker and Jason Waldron for their work in Barrios research, including the making of ‘accurate transcriptions’, and also acknowledged his debt to Carlos Payet of San Salvador, who had provided a number of unpublished pieces in . Over the years a considerable degree of competitiveness has arisen in the compilation of Barrios editions. Among the earliest compilations to
be published were the four volumes by Richard D. Stover, entitled e Guitar Works of Agustín Barrios Mangoré (Belwin Mills, New York) issued as ‘e First Denitive Collection’. Of these, volume one appeared in , volumes two and three a year later, and volume four in . Stover collected these works during two trips to Central America and his preface to each volume sets out his intentions: is collection is the rst comprehensive publication of the entire works of Agustín Barrios Mangoré, rst guitarist/composer from the New World of truly universal importance. e signicance of the works of Mangoré centers in their denition of a newer, more complex level of technique, inuenced by but evolving independently from European models. e maturation of the guitaristic ar t as it is practised in the countries of Iberoamérica has owered in the genius of Barrios Mangoré. is edition is not analytical nor comparative in its scope; it is designed for the performer student and teacher. All accidentals are given as found in the original manuscripts… Stover also mentions that Barrios made recordings, circa –, and that ‘when applicable, the recorded version has been taken as the preferred and nal form’. e four books oer a total of eighty compositions, including transcriptions such as the Adagio from Beethoven’s Sonata op. , no. ( Moonlight ). Items not included in the four volumes were published separately in by Belwin Mills and include Sueño en la Floresta, Maxixe, Cueca, and Vals op. , no.. A year aer Stover’s rst volume appeared, the Zen-On Music Company of Tokyo, Japan began publication of a four-volume Barrios compendium, edited by Jesus Benites R. Numbers one and two appeared in , number three in , and number four in . e collection oers eighty-seven items, including a few transcriptions. Editorially the volumes oer few concessions to the West, giving the preface only in Japanese (though at least the titles are put into English as well as Japanese). In Richard Stover published two articles in Soundboard, vol. , nos and , under the title of Agustín Barrios Mangoré: forgotten master of the guitar. ese two biographical essays provided the forerunner to Stover’s monumental full length biography, Six Silver Moonbeams: the life and times of Agustín Barrios Mangoré (Clovis, : Querico Publications ). Stover’s investigations into Barrios had begun in when he was an undergraduate at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In his acknowledgments Stover comments: Aer initial eld research in Central America and Mexico, I was somewhat amazed by the fact that I had discovered something of great importance for the guitar: the legacy of a genius who died forgotten and whose life and work had somehow become intertwined with mine as if almost by destiny. e focus on Barrios was further intensied by the publication in of a double featuring none other than the original recordings, entitled simply Agustín Barrios (El
Maestro Records ), with an accompanying booklet written by Richard D. Stover, complete with an assortment of photographs. For some time prior to this release, cassette tapes of various kinds of Barrios’ recordings had been in circulation but the El Maestro project, emanating from California, was a very signicant addition to the history of the early twentieth-century guitar. e pieces on the album were La Catedral, Valses nos & , Contemplación, Romanza, Tarentella, Un Sueño en la Floresta, Bourée (Bach), Minuet (Beethoven), Träumerei (Schumann), Capricho Arabe (Tárrega), Danza
Paraguaya, Cueca, Aconquija, Junto a tu Corazón, Aire de Zamba, Maxixe, Confesión, Santa, Madrigal-Gavota, Pericón, Caazapa and Oración. e publishers, Chanterelle, issued a three volume Historical Recording selection of Barrios’ recordings on cassette tape in , under the title Agustin Barrios: the guitar recordings (–). is was ultimately issued on compact disc by Chanterelle Verlag in , with liner notes by Robert Tucker. Returning to the availability of the central compositions in sheet music form, an interesting edition was published in by Chris Dumigan entitled e Recordings of Agustín Barrios (Northampton, England: Hampton Music Publishers). e rationale behind this publication was unashamedly to transcribe the exact notes of the recordings of Barrios, whatever diculties (such as diering versions) this might involve, as Dumigan explains in his introduction to the edition: In the end, I decided that the recordings, whether they were the nal versions or not, were a valid document in themselves. ey were a valuable insight into performances which Barrios was obviously happy with, and was content to have marketed on gramophone records and therefore they were an end in themselves…So I decided to commit these recordings onto paper in an eort to provide another equally valid source of Barrios pieces… Jason Waldron’s three volumes (published , , respectively) comprising twenty pieces by Barrios, also followed the recordings. e back cover of the editions comments: Barrios le very little manuscript of his original guitar compositions due mainly to the fact that he would change the music during performance but happily he did make a series of recordings prior to and it is from these that a lot of the present edition is based. Jason Waldron has a special place in the Barrios revival for several of his arrangements were performed and recorded by John Williams in the s. e most recent editions of thirty-six pieces by Barrios, in two volumes (published by Schott, ), are by Raymond Burley, a British guitarist. Duplicating the preface in each volume, Burley sets out his approach as follows: is collection of eighteen concert works by Agustín Barrios Mangoré has been compiled as a result of listening to the composer’s own recordings (Chanterelle
Historical Recordings, /), together with my direct practical experience of performing the music in concert; both activities have made me increasingly dissatised with many of the editions currently available. I am oering here, not the ‘denitive’ Barrios collection (for such a thing may never exist), but what I consider to be accurate and practical versions of eighteen of the best works from this composer. e Barrios canon is now presumably as complete as it ever will be, with adequate choice available when buying the printed music. A few new items have been added by Richard D. Stover over recent years, including eme and Variations on Punto Guanacasteco, Variations on a eme of Tárrega, Fabinia, and Sargento Cabral (Zamba) , as well as Abri la Puerta mi China, dated December, by Stover in the biography (p ) and therefore considered one of the earliest compositions extant. From the s an avalanche of recordings of the music of Barrios has descended onto the market. so that there is no longer much of an element of surprise in the oerings by recitalists. It is perhaps worth recalling that the earliest recording of La Catedral, following Barrios’ own work in the studio, appears to have been by Oscar Caceres in on his album, Les Grandes Études pour Guitare (Erato ). La Catedral has proved to be a work which continues to fascinate recitalists; guitarists who have recorded the work so far include John Williams (), Horst Klee (), Göran Sollscher (), Vladimir Mikulka (), Wuln Lieske (), Deborah Mariotti (), Sharon Isbin (), and Jesus Castro Balbi (). While La Catedral now seems to receive the benediction of an annual recording, there has also been some interest in oering an all-Barrios recording. Following Williams’ pioneering album of , Wolfgang Lendle on Romantic Virtuoso Guitar Music (, ., ) and Jesus Castro Balbi on Agustín Barrios ( -, ), both ventured to issue an all-Barrios compact disc. It is tru ly amazing how in the space of two decades Barrios has gone from being one of the neglected unknowns to his present position of eminence. ough his music has oen begun to assume the over familiarity characteristic of the guitar works of Villa-Lobos, Barrios continues to speak in a brutal age directly to the human heart. e half-centenary of his death in will be remembered by guitarists throughout the world and this article gratefully acknowledges the work of all those who made this grand revival possible. Published in Guitar Journal º (), pp – © Graham Wade
