Concerto Its composition started with the second movement during the Fall of 1932, according to an undated Segovia letter: Tam charmed by the Andante. Between the laboring hours that | use for the works of my hext concert, I put in between a reading of the Andante. I have already spoken with a quartet in order that they come when I will be in shape, and they will bring the other instruments. And the first movement, have you finished it? Send it also. Though I think it is better that it should wait for me there, since | will arrive surely between the 23rd and the 24th. And we will read it and. practice it together. Subsequently, on 11 November he tells him: “I have started this morning to work seriously on the Andante. I think that for my return to Paris we will be able to hear it with the complementary instruments.” And on the 29th of the same month: “I am practicing the Andante of the Concerto. It is almost ready.” Later on, there is no other mention, but reminders for Ponce to continue with the composition of the concerto, and it is not until § October 1940, eight years later, when we read about the reception of the exposition of the first movement in Montevideo: ‘The surprise has been a true explosion of happiness. Paquita and I have started immediately to read your small handwriting and we congratulate you heartily. At the same time we admire your strength of spirit for the extra work to reduce the piano and guitar parts to such a clear miniature, 261I also have started working myself and I must tell you that everything goes well for my capricious instrument. [ have seen that some notes, which might be better to suppress, are played by the orchestra. I leave them aside to give more brilliance to the melodic line so that they won't tie up the fingers or prove an obstacle. When there will be an important change, I will let you know I think that the appearance of the second theme should be transported an octave higher, because as written it is dark and with little sonority. On the contrary, on the second string it sounds delicious. Three days later, Segovia changed his mind with regard to the last suggestion and told Ponce: “The entrance of the second theme is delicious and I think it will be better to leave it as you have written it. I changed the bass strings and with the new ones it sounds robust.” And in a letter of 9 November: Received the continuation of the Concerto, I studied and learned it in a few hours. It is charming. If this is not your best work, I don’t know which one might be. We are crazy, Paquita and I, with what we have worked up till now and as for me, I don’t know what to tell you about it, but that I wouldn’t like to die without having made known such delicious music I have modified some small things. For example, the repeated notes with which you accompany the development of the second theme (when it appears in fourths in the key of F major anda little ahead, in A major) they are weak and they would be lost. I replace them, using the same chords, naturally, with a little rasgueado that adds rhythmic grace and gives to this guitar accompaniment a certain harmonic halo peculiar to this instrument. Some other detail is also changed. Of all that, I will send you a copy after receiving the whole movement. And in the following letter of 26 November: [have received the complete first movement with the cadenza and everything, We are enchanted with your work, Nothing weakens in it, everything is on the same superior level of art. Let God help you for the modification of the Andante and the last movement that you are projecting. I remember with pleasure some phrases of the Allegro and I am burning to work on the complete piece. I permit myself to suggest some changes for the cadenza. I am enclosing them. I am sending r to work on it your own original because I have copied it completely in order that it will be easi with the piano on normal paper and with thicker notes. All that part in chords brisés with 32nd 263notes, I would like it to be more melodic. Afterwards, on 10 December, he insists again on this point: Ihave worked on all the first movement, except the cadenza, because I am awaiting your modifications. And think, dear Manuel, of a cadenza less poetic and more brilliant for the last movement. The cadenza for most of the unlearned public is like the high C of the tenor or the quavers of the coloratura. Some people only go for that. The last cadenza of Castelnuovo is brilliant without being unmusical. You can do it with more talent and musicality. I don't want this letter to go without carrying my impression on the Andante. I have it copied and “seen”, Everything goes well. It gains a lot with the novelties and changes and it will be mysterious and poetic because of its beautiful oriental ambiance Three days later he asks for the change of the beginning of the second movement: “Now I send these urgent lines to ask you to change the arpeggios on the first three measures of the guitar because they prove, because of the different positions to perform them, dark, grave and burdensome.” Later, on the 17th, he refers again to the second movement: By the way, what was missing from this movement has artived and it is wonderful. That part | don't care if the public is not up to its level. It is pure poetty. It goes very deep into the soul of whoever has musical sensitivity and rocks it in distant dreams with reminiscences or anticipations of a better world. Paquita and I play the Andante several times a day for our own, delight. With regard to the guitar part, everything goes perfectly well, except as Ihave told you, the arpeggios that begin on the 3" bar and that reappear later on the theme's reprise. The next letter of the 28 contains a new petition for a second cadenza, more brilliant, to be performed for not very refined audiences. In the letter that follows, dated 5 January 1941 he comments: 1am radiant with satisfaction. Your letter has arrived and was delivered late because of the holida the extension you have given to the following part changes its meaning and enriches it with ss. The arrangement of the Cadena is very successful. The change of the arpeggios and respect to the preceding version. The new part was necessary to animate the arrival of the second theme in A major. The rest becomes enhanced and embellished until the entrance of the orchestra, I think that with regard to proportion and content the whole cadenza has won ein my last and by that Iam happy that I exhorted you to make those changes. As you will s letter I was afraid that my observations might have bothered you by perhaps not making clear 265what was my intimate purpose. The idea of the double cadenza gets cancelled. As itis now what you have sent me is worth it for both. The last tempo, if it continues with the same fortune as now, will be very beautiful. All the You hi development of that first theme is delicious ve also changed it, haven't you? Finally, in a letter of 20 January, Segovia announces the reception of the finale: Thank you for the last shipment. The whole Concerto is ready. It is a delicious work that will arouse the enthusiasm of all the public and artists that will listen to it. You don’t know how sorry Tam that the world situation prevents me from making it known immediately in Europe. There, it will be appreciated in all its worth, without any more restrictions than the ones ordered against it or its interpreter by the groups of futurists Jews, Dadaists, Expressionists and other wicked artists. You did very well in not including a cadenza in this movement. It would have interrupted the vigor that carries from the first measures and that, without decaying, continues until the last chord. The concerto was finally premiered, after a series of negotiations in order that Ponce could travel to Montevideo, on October 4" in a program of orchestral works by Ponce, conducted by himself and with Segovia as soloist. The original manuscript was lost and there only survives, at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico, a photostat which I found around the mid 70s when I was teaching at that institution. It is not clear how that copy got there, if it was Ponce himself, or if after his death his widow gave it to the conservatory library. What is certain, is that from all the corrections suggested by Segovia in his correspondence, we only find the one appearing on the last letter quoted above: the alteration of the orchestra accompaniment in order that the chords accompanying the guitar are played by the orchestra on the strong beat of each measure and not in syncopated time as written originally. Also, it is quite possible that the cadenza changes are the ones suggested by Segovia since they correspond to the description made in his letters. The concerto was published in 1970 with Peer, under the title Concierto del Sur which does not appear on the manuscript but was probably added, after a suggestion by Segovia for the premiere. The edition includes the changes that Segovia proposed but that apparently Ponce did not make, according to the manuscript’s photostat, as well as the suppression of a complete passage in the development of the first movement, from number 18 to 19 of the original, and of the last part with harmonics in the cadenza. He also added some chords, at the 267beginning of the second movement, that do not appear in the manuscript and a guitar accompaniment in the third movement from 53 to 54 of the Peer edition. Besides, there are also tessitura changes and additions of notes, chords and rasgueados. The guitar part, published here for the first time, is taken from the copy of the original manuscript. I have included, the orchestra passage reduced for keyboard, in a third appendix, of this section suppressed but with the indication of which instruments play each of the part by Segovia. The concerto was recorded for Decea with the Symphony of the Air, conducted by Enrique Jordé and appeared in 1959 as part of the three record album that celebrated the 50% anniversary of Segovia’s debut in Granada. Ponce wrote three concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, the first one for piano, premiered by himself in 1912 within a romantic style that served for the display of his piano technique. The second one, written for guitar and the third one for violin, premiered by Henryk Szeryng in 1943. 269Allegro moderato ed espressi 3 Pima Tae Fiaph Fak 2719 G he aon, is anelgeny so. SEE = see SN poco piu mosso 7 Is = We LT pets) aa ee eae - OO - ce af = afd "hd pate sates (Gap aee 7 i i 7 the gh fe gies te w % — = . (eet seein aes op 272(ee ME Ee BA, Suse, PED . ae 7 . 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