CLASSICAL GUITAR – COURSE OUTLINE

Session 1 9/16/13

The classical guitar – an intimate and intriguing instrument

What is a “classical” guitar? How is it different?

What are its musical possibilities and limitations? How are solo concert pieces
constructed? We’ll look at guitar music notation – especially fingering and positioning.

Repertoire sources – where does the music come from?

Transcriptions - adaptations from other instruments.

Player/composers

Pure composers

Finally, we’ll experience music of the Renaissance – Lute and Vihuela music played on
period instruments and the modern guitar.

Session 2 9/23/13

Continuing with transcriptions through the musical periods

We’ll examine the Baroque – music of Bach, Scarlatti and Leopold Sylvius Weiss

We’ll expose “the Segovia/Ponce hoax”!

We’ll hear the early Romantics – transcriptions of works by Schubert, Schumann,

Mendelssohn, and Chopin. How do they sound on the guitar versus the piano? We’ll
compare.

Lastly, we’ll look at two magnificent Spaniards – transcriptions of works originally written
for piano by Albeniz and Granados. These pieces beg to be played on the guitar!
Session 3 9/30/13

The “Golden Age of the Guitar”: 100 years (1800 to 1900) of unprecedented popularity.

The Italians move in – music by Giuliani, Carulli, Carcassi, Legnani, and Paganini (yes,
the famous violinist!), and Diabelli (he was Beethoven’s publisher and really wasn’t
Italian).

But, most importantly, the Spaniard, Fernando Sor. Why is he so important?

Then we’ll look at pieces by Napoleon Coste and Johann Gaspar Mertz – these two
carried on Sor’s tradition into the age of romanticism.

Session 4 10/7/13

The “Golden Age” continued:

Finally, we’ll discover the works of Broca, Arcas, Tarrega and Ferrer: Spanish
guitarist/composers who combined the romanticism of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and
Chopin, etc with their own unique Spanish nationalism.

The “pure” composers. What do we mean by “pure”.

In order to understand the guitar compositions of the “pure” composers, we need first to
examine the life and mission of Andres Segovia.

Segovia, 1893-1987, dedicated his life to elevating the classical guitar to “its rightful
place in the musical universe”. Whether he did this strictly out of unselfish devotion to
the instrument or to cater to his own ego is debatable. We’ll discuss.

Segovia worked with several eminent composers of the first half of the 20th century.
These men were not guitarists, although one, Heitor Villa-Lobos was a formidable
amateur player. For the others, Federeco Moreno Torroba, Alexander Tansman, Mario
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Joaquin Rodrigo, and Manuel Ponce, Segovia had to educate
them as to the range, tuning, and fingering complexities of the instrument.

The pieces these composers produced could be considered collaborations between the
composer and Segovia.
Session 5 10/14/13

The Guitar in South America - The guitar not only flourished here, it was revered!

We’ll study the three biggies: Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.

The guitar tradition in Argentina goes back to the middle 1800s. We’ll go back to the
early days and explore music by Juan Alais and Julio Sagreras, as well as works by
contemporary musicians Jose Luis Merlin and Jorge Cardoso. We might also take a
wack at a tango or two.

The musical tradition of Venzuela traces back to Vicente Sojo and Raul Borges, and
was brought to fruition by the brilliance of Antonio Lauro. We’ll experience his music
through his greatest interpreter, Alirio Diaz.

Finally, we’ll visit Brazil. We’ll examine the Choro which, like the Tango in Argentina or
Rag Time in the U.S., was first heard in bar rooms, brothels and the street. From these
lowly beginnings the Choro has risen to the concert hall.

We’ll examine the Choro composers and their music from the early days of Villa-Lobos,
Pernambuco and Neves all the way to Baden Powell, Reis and Bellinati.

Session 6 10/21/13

Pushing the envelope! Does the guitar have greater latitude with respect to music
appropriate for the concert stage than does the piano, for instance?

We’ll take a look at various genres, other than “classical”, which have been played in
guitar recitals.

Folk music from America and elsewhere

Jazz standards

Rag Time

Tango

Popular songs

Finally, as our concentration thus far has been about the solo guitar, we’ll take a peek at
guitar duets (two guitars), guitar quartets (four guitars), and guitar concertos (guitar and
orchestra).