The Judgement of Paris

Part 1 Segovia, Pujol, Paris and La Revue Musicale

Allan Clive Jones
Part 1 first published In In this short series of articles I shall be looking at Andres Segovia’s and Emilio
Classical Guitar August,
1998, p. 24-30. Revised Pujol’s reception in Paris in the 1920s and the 1930s as revealed in the French
June 2014 and May 2020. musical press. Not unnaturally, Segovia dominates the story; but Pujol turns out
to have a more important role than he is often credited with.
The period in question is one for which there is less published information about
Segovia than one might suppose. As Graham Wade has recently written:
It is to be regretted that The Segovia–Ponce Letters do not include any
correspondence for the period between 1924 and 1925. Thus we do not tune
in to Segovia’s comments on some significant landmarks in his career during
these years. One of the most important of these was his debut in Paris, 7 April,
1924, in the presence of Dukas, Falla, Madame Debussy, Roussel, Joaquin
Nin, Miguel de Unamuno and others ....
The precise program of Segovia’s Paris debut has unfortunately not come to
light .... 1

The sources I am using allow us to fill in some of the missing information that
Wade alludes to. As far as I am aware, these sources have not been investigated
before, and they turn out to hold some surprises. For instance, we see Segovia
(and indeed Pujol) playing music by composers whose names are now virtually
unknown. Over and above this, we can see what it was that so captivated
audiences and critics at Segovia’s early Parisian appearances.
In some places I shall be augmenting material from French publications with
material from British sources, specifically The Times and The Musical Times.
This too throws up some surprises, which we will come to in due course.
The Parisian material isn’t fully comprehensible without an appreciation of the
Parisian musical context, and wherever possible I try to supply this.

Paris
But first of all, why was Segovia’s Paris debut so important? I think the answer
comes in two parts: first, Segovia’s own developing career; and, second, the
intrinsic importance of Paris as a musical centre – in many ways the musical
centre of the 1920s.
Before his Paris debut, Segovia’s career had been mainly confined to Spain and
Latin America, and he was little known elsewhere. After Paris, he became the
endlessly world-touring celebrity he remained virtually to the end. As his Times
obituary put it:
Segovia’s international reputation steadily advanced, the turning point being
his Paris debut in 1924....2

As for Paris itself, the constellation of musical stars who either lived there or
frequently visited it during the 1920s is remarkable. Saint-Saëns (d. 1921), Fauré,

PART 1 1
d’Indy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Roussel, Satie, Dukas, Enesco, Florent Schmitt, Villa
Lobos and Prokofiev were perhaps the most famous names. Among the enfants
terribles were Poulenc, Honegger and Milhaud. (Actually these enfants were of
Segovia’s generation.) And although Debussy (d. 1918) was no longer alive, his
memory and influence were still potent.
In addition to these luminaries, there were numerous musicians who are now little
known but who commanded respect then, such as Gabriel Pierné, André Caplet,
Paul Le Flem and Charles Koechlin, and younger names like Tansman and
Martinu. And, of course, there were students, such as Copland, Carter, etc. The
list of artists and literary figures connected with the city is no less impressive.
From the nineteenth century Paris’s importance as a musical centre drew a
succession of performers and composers from Spain, either to study there or to
use the city as a base for establishing or furthering their careers, for example
Albeniz, Casals, Falla, Granados, Rodolfo Halffter (composer), Malats (composer
and pianist), Mompou (composer and pianist), Llobet, Rodrigo, Sarasate
(violinist), Turina, Ricardo Viñes (pianist), Yepes, Zabaleta (harpist). Indeed, in
not taking up residence there, Segovia was exceptional among the celebrated
Spanish musicians of his period.

La Revue Musicale
During the period covered by these articles, a number of French periodicals were
devoted to music, or music and theatre. Among the journals I will be drawing on
extensively is La Revue Musicale, which was very well regarded during this
period.
La Revue Musicale was founded in 1920 by Henry Prunières (1886–1942), a
musicologist and writer with a particular interest in seventeenth-century French
music.3 It appeared monthly, was attractively designed and illustrated, and carried
articles on subjects ranging from contemporary music to mediaeval and ethnic
music. Each issue featured concert reviews from Paris and other European
capitals. Frustratingly, it did not give lists of forthcoming concerts, and reviewers
seldom gave the date and location of the events they reviewed. Often reviewers
only mentioned only part of a concert – or parts of several concerts. This makes it
difficult to establish exactly what was played, and where and when. Fortunately,
in several places I have been able to supply missing details from other journals,
notably Le Courrier Musical, Le Monde Musical and Le Ménestrel. Le Ménestrel
in fact usually supplied fairly comprehensive lists of forthcoming concerts, giving
locations and dates, and is therefore invaluable for establishing when particular
musicians performed in Paris.
La Revue Musicale’s reviews were written by musicians of some standing, often
composers, and were consequently fairly analytical. For that reason I have chosen
to reproduce several reviews in their entirety. I think they are interesting not just
for what they tell us about Segovia and Pujol, but for what they reveal about
prevailing musical attitudes and assumptions. Their style is very much of its

PART 1 2
period – and somewhat literary; my translations do them little justice in this
respect (and doubtless in others too).
My survey begins, though, with neither Segovia nor Pujol, but with the first
performance of Falla’s Homenaje – a piece that has wide ramifications
throughout the period in question. Falla was very highly regarded in Paris at this
time, and, although he was no longer living there, interest in his work remained
strong.

Premiere of Falla’s Homenaje

A feature of La Revue Musicale, and of several other French and British music
journals, was the inclusion of a music supplement in most issues. In La Revue
Musicale this might contain, for example, three or four short piano pieces or
songs by living composers, or perhaps a transcription of early music. The
December 1920 issue, which was devoted to Debussy, is notable for having a
music supplement that included Falla’s Homenaje ‘Le Tombeau de Claude
Debussy’, for guitar, along with non-guitar homages from Dukas, Roussel,
Bartok, Stravinsky, Ravel and Satie, among others.
At a concert on 24 January 1921, in the Salle des Agriculteurs in Paris, all the
homages published in the December 1920 supplement were performed. In the
absence of a guitarist, Falla’s homage was played by harpist Marie-Louise
Casadesus on a ‘harp-lute’ (an instrument also employed in Falla’s El retablo de
maese Pedro):
From Spain wafts the scent of music perfumed like a garland of carnations. De
Falla sings his song on the vibrant and responsive instrument of the
improvisers of his race: the guitar. The rhythm of the slow Spanish dance
admirably serves for a dreamer to lull away sorrows. Manuel de Falla’s
homage is of a penetrating, irresistible emotion. And who won’t savour the nice
skill with which, in the closing bars, he alludes to the delicious Soirée dans
Grenade, in which Debussy has captured the sense of intoxication?4
Georges Migot

The reviewer, Georges Migot (1891–1976), was a regular contributor to La Revue

Musicale, and a composer, poet and painter. Four years after writing this review
he composed his own very fine guitar homage to Debussy, Pour un Hommage à
Claude Debussy (May 1924). It is a substantial piece (in three movements), and
remarkable for being in a completely non-Spanish, somewhat Debussyist idiom.
In its fresh, unhackneyed approach to guitar composition, its closest pre-War
parallel is probably the Quatre Pièces brèves (1933) of Frank Martin. It was
dedicated to Segovia, although he played it only once.5

Pujol
The first appearance of Emilio Pujol in La Revue Musicale is in March 1924, in a
review of a lecture–recital that took place on 27 January 1924:6

Music for the guitar

La Revue Musicale, March 1924, p. 259
The art which the great Sors, and later Tarrega, demonstrated in the 18th
century [sic], and which alas! is now going into decline, is fortunately

PART 1 3
 maintained at a very high level by a few artists, Llobet and Pujol among them.
It was the latter whom we had the pleasure of hearing at the Salle des
Agriculteurs, where his instrument resounded deliciously. Of a slightly stronger
sonority than the ancient lute, the guitar has a more striking sound, sometimes
solid and clear, sometimes languid, for example when a slightly metallic note
glitters after a glissando.
Certain transcriptions, such as those from Mozart, are not very happy, but de
Falla’s homage to Debussy, which, as far as we know, has not been played
before except on the Pleyel harp-lute, here acquires an intense, sombre
sonority that is very beautiful.
[...]
RP [Raymond Petit]

The reviewer, Raymond Petit (b. 1893), not to be confused with the Pierre Petit
(b. 1922) who composed for the Presti–Lagoya duo, was another frequent
contributor to La Revue Musicale and another composer. Among his many
contributions to La Revue Musicale is an article on Tansman in February 1929,
and among his compositions are two pieces for guitar, one composed for Segovia.
He is a recurring presence in this series of articles.
Petit is mistaken in saying that this was the first concert at which Falla’s piece
was played on the guitar. Pujol had already played it at the Paris Conservatoire on
2 December 1922, but that concert went unreviewed in La Revue Musicale.

Segovia
From the above, and from what follows, we can see that, by the mid-1920s, the
guitar as a concert instrument, particularly in the hands of Llobet and Pujol, was
by no means unknown in Paris, and the publication of Falla’s Homenaje had
aroused a good deal of interest in the instrument, especially as a vehicle for
contemporary music. When we consider also the infatuation with all things
Spanish to which so many French musicians were prone (think of Chabrier’s
España, Debussy’s Ibéria, and Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole), we can see that
when Segovia made his Parisian debut on the evening of Monday 7 April 1924, at
the age of 31, the musical ground was well prepared.7 A particularly glowing and
poetic review of this concert appeared in the daily newspaper Le Gaulois, penned
by Gerard d’Houville (pen name of poet, novelist and playwright Marie Louise
Antoinette de Heredia, 1875–1963). She describes how Segovia composed
himself before playing:
he embraces [the guitar] before playing, and adjusts and tests [it] with
meticulous care and loving dexterity; all that is visible of this face are the
circles of [his spectacles] and brown hair as shiny as an insect’s back.

In the course of a lengthy review, she refers to Segovia’s playing of a Pavane by

Milan, Étude, Andante and Variations by Sor, Torroba’s Sonatine, Falla’s
Homenaje pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy, Turina’s Sevillana, a Danse by
Granados (presumably one of the Danzas españolas), and Albeniz’s Torre
Bermeja, Sevilla and Leyenda. Also, she describes the somewhat fanciful images
evoked by these pieces, ranging from a lovers’ nocturnal tryst to the crackling fire
of a gypsy encampment. In conclusion, she writes:

PART 1 4
 ... what art, what skill, what mastery must it take to perform on such an
apparently limited instrument ... such comprehensive works! Andrès Segovia
was thanked and rewarded with a veritable ovation, and never did an artist
deserve it more fully.8

Exactly a month after his Parisian debut, on 7 May 1924, Segovia performed
again in Paris at a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante (SMI). The SMI
was founded in 1909/10 by Ravel, Koechlin, Vuillermoz and other former pupils
of Fauré for the promotion of new music. Indeed, the SMI had promoted the
concert of Debussy homages on 24 January 1921 mentioned earlier. A
programme for this concert is reproduced below. As can be seen, it was a mixed-
bill, with, in addition to Segovia, singers, piano soloists and a violin sonata by
Koechlin. The event also featured a the premiere of Ravel’s Ronsard à son âme, a
setting of words by Ronsard in which the piano part is played entirely with the
right hand. Ravel is reputed to have quipped that this was so that he could smoke
a cigarette while accompanying. Segovia’s contribution is shown to consist of
Torroba’s Sonatine, Falla’s Homenaje and Turina’s Sevillana.

PART 1 5
PART 1 6
The following review from La Revue Musicale covers both Segovia’s debut on
7th April and the SMI concert on 7th May, and also an event that La Revue
Musicale itself appears to have promoted. The reviewer was Marc Pincherle
(1888–1974), a writer, editor and musicologist.

A guitarist: Andres Segovia

La Revue Musicale, June 1924, pp. 256–7
There’s too much music. One could almost ask for mercy ....And here’s just a
simple guitar holding the most blasé musicians under its spell for some hours.
At the Conservatoire, at the Revue Musicale, at the SMI – auditoriums where
you can see the greatest names of contemporary music applauding this
Andres Segovia, whose name was virtually unknown to us a few weeks ago.
Similar amazement greeted the arrival of Miguel Llobet, when he was heard
here for the first time, so extraordinary for all those who were still accustomed
to the insipidities in which our serenaders dally. Others have come since. But
none has known, as Segovia knows, how to renew and increase the emotion
that Llobet inspired in us at his debuts.
I won’t introduce Andres Segovia to our readers: I prefer to direct them to the
charming article in which Gérard d’Houville captures him to the life. I shall
mention only a few characteristics of his art. The technique is formidable. A
supple left hand allows him any configuration of fingers, hence progressions of
harmonies that one had judged impracticable. An accuracy and a speed to
match. For the right hand, the fingers have enough independence to pursue
two or three parts, sometimes more, while preserving the individual intensity
and timbre of each, as would an instrument capable of several voicings. In
fact, he draws from these six strings an arresting variety of colours.
But more so than his predecessors, his gifts are subordinated to an exquisite
sense of style and proportion. The musicality is beyond reproach. No more
those unwise transcriptions that seem to parody the masters of the piano –
didn’t a guitarist recently give us some Chopin in this style? – Segovia drinks
from pure sources. And he proved that a repertoire can be constituted without
doing violence to the genius of the instrument. First, by taking from the
guitarists of the last century, Sor, Tarrega, their best pieces which have stood
the test of time; further back, by recovering the guitarists and lutenists of the
16th and 17th centuries; in modern times, by restoring to the guitar all the
piano pieces written by Albeniz and Granados in its spirit, so that transcription
seems more like restitution.
Finally, some contemporaries have understood the benefit that can be drawn
from this traditional technique, adapted to a bolder harmonic spirit. In that
sense, the Sevillana of Turina, the Homage to Debussy of de Falla, in which
the reminiscence of the Soirée dans Grenade drifts so movingly, are complete
successes. And Segovia never played the piquant Sonatine of Torroba without
being asked to play it for a second time.
Despite the difficulties in writing for the guitar, some other composers have let
themselves be tempted by the riches of spirit, of passion, of nostalgic charm
which the guitar can reveal under the fingers of Andres Segovia.
Marc Pincherle

Segovia’s contribution to the SMI concert was reviewed in Le Courrier Musical

by Pierre-Octave Ferroud9, a twenty-four year old composer and writer from
Lyon who had moved to Paris the year before:
Monsieur Andres Segovia does more for Spain with his guitar than General
Primo de Rivera with his statutory orders. By himself, new Orpheus, he would
pacify the Rif.[2] A more intimate collusion between the artist and the national

PART 1 7
 instrument could not be imagined. His virtuosity is serene and without fuss.
From one string to the other, the sonority is jewel like, here brilliant, there
veiled and anguished. The arpeggios, the harmonics, the attack of the chords,
he possesses the secret of them all. The performance he gave of Turina’s
Sevillana, of F. Moreno-Torroba’s pleasant Sonatine, of Manuel de Falla’s
admirable Homage to Debussy, and of some pieces by Albeniz, which an
enchanted public demanded twice, were truly beyond all praise.

Both Pincherle and Ferroud marvel not only at Segovia’s virtuosity, but at his
pairing virtuosity with an acute musical sensitivity. Ferroud, indeed, was inspired
to compose a short Spiritual for Segovia, although he did not play it. Ferroud’s
piece is the subject of another article by myself.10
Regarding Torroba’s Sonatine, mentioned by both Pincherle and Ferroud, John
Duarte commented in the sleeve note to the 1980 l.p. reissue of Segovia’s pre-
War HMV recordings:
The Sonatine in A [by Torroba] ... was first played by Segovia to an invited
audience of artists and musicians in the home of the proprietor of the Revue
Musicale in Paris (1925).

As d’Houville’s review showed, the Sonatine was played before 1925, having
been performed at the 7 April 1924 debut concert, and even this was unlikely to
have been the piece’s premiere.11 (Reviewers generally mentioned when Segovia
was giving a premiere, but no review of this concert that I have seen refers to this
concert as the work’s premiere.) Duarte’s comment, though (leaving aside the
inaccuracy about Torroba’s Sonatine) suggests that Pincherle’s reference in his
review to Segovia performing at the Revue Musicale relates to a performance at
the home of Henry Prunières.
Among their many points of interest, these reviews give no evidence for the
statement found in several books that Segovia played Albert Roussel’s piece
Segovia at his Paris premiere.12 Indeed it seems most improbable that a performer
‘whose name was virtually unknown to us a few weeks ago’ would have had in
his repertoire at this date a piece by one of France’s leading composers. In an
issue of La Revue Musicale13 published few years after these debut concerts,
Pierre Octave Ferroud comments that Roussel’s Segovia was in fact first
performed in Madrid in April 1925, and first heard by Parisians at Segovia’s
concert on 13 May 1925.
Similar reasoning leads me to doubt the date of 1923 given for the first letter in
The Segovia–Ponce Letters.14 In this letter Segovia says he has a work by Roussel
and has been promised others by Ravel, Volkmar Andreae, Schoenberg and
Wellesz. Segovia is most likely to have encountered Schoenberg and Wellesz in
the course of a European tour, such as he is known to have undertaken after his
Paris debut.15 Given that the letter was written in Paris, and that Segovia says he
has recently played in Madrid, the most likely date seems to be May 1925. At this
date he is known to have been in Paris, in possession of a new piece by Roussel,
and to have recently played in Madrid.16
In Part 2 of this series I will look at Segovia’s return to Paris in 1925, an event
that was, if anything, even more remarkable than his 1924 premiere.

PART 1 8
Notes

1
A New Look at Segovia by Graham Wade and Gerald Garno, Mel Bay, 1997,
Volume 1, p. 51.
2
The Times, 4 June 1987, p. 12.
3
Another journal with the same title, edited by François-Joseph Fétis, was
published from 1827–35.
4
La Revue Musicale, February 1921, p. 166.
5
The manuscript bears the inscription Pour A. Segovia, followed by (and clearly
added later) qui en fut une seule fois l’interprète: ‘For A. Segovia, who was its interpreter
only once’. Migot re-used the music in three of the five movements of his Sonate Luthée
(1949) for harp. (I am indebted to M. Marc Honegger, the cataloguer of Migot’s works,
for this information.) The only recording of the guitar version is Alain Prévost’s heroic
account on Cybelia CY811, no longer available.
6
Pujol’s concert was also reviewed in Le Ménestrel, 8 February 1924, and Le
Courrier Musical, 15 March, 1924. These reviews allow the date and nature of the concert
to be fixed. They also give more information about the composers played: Albeniz,
Granados, Turina, Tarrega (Caprice Arabe), Damas (Étude), Mozart, Malats,
Mendelssohn, Père San Sebastien (Douleur, described as a ‘melodie Basque’) and Pujol
(Guajira Gitana and Tango).
7
Programme notes and record-liner notes occasionally claim that Segovia first
played in Paris around 1915. Although this early date can’t be ruled out, several factors
argue strongly against it. First, Segovia makes no mention of it in his Autobiography of
the Years 1893–1920 (Marion Boyars, 1976). Secondly, in 1915 France was in the midst
of a bloody war, and although concert life wasn’t completely stalled, contemporary
journals show that it was much reduced. A less auspicious time for a debut would be hard
to imagine. Thirdly, reviews of Segovia’s 1924 Paris concert make it clear that he was
regarded as a new star in the firmament. If he had played in Paris before 1924, he cannot
have made much of an impression (which might be a reason for not to mentioning the
occasion in an autobiography, of course).
8
Gérard d’Houville, ‘Mes spectacles’, in Le Gaulois, Saturday 12 Avril 1924, p.4.
Other reviews of this concert, equally enthusiastic, appeared in the daily newspaper
L’Intransigeant (15 April 1924, p. 4), in the periodical Le Ménestrel (18 April 1924, pp.
182–3.)
9
Le Courrier Musical, 1 June 1924, p. 325.
10
Allan Clive Jones, ‘Ferroud’s Spiritual: A 1926 piece for Segovia comes to light’
(Classical Guitar, October 2001, pp. 14-19).

PART 1 9
11
Segovia evidently performed Torroba’s Sonatina prior to his Paris debut.
Graham Wade refers to a performance in Mexico in 1923. See Wade, G. and Garno, G. A
New Look at Segovia, Mel Bay, vol. 1, p. 50.
12
See, for instance, Harvey Turnbull’s The Guitar (Batsford, 1974, p. 112) and
Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (7th ed., revised by Nicolas Slonimsky,
Oxford University Press, p. 2095).
13
La Revue Musicale, April 1929, p. 60. This issue was a special issue on the
music of Roussel.
14
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, ed. by Miguel Alcázar, Editions Orphée, Columbus,
1989.
15
See Wade, G. and Garno, G. A New Look at Segovia, Mel Bay, vol. 1, p. 51, for
European and non-European countries visited by Segovia in the months after his Paris
debut.
16
Following the first publication of this article, Matanya Ophee (1932–2017), publisher of
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, responded on his personal website to my querying of the date
of the first letter by acknowledging that the date on the source document of the first letter
was indeed unclear, and reproduced an image of that portion of the letter. Sadly I did not
make a copy of his response, and his website has now (May 2020) disappeared.

PART 1 10
 The Judgement of Paris
Part 2 Parisian premieres
Allan Clive Jones

First published in In this month’s article we see both Segovia and Pujol cast in a light in which they
Classical Guitar, Sept
1998, p. 22–27. Revised are not customarily seen: as apostles for new music – new music, moreover,
June 2014 and May 2020. which was associated with Paris in one way or another. However, before we look
at the extracts from La Revue Musicale, it is worth reviewing the history and
fortunes of three of Paris’s major musical training institutions – the Paris
Conservatoire, the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale de Musique – since
virtually all the composers concerned are connected with one or other institution.
The Paris Conservatoire was founded in 1784. Although many of France’s
leading performers and composers had been trained there (Debussy, Ravel, Saint-
Saëns, Chausson, to name a few), by the end of the nineteenth century its
reputation was tarnished. Many musicians considered that its teaching policy was
too closely allied to the fads of the Paris Opera, and that its training in general
musicianship was lax. As a result a group of French musicians, the most famous
being the composer Vincent d’Indy, set up a rival establishment, the Schola
Cantorum, which opened for business in 1896. The emphasis here was on musical
history and analysis, typified by the study and performance of Gregorian chant,
Palestrina, Bach, and the later masters.
In 1905 Fauré was invited to take over as director of the Paris Conservatoire, and
he promoted a series of reforms. He reduced the privileged position of opera in
composition and singing classes, and established professorships of counterpoint
and fugue. Music history became compulsory for composition and harmony
students, and collective music making – chamber, vocal and orchestral – was
promoted. By 1920, when the aged Fauré retired, the fortunes and the standing of
the Conservatoire had revived considerably.
Another institution, the École Normale de Musique (a separate institution from
Paris’s main École Normale), was founded in 1919 with pianist and conductor
Alfred Cortot as director. Its aim was to marry the demands of performance and
scholarship. Dukas had a composition class here, and at the Conservatoire.
Both the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale profited from the
Conservatoire’s limited quota for foreign students by taking foreigners in large
numbers: from the Schola Cantorum, Albeniz and Turina are two of the better
known graduates; from the École Normale, Rodrigo and Ponce.1

Segovia’s return to Paris

In May 1925 Segovia was back in Paris, having spent part of the intervening year
since his 1924 debut touring Switzerland, Germany and Austria. On Wednesday 6

PART 2 1
May and 13 May he performed at the Conservatoire, and must have worked his
way through a large part of his repertoire. According to Le Ménestrel,
In this relatively vast hall of the old Conservatory, full from top to bottom, he
played, solo, some thirty-five pieces in two recitals, and half-a-dozen extras,
without losing his enthusiasm for an instant.2

In the course of these concerts, Segovia performed pieces by Roussel, Pedrell,

Falla, Bach, Granados, Albeniz, Torroba (his Sonatine), Turina and Arregui (a
contemporary composer to whom I shall return in Part 5 of this series).3 However,
neither concert was reviewed in La Revue Musicale.
Several months later, on 28 December 1925 and 16 January 1926, Segovia gave
two more concerts in Paris – this time at the Salle Gaveau. The following review
from La Revue Musicale draws on both concerts. I am including the whole article
because some of the pieces mentioned were being premiered but are now virtually
unknown. (The Pedrell, Turina and Roussel pieces were performed in the
December concert; those by Ponce, Petit and Samazeuilh in January.)

Works written for the guitarist Andres Segovia by Albert

Roussel, Samazeuilh, Rayomond Petit, Ponce, Turina,
Carlos Pedrell
La Revue Musicale, February 1926, pp. 151–2
It takes an artist of the calibre of an Andres Segovia to stimulate such a
renaissance of the guitar, an accursed instrument, or at least a discredited
one, considered in the main suitable only for strumming or, by a refined few,
for the popular songs of Spain. Segovia, with such a disreputable instrument,
has given more than one lesson in good musical manners to a good number of
virtuosi who make more concessions to the public, in spite of their so-called
‘noble’ instruments. Segovia presents, fearlessly, some dances by J. S. Bach
conceived for the lute, a close parent of the guitar, or even pieces from the
17th and 18th centuries, original compositions, transcriptions from Spaniards
ancient and modern. Such a repertoire is rich in teaching pieces, but is
necessarily restricted and the guitar cannot survive unless fed with new works.
The talent of a Segovia has been enough to inspire composers of merit to
write for an instrument they wouldn’t have dreamed of unless it was handled
by such an artist.
In Segovia by Albert Roussel, the guitar retains its colour and marks out with
its graceful rhythms an expressive phrase supported by fleeting harmonies,
appropriately for the author of Padmavâtî. A melodic diversion on a repeated
note secures the return of the gracious A major that sits so happily on the
guitar.
The Sérénade of M. Samazeuilh evokes an imaginary Spain both by its
accompanimental figuration and by its strongly articulated melody. One
doesn’t admire Debussy with impunity – without keeping a few souvenirs of
him here and there in the harmony; but M. Samazeuilh also absorbs from him
the taste for subtlety, for reflective uncertainty, and knows, what’s more, how
to allow the strings their natural eloquence.
With the Andantino of Raymond Petit, we re-cross the Pyrenees and are
transplanted into the French 17th century. Recalling a little the style of the lute,
this piece borrows from the sicilienne its rhythmic formula but develops very
freely without paying any tribute to inappropriate modernism, or to facile
archaism. It is curious to see in a Raymond Petit, who doesn’t tarry over
questions of [musical] material, harmonic innovation at work, within a pre-
established form, just through careful attention to instrumental possibilities. In

PART 2 2
 this he submits himself to a discipline outside the creative will: craft. The
musical idea seems to us overall to be slightly dispersed in this confident
piece. But the contrapuntal entries, freely sketched, lead to a happy conclusion
in E major, with a fine sonority on the guitar.
M. Ponce in his Sonata has arrived at the perfect assimilation of the spirit and
technique of the guitar. His harmonisation, what’s more, is very skilful and
heightens the finale, where the rhythmic vitality contrasts with the andante,
which is perhaps lacking in character.
The Fandanguillo of Turina is one of the most agreeable successes to hear.
An informed sense of timbre at the service of a refined sensibility gives it a
distinctive charm. Intimacy and colour harmonise effortlessly while the
technical process is concealed beneath the elegance of the writing. The ‘open’
low E resonates with its insistent chime, irrespective of the modulating chords
that progress freely against a ‘pedal’.
The Lamento et guitarreo of Carlos Pedrell juxtaposes the subtlety of bare
fourths and higher harmonics with the earthiness of agitated rhythms which
carry a recollection of folk style.
M. Segovia has proved convincingly that the popular instrument of Spain,
Argentina, Brazil, and Germany isn’t just for enlivening dances and songs at
festivities, but can aspire to the highest functions of music. In truth, under the
fingers of such an artist, it acquires special significance and has a variety of
timbre which puts it among the richest instruments. The plucked sounds, from
the nail or the flesh of the finger, the harmonics, the glissandos, the sounds
close to the belly of the instrument, are so many different voices which
Segovia uses with skill and discernment. In him, musical intelligence controls a
powerful instinct: the choice of his programmes clearly testifies to it. The
triumphant success that crowns each hearing of Andres Segovia makes us
compare him to one of the famous lutenists of the 17th century who easily
made the whole of a glittering assembly swoon, suspended from the magic
fingers stroking the six strings, at once discreet and eloquent.
Arthur Hoérée

The reviewer Arthur Hoérée (1897–1986), another regular contributor to La

Revue Musicale, and another composer, was born in Belgium. After musical
studies in Belgium, he continued his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, thereafter
becoming closely associated with Honneger and Roussel.
To guitarists nowadays, the names of Torroba, Ponce and Turina are very
familiar, whereas those of Roussel, Samazeuilh, Petit and Carlos Pedrell are fairly
obscure. To a reasonably well-informed Parisian attending these concerts in 1925
and 1926, however, it would have been, roughly speaking, the other way round.
Roussel at this time was probably France’s most highly regarded composer after
Ravel. His opera–ballet based on an Indian legend, Padmavâtî, to which Hoérée
refers, had recently been premiered (1923), to great success in Paris. His piece
Segovia was given its Paris premiere eight months earlier, on 13 May 1925.
Roussel had studied at the Schola Cantorum, and afterwards spent several years
as a teacher on the staff. Gustave Samazeuilh (1877–1967), writer, composer and
translator, was also a graduate of the Schola Cantorum and had had several works
performed in Paris.4 Raymond Petit was sufficiently well regarded to be chosen to
represent France at the fifth festival of the International Society for Contemporary
Music in Frankfurt (July 1927) where is his Cantique de Saint François for solo
voice, choir and orchestra was performed. He has already appeared in Part 1 of
this series as a reviewer. Apart from the concert reviewed here, I have not found

PART 2 3
any record of Segovia playing Petit’s music at any other Paris or London concert,
and the Andantino mentioned in the review above was thought to be one of those
‘lost’ works composed for Segovia. However, during Angelo Gilardino’s
exploration of Segovia’s library of manuscripts in 2001 a Sicilienne by Rayond
Petit came to light. As Hoérée says in his review above, the Andantino performed
by Segovia had the rhythm of a sicilienne, so it seems very likely that Petit’s
Sicilienne, now published by Bèrben Edizioni Musicali in the Segovia Archive
series, is the Andantino performed by Segovia in January 1926.
As for the Argentinian5 Carlos Pedrell (1878–1941), he had recently scored a hit
in Paris with his opera, La Guitare.6 Having studied with his uncle Felipe Pedrell,
he moved to the Schola Cantorum and became a long-time resident of Paris.
Turina, who had graduated from the Schola Cantorum in 1913, had had some
success in Paris around the time of his graduation, but had returned to Spain.
Nevertheless, his reputation was growing in Paris at this time.7 Torroba and Ponce
would at this stage have been little known in France, though Ponce was shortly to
arrive in Paris where, in 1926, in his mid-forties, he began a course of study with
Dukas at the École Normale de Musique. As a pupil of Dukas he was almost
contemporary with the much younger Rodrigo, who in 1927 also enrolled with
the same teacher.
In singling out the these new pieces for discussion, Hoérée shows a composer’s
interest in the possibility of the guitar for new music, and it would have been
quite understandable for him to see these new pieces – slight as most of them
were – as tasters for grander works to come. Indeed, we know that Roussel was at
one stage planning to work his Segovia into a larger guitar composition.8 But if
Hoérée did harbour such expectations, they were not entirely realised. Sure
enough, many further works came from Turina, Torroba and Ponce, and a few
more from Pedrell; but little further for guitar came from the French composers
Petit, Roussel and Samazeuilh.9
It is clear from the many Times reviews of Segovia’s London concerts that these
French (or French-based) composers hardly featured in Segovia’s London
programmes – nor did Segovia record any of their pieces in his pre-War recording
sessions. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that he liked them considerably less
than the pieces composed for him by Spanish composers, and by Ponce.
Unlike Roussel and Samazeuilh, Petit did compose another guitar piece, the
charming Nocturne (1928), again non-Spanish in idiom, and harmonically
reminiscent of the more lightweight of Fauré’s piano music. It is dedicated to
Pujol and published by Eschig in the series supervised by Pujol. Was Petit’s
espousal of Pujol a sign of dissatisfaction with Segovia? It’s hard to say, but
Segovia certainly had some harsh words about Petit a few years later, as we shall
see in Part 3 of this series.
Hoérée’s reference to the old French lutenists might seem surprising, but there
was a good deal of interest in this slice of French musical history. The lutenist
Adrienne Mairy occasionally performed in Paris;10 and she and the musicologist

PART 2 4
Lionel de la Laurencie (1861–1933) co-edited Chansons au luth et airs du XVI
siècle for the publications of the Société française de la musicologie (published
1931). Both de la Laurencie and the Société française de la musicologie will
reappear later in this series of articles. In addition, La Revue Musicale
occasionally had articles related to the lute – for instance the one on Jacques
Gaultier in the January 1924 issue.
Such articles, and similar ones on the French harpsichord composers of the
Baroque era, show that there was considerable curiosity about the sound of old or
neglected plucked instruments, be they lutes, harpsichords, or indeed guitars. It’s
worth recalling that the pioneering harpsichordist Wanda Landowska was active
in Paris at this time as a recitalist and teacher, and had commissioned for her
instrument major pieces from Poulenc and Falla,11 the like of which would have
been considerable additions to the guitar repertoire. According to Poulenc,
Landowska gained these pieces by blatant hard selling:
All the composers here must write for me, because the harpsichord isn’t a
museum piece,’ [she said]. That is how Falla came to promise to write her a
harpsichord concerto.12

These new pieces were of great interest to La Revue Musicale, which devoted a
whole article to the recording sessions for the Falla concerto with the composer as
soloist.

Segovia, Llobet and the SNM

One of the longest-surviving music societies in Paris was the Société Nationale de
Musique (SNM), founded in 1871 by Saint-Saëns initially to promote French
music and performers. Among its many distinguished members were Fauré,
d’Indy, Chausson, Ravel, Roussel and Albeniz, and first performances of several
important works were given at SNM concerts.
During the early years of the twentieth century, the SNM came to be seen as
representing conservative musical values, and a more radical breakaway group
was formed around 1909/10 under the aegis of Ravel, Koechlin, Vuillermoz and
others. This was the Société Musicale Indépendante (SMI) mentioned in Part 1,
for whom Segovia played in May 1924. However, Segovia was also invited to
play for the SNM, on 23 January 1926 at the Salle Érard.
In performing for the SNM, Segovia was following in the footsteps of Llobet,
who had performed for the SNM on 17 March 1906, at the Schola Cantorum. On
that occasion the concert was a mixed recital that included pianist Ricardo Viñes
and other performers. Llobet played Tarrega’s Jota, Albeniz’s Granada, and his
own arrangements of Chansons populaires catalanes.13 Segovia’s performance
for the SNM, also a mixed recital with other performers, was to have included
Joaquin Nin’s Madrigal, composed for him. However, the piece was not
performed. According to Nin’s son, Joaquin Nin-Culmell (in a personal
communication with me) the piece has never been performed and is now lost.14
At the SNM concert, Segovia reprised several of the pieces he had played a few
days earlier at the Salle Gaveau (16 January 1926), notably Roussel’s Segovia,

PART 2 5
which the reviewer in Le Ménestrel referred to as ‘... a veritable sonatina
movement’.15 This remark perhaps gives a clue to the sort of piece Roussel was
intending to create with the never-written additional movements mentioned
earlier in this article.

Pujol, Broqua and the SNM

During 1927 Emilio Pujol gave two performances in Paris featuring new music
for the guitar. This time it was the work of a single composer, Alfonso Broqua
(1876–1946), who was born in Uruguay, studied at the Schola Cantorum with
Roussel, and lived for many years in Paris, sadly succumbing to severe mental
illness around 1940.16 The first Broqua performance was on 5 February, at an
SNM concert. Yet again it was a mixed recital, including piano trios and songs by
other composers. Reviews of both Broqua performances are given below.

Suite of works for guitar by Alfonso Broqua

(Société Nationale)
La Revue Musicale, March 1927 p. 253
The music of M. Broqua is always marked by the greatest finesse; what he
seems lacking sometimes is a sufficiently clear outline and, if I may say so, a
stronger motivation.
La Vidala, in the spirit of pre-Columbian music, is a serious and slow piece that
is very opportune; repeated bass notes give it the feel of a mysterious and
solemn march.
I like less the Pampeana which is devoted to the creation of an atmosphere, to
scene-painting; I don’t know for sure whether descriptive impressionism suits
the guitar. Two of these pieces are in the spirit of popular South American
dances. The last is charming, but is rather short.
Mr Broqua knows in depth the guitar’s resources, especially from the point of
view of timbres, of which he uses an extremely wide variety. In truth he was
interpreted remarkably by Emilio Pujol, who is an excellent musician whom we
have too little opportunity to hear.
RP [Raymond Petit]

Works by Alfonso Broqua

La Revue Musicale, January 1928, p. 260
These were all premieres: first a piece for guitar, taken from a suite for this
instrument, which Pujol played excellently in a recital that made one
appreciate the fine qualities of this musician – to whom one is indebted, by the
way, for perhaps the most comprehensive study of the guitar that exists
(recently published in Lavignac’s Encyclopédie); then three songs sung by
Madame Maragliano Mori.
Each of these works shows well an aspect of Broqua’s talent. In the piece for
guitar one meets the Latin American musician, the evoker of the rhythms of
the pampa, the songs of Inca origin. In one of the songs, Lunghilunghi, on a
poem of Carducci, inspired by Heine, the Italian influence, so often found in
Rio de la Plata or Buenos Aires, is revealed; the phrase unfolds broadly and
gently in a true melody. In contrast, two other pieces, on French words by
Supervielle: Échange and Pointe de flamme, bitter and jerky, are purely lyrical
declamation supported by harmony at once violent and subtle.17 The man of
the theatre can be seen in the background. Despite their brevity, they are very
well suited to being orchestrated.
RP [Raymond Petit]

PART 2 6
Broqua’s output includes works in several genres: solo piano, chamber music,
orchestral, opera and ballet (often based on his Uruguayian heritage, and, in the
case of one opera, using his own libretto). The fifth of his Evacaciones Criollas
‘Milangueos’ is dedicated to Segovia.
These Broqua reviews offer hints of a developing alliance between Petit, Broqua
and Pujol. Indeed, Pujol speaks very highly of Broqua in a substantial piece of
writing that will be reproduced in Part 5 of this series, and, as mentioned above,
Petit dedicated his Nocturne to Pujol.

Segovia
Segovia’s next appearance in La Revue Musicale is in late 1929, over three years
after the publication of the extract quoted earlier in this article, and following at
least four further performances in Paris.18 In the meantime he had given his
London premiere and three further London19 concerts, attended his first three
London recording sessions, made his New York debut, and played in many other
countries, notably the Soviet Union and Scandinavia.
The next article in this series will look at the response in London and at the 1929
review from La Revue Musicale. Among other curiosities, we shall find Segovia
playing Dowland at the remarkably early date of 1927.

PART 2 7
Notes
1
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Rodrigo studied
with Dukas at the Schola Cantorum. I have not seen any other reference associating
Dukas with the Schola Cantorum. I suspect the author of this New Grove entry has
confused the Schola with the École Normale.
2
Le Ménestrel, 22 May 1925, p. 236. A review of the same concerts in Le
Courrier Musical 1 June 1925, p. 311, refers to Segovia’s ‘sensational success in his two
recitals.’
3
These composers are mentioned in Le Ménestrel, 22 May 1925 p. 236, and Le
Courrier Musical, 1 June 1925, p. 311.
4
Samazeuilh was a friend of both Debussy and, especially, Dukas, whose
composition classes he attended even when well into his fifties. When in his eighties, his
tall figure was apparently still to be seen braving the Parisian traffic on a bicycle going
from concert to concert.
5
Some sources describe him as Uruguayan, but articles in La Revue Musicale
(April 1924, pp. 69–70; June 1931, p.47) and Le Ménestrel (11 September 1925, p. 379)
describe him as Argentinian, as does Pujol in a piece of writing to be reproduced in Part 5.
In the June 1931 issue of La Revue Musicale, Raymond Petit says that Pedrell was of
Argentine descent and nationality, though born in Uruguay: ‘De famille et de nationalité
argentine (quoique né en Uruguay), ayant beaucoup vécu en Argentine et en Espagne et à
Paris.’
6
The music of La Guitare, which evidently employed a guitar as well as an
orchestra, is reviewed very favourably by Roland-Manuel in the April 1924 issue of La
Revue Musical, pp. 69–70).
7
Graham Wade ( A New Look at Segovia by Graham Wade and Gerald Garno,
Mel Bay, 1997, Volume 1, p. 54) suggests that Turina’s Fandanguillo may have been
premiered as late as 1932. Its inclusion in this review suggests an earlier date.
8
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, ed. by Miguel Alcázar, Editions Orphée, Columbus,
1989, p. 3.
9
Segovia appears to have performed Roussel’s Segovia six times in Paris in the
pre-war period, on the following occasions: 13 May 1925, Conservatoire; 28 December
1925, Salle Gaveau; 23 January 1926, Salle Érard; 28 December 1928, Salle Gaveau; 19
May 1931, Paris Opéra; 31 May 1932, Salle Gaveau.Samazeuilh’s Serenade was
performed five times, on: 16 January 1926, Salle Gaveau; 23 January 1926, Salle Érard; 2
June 1926, Salle Gaveau; 15 May 1929, Salle Pleyel; 7 November 1932, Salle Pleyel. In
addition, Sainz de la performed the piece on 10 December 1926 at the Salle Érard.
10
Le Ménestral, 6 June 1924, p. 258, for instance, carries a review of a salon
concert introduced by Henry Prunières at which Mairy performed lute pieces by da
Milano, Galileo, Francisque, Bésard, Valet, Bocquet.etc. and accompanied Alicita Félici
in songs by Guédron, Moulinié, Boesset and Lulli.

PART 2 8
11
Concertos for Harpsichord by Poulenc (1927–8) and Falla (1923–6), to say
nothing of the prominent harpsichord part in Falla’s El Retablo de Maese Pedro (1919–
22).
12
Francis Poulenc, My Friends and Myself, La Palatine, 1963. English edition,
Dobson Books, 1978.
13
Michel Duchesneau, L’Avant-Garde Musicale à Paris de 1871 à 1939 (Mardaga,
1997), p. 266.
14
Mr Nin-Culmell, in a letter to me from August 1998, states that at the concert
where Segovia was due to play Nin’s Madrigal for the first time, Nin addressed the
audience before the concert began, and apologised for the non-performance of his piece in
the ensuing concert. However, Mr Nin-Culmell says that this incident happened at the
Salle Gaveau, rather than the Salle Érard, the location of the SNM concert described here.
As Mr Nin-Culmell’s letter was written seventy-two years after the incident described,
some inaccuracy might be understandable.

Segovia mentions a piece by Nin, without giving its title, in a letter to Ponce in 1932. Nin
is cited among a list of composers based in Paris who have given him works that he has
not performed. He considers that through their influence with the press they have ensured
that he has received unfavourable reviews. (The Segovia-Ponce Letters, ed. Miguel
Alcázar, Editions Orphée, 1989, p. 116–18). However, in compiling this series of articles
I found no unfavourable reviews of his playing, although the works he played were not
always considered worthy of him.
15
Le Ménestrel, 29 Jan 1926, p. 50. The reviewer was André Schaeffner.
16
This information, and much of my information on other South American
composers, is taken from Nicolas Slonimsky’s invaluable (and entertaining) Music of
Latin America, Harrap, 1946.
17
The writer Jules Supervielle (1884–1960) was, like Broqua, born in Uruguay but
living in Paris.
18
Between these two appearances in La Revue Musicale, Segovia performed in
Paris on 2 Junes 1926, 18 November 1926, 30 May 1928 and 28 December 1928, all at
the Salle Gaveau.
19
From reviews in The Times and The Musical Times it is evident that Segovia
gave concerts in London on at least the following dates in the pre-War period: 7
December 1926, 29 January 1927, 18 and 31 May 1927, 11 May and 19 Oct 1928, 6 May
and 11 October 1931, 8 November 1933, 2 November 1934, 30 May and 6 December
1935, 7 and 21 October 1936, 22 October 1937, 3 December 1938. All these
performances were at the Wigmore Hall apart from the first (Aeolian Hall) and 11
October 1931 (Queens Hall). Graham Wade (A New Look at Segovia by Graham Wade
and Gerald Garno, Mel Bay, 1997, p.95) refers also to a concert on 17 October 1937 at the
Hyde Park Hotel, which was not reviewed in The Times.

PART 2 9
 The Judgement of Paris
Part 3 ‘Incontestably a great artist’
Allan Clive Jones
First published in Despite the Parisian emphasis of this series, in this part I shall extend my survey
Classical Guitar Oct
1998, pp. 20-27. Revised to include Segovia’s reception in London, as revealed in The Times and The
June 2014 and May 2020. Musical Times. Among other points of interest, these sources record what must be
one of the earliest instances of Dowland on the guitar.
Segovia’s London debut was on 7 December 1926, at the Aeolian Hall.
According to the reviews, the programme included Sor (‘a set of variations’),
Tarrega (‘an étude on repeated notes’), Torroba (Sonatine), Turina
(Fandanguillo) and Bach (‘a suite written for the lute which included a fugue’;
this was almost certainly not one of the ‘official’ lute suites but a compilation of
movements). The Times’s reviewer was enthusiastic:
The instrument, at any rate in the hands of an artist like Señor Segovia, is
capable of many different tone colours according to the place where the
strings are plucked and the manner of the plucking. This directness of touch
makes possible subtleties which even the violin cannot approach, still less the
harpsichord, which is its nearest relation in the matter of timbre. Its tone is
sweet and its style intimate, but what was most surprising was its capacity for
phrasing, and it was the perfection of phrasing which gave us the measure of
Señor Segovia as an artist.1

In the Musical Times the reviewer2 gave a quick thumbnail history of the guitar
before discussing the concert. The review was no less appreciative than The
Times’s, but voices a few regrets at some omissions:
... But we missed de Falla’s passionately serious ‘Homenaje’ written for the
guitar in memory of Debussy, nor was there anything by Angel Barrios, or with
suggestions of the so-called flamenco style with the Phrygian cadences and
surprising progressions which still seem new and exciting to musicians in
northern countries.3

Angel Barrios (1882–1964 ), referred to here, is not to be confused with Agustin

Barrios (1885–1944). Angel Barrios, born in Granada, was a composer , guitarist
and violinist. According to Suzanne Damarquez, in her book Manuel de Falla,
Angel Barrios was a friend of Falla, for whom he would occasionally play his
guitar.4
The part of the concert that this reviewer liked best was the set of Bach lute
pieces:
It is to be hoped that at his next recital (at the end of January) Senor Segovia
will give us more ancient music. The late Dr Chilesotti used to play lute music
on the guitar to friends who visited him at Bassano; and the Spanish lutenists
of the 16th century wrote much music that is worth hearing, particularly
Fuenllana, whose lute book includes a number of pieces for the four-stringed
guitar of his day. The modern guitar is next-of-kin to the lute, and is
undoubtedly the instrument on which lute music (including English lute music)
should generally be performed.

PART 3 1
Once again one is struck by how Falla’s piece had been an ambassador for the
instrument, and how the guitar is seen as evocative of the lost age of lute music –
music which there is clearly a strong yearning to hear.
As the last review hints, Segovia’s next London concert was to be quite soon: 29
January 1927, at the Wigmore Hall. This time the concert included Handel, an
arrangement of a Mendelssohn quartet movement, some Granados Spanish
Dances, Albeniz’s Cadiz, and pieces by Ponce and Malats – in addition to Bach.
The Musical Times’s reviewer (unnamed, but definitely not the reviewer of the
December concert) praised Segovia’s artistry, but considered the instrument to be
intrinsically defective.5 The Times’s review, again for the most part generous,
offered the following observation:
A ‘Thème varié,’ by M. Ponce, and a rather sentimental ‘Serenata’ by Malats,
were hardly up to the standard of the rest. But the making of a programme for
his instrument must present difficulties, and we venture to call Mr Segovia’s
attention, if it has not already been done, to the music of our English lutenists.6

As if in response to this suggestion, when Segovia played in London again a few

months later (18 May 1927) his programme included two unspecified Dowland
galliards, as well as pieces by Sor, Torroba, (Sonatine), de Visée (Petite Suite),
Bach (Fugue, Courante and Gavotte), Schubert (Moment Musical in F minor, but
presumably not played in that key), and ‘a group of modern pieces’ that included
Falla’s Homenaje and Albeniz’s Seguidillas.7 No doubt the absence of Ponce and
Malats gladdened The Times reviewer’s heart.
The playing of Dowland at such an early date (mid-1927) is remarkable. Lutenist
and scholar Diana Poulton (b. 1903) comments that in the late 1920s, although
Dowland’s songs were reasonably well known, his lute pieces were scarcely
known, except to a few pioneers (such as herself) between whom manuscript
copies circulated.8 However, Segovia appears to have used as his source John
Dowland’s Solostücke für die Laute (‘John Dowland’s solo pieces for the lute’),
edited by Hans Dagobert Bruger and published in 1923. This volume contained
four unnamed galliards, the Lachrimae pavan, two unnamed allemands, and a
version of the pavan Semper Dowland Semper Dolens, all in guitar notation.
Bruger’s main source for his edition was Joachim van den Hove’s Delitiae
Musicae, an anthology of lute tablatures by various composers published in
Utrecht in 1612. 9
Less than two weeks after the concert reviewed above, Segovia was back in the
Wigmore Hall. The short but appreciative Times review mentions Giuliani
(Sonatina), Sor (Theme Varié) and Bach (Sarabande and Bourée).10
The most significant feature of this London trip, though, is its inclusion of
Segovia’s first two London recording sessions for His Master’s Voice. The pieces
played at these and later sessions were no doubt drawn from his repertoire, so
they allow us to pin down more precisely several of the vaguely described pieces
in the reviews. On 2 May, at the Small Queens Hall, Segovia recorded Bach’s
Gavotte en rondeau from the E major violin Partita BWV1006, the Courante
from the C major cello suite BWV 1009; and Sor’s Theme varié op. 9. On 20

PART 3 2
May he recorded Torroba’s Allegretto from Sonatina in A, Tarrega’s Recuerdos
de la Alhambra, Turina’s Fandanguillo.11
A particularly interesting concert by Segovia, from the point of view of the
repertoire of British music for the guitar, is the one at the Wigmore Hall on 11
May 1928, at which Cyril Scott’s Reverie was given its first and last UK
performance by its dedicatee. The Times’s reviewer considered that it ‘did not
hang together well’.12 In a letter to Ponce written a year earlier, Segovia had
mentioned that he was working on a Sonatina by Scott ‘without great enthusiasm,
I confess.’13 No guitar piece by Scott is known to have been performed under the
title Sonatina by Segovia.
For many decades mystery surrounded these guitar works by Scott. No guitar
music by Scott was published in Segovia’s lifetime, and the Scott family had no
manuscript copies of any such music. The mystery was resolved in 2001 during
Angelo Gilardino’s exploration of Segovia’s library of manuscripts, which
uncovered the manuscript of Scott’s three-movement Sonatina for guitar.
Fingerings and other markings showed that Segovia had worked on the
movement, and it is almost certain that the Reverie performed in 1928 was simply
the first movement of the Sonatina. This piece has been published by Bèrben
Edizioni Musicali. An article on Scott’s Sonatina by the present author can be
downloaded from a link given in the notes at the end of this article.14
A concert in London on 3 December 1928 by Pujol and his wife, flamenco
guitarist Mathilde Cuervas, gave The Times’s reviewer the opportunity to make
an implicit comparison between the styles of Pujol and Segovia:
Señor Emilio Pujol played us classics of the guitar, both ancient and modern,
in a very strict and reserved manner, employing few of the varieties of tone
which we have come to expect even within the narrow limits of the instrument’s
not very extensive resources. 15

At the time of this review of Pujol, Segovia had played in London six times, so
‘the varieties of tone which we have come to expect’ presumably refers to
Segovia’s increasingly familiar style.16 Indeed, the quality of Segovia’s sound and
his use of tonal variety, was frequently commented on – see for example the
reviews by Pincherle and Hoérée in Parts 1 and 2 of this series; and even Pujol
commented on it in an extract we shall see in Part 5.

PART 3 3
Paris (and New York)

Segovia by Miguel del Pino

The period 1927–9 appears to have been the high-water mark of Segovia’s
relationship with the Parisian musical press. The 1 October 1927 issue of Le
Courrier Musical carries a reproduction of a portrait of Segovia painted by
Miguel del Pino. The 15 January 1928 issue has a photograph of him boarding a
train for Cherbourg where, the caption informs us, he was due to board the
Aquitania on 28 December 1927 for his New York debut. The issue dated 1
March 1928 contains translated highlights from ecstatic American reviewers. In
the 1 April issue Segovia features in the annual feature ‘Nos grands virtuoses’,
accompanied by a cartoon:

Andres Segovia
Guitarist
The contemporary master of the guitar who knows how to make this
instrument, which one wrongly thought to have only limited potential, into a
marvellous medium capable of expressing all human feelings, ranging from
sorrow to joy. The whole of Europe, now conquered, has resonated with his
incomparable triumphs, which live still in all our memories. Currently he is in
the United States where, solo, he repeats many times the miracle of
bewitching the dense crowds that rush to delight in the potion he distils.

PART 3 4
 Someone who knows how, with such simple means, to move people so
profoundly is incontestably a great artist.

Apparently Segovia could do no wrong. In April, La Revue Musicale included

one of his discs – presumably recorded in London the year before – in a short
record review:
The guitar does very well from electrical recording, and it is a joy to hear the
most delicate effects, [and] the most remarkable nuances that Segovia obtains
on his magical guitar. The Gavotte of Bach (written originally for the lute) or the
brilliant Thème varié of Sor are required listening.17

In the early part of 1929 Segovia was back in the USA. Later that year he visited
China and Japan. His only Parisian concert of the 1928/9 season was on 15 May
1929 at the Salle Pleyel, where he premiered a new piece by Ponce. The
following review of the concert, from La Revue Musicale, needs to be read
bearing in mind that the reviewer was secretary of the very organisation for
whose benefit Segovia was playing.

Sonata Romantica of M. Ponce (Segovia Concert)

La Revue Musicale, September–October 1929, pp. 249–50
At the recital which Segovia gave so generously for the benefit of the
Publications de la Société Française de la Musicologie, he played, besides
ancient and modern pieces from his repertoire – successful in quality, but
successful most of all because of being played by him – the first performance
of a Sonata Romantic written for the guitar by M. Ponce. It is in four well
balanced movements, very well adapted to the instrument – Allegro, Andante,
Moment musical, Allegro serioso. These show, in the author, first of all a
fervent worship of Schubert and of the classics, but also a sincerity of
inspiration which is not that of a maker of pastiches, a genre to which, it will be
agreed, more spirit than sensibility are appropriate. The work, as musical as it
was clever, was greeted by applause which was not only intended as a sign of
appreciation for a great performer. Anyway, I don’t believe Segovia ever plays
anything which he has not tested and savoured.
AT [André Tessier]

PART 3 5
The Société Française de la Musicologie was involved in a range of antiquarian
and scholarly activities, principally editing and publishing old music. (Part 2 of
this series mentioned the Society’s publication of French lute music.) In
approaching Segovia to perform for its benefit, the Society was not being just
opportunistic – though there may have been an element of that; Segovia was a
sure-fire box-office draw at this time. In fact Segovia was considered an
appropriate choice because his playing of early music was seen as germane to the
society:
[Segovia] has always demonstrated his lively interest in the history of plucked
instruments – the lute and guitar – by notably including in his programmes
pieces by the celebrated French theorboist and guitarist Robert de Visée .. 18

The hall was packed for this concert, even to the extent of inconveniencing
members of the society who had hoped to meet there. For his pains, Segovia was
presented with ‘a rare portrait of Liszt as a young man, engraved by Devéria’.
Membership of the society was not confined to France: there were members in the
UK, USA and various parts of continental Europe, though naturally they were
concentrated around Paris. The society published a list of members from time to
time in its journal Revue de Musicologie, and we see there names that appear in
this series of articles or flit through the pages of the Segovia–Ponce Letters: Marc
Pincherle, Henri Prunières, Wanda Landowska, Georges Migot, Joaquin Nin,
Adolfo Salazar (who lived in Madrid, and will reappear in Part 5) and Aloys
Mooser (Swiss musicologist living in Geneva, and an enthusiastic advocate of the
music of his compatriot Frank Martin). Somewhat surprisingly, given his
musicological and antiquarian interests, Pujol is not listed as a member.

‘That stupid article’

In a letter to Ponce in 1930, Segovia refers to the Concerto on which Ponce was
working (and which would occupy him throughout the decade):
How is the concerto going? I have seen a reference to it in that stupid article
by Raymond Petit. He will pay in heaven for having made you the victim of
such Company. Among Allende Maestoso and Broqua ... To counteract that I
have a thought which I will need to tell you in person in Paris.19

What Segovia appears to object to here is an article in which Petit, whom we met
in Parts 1 and 2 as reviewer and composer, mentions Ponce in the same context as
Broqua and the mysterious ‘Allende Maestoso’. As we saw in earlier articles,
Petit, having composed an Andantino that Segovia played in Paris in January
1926, appears to have developed an enthusiasm for Pujol, whose Broqua
performances were warmly reviewed by Petit in two reviews in La Revue
Musicale (see Part 2 of this series). Petit also composed a Nocturne (1928) for
Pujol.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find the offending article that Segovia refers
to, nor can I elucidate the ‘thought’ that was to be relayed in Paris. However,
‘Allende Maestoso’ is probably a sarcastic reference to Humberto Allende (1885–
1959), a Chilean composer and ethnomusicologist. Allende’s three-movement

PART 3 6
symphonic suite Escenas Campesinas Chileanas (1913) was commended by
Felipe Pedrell, and a cello concerto (1915) was praised by Debussy.20
I would guess that the article to which Segovia objects is probably a survey of
contemporary Latin American composers in which Petit discusses Allende,
Broqua and Ponce, and maybe others. Presumably Segovia objects to something
Petit says about Ponce, or maybe he simply objects to Ponce being grouped with,
and maybe implicitly compared with, Broqua and Allende. Why he should have
had such animosity towards these composers is not clear, but it’s possible he had
fallen foul of them, either in Paris or during a South American tour.
Segovia would probably not have liked any better an article by E. L. Giordan in
the 1 July 1930 issue of Le Courrier Musical.21 Entitled ‘Homenaje’, it purports
to be about the guitar, flamenco, cante jondo and the ‘soul of Spain’ in general,
and about Manuel de Falla’s guitar homage to Debussy in particular. In flowery
prose that says little of substance, the author astonishingly omits any reference to
Segovia, but includes Llobet and Pujol; and when referring to the crop of
contemporary composers writing for the instrument, he omits any reference to
Ponce, but mentions Broqua – along with Turina and Torroba.
The picture that seems to emerge from these clues, albeit not clearly, is of a group
comprising Petit, Broqua and Allende towards whom Segovia harboured
resentment, possibly on Ponce’s behalf. Associated with this group is Pujol,
though whether he was included in Segovia’s animosity is unclear. Also unclear
is whether this animosity was reciprocated by the group. However, Giordan’s
perverse omission of Segovia (and Manuel Ponce) from his article – at a time
when Segovia was both popular and greatly respected, and when he had Falla’s
piece in his repertoire – suggests that at least one person with access to print was
more impressed by Pujol and Broqua than by Segovia and Ponce.
In Part 4 we shall see that the secret of Ponce’s fake Weiss suite was no secret to
at least one reviewer in 1931.

PART 3 7
Notes
1
The Times, 9 December 1926, p. 14.
2
Almost certainly J. B. Trend (1887–1958), author of many boos on Spanish
culture and music, including Manuel de Falla and Spanish Music, New York, 1929.
3
Musical Times, January 1927, p. 68.
4
Suzanne Damarquez, Manuel de Falla, Da Capo Press, 1983 (translated edition)
p.118.
5
Musical Times, March 1927, p. 262–3.
6
The Times, 31 January 1927, p. 10.
7
The Times, 20 May 1927, p. 12.
8
Diana Poulton, John Dowland, 2nd ed. Faber, 1982, p. 446.
9
I discuss Segovia’s probable sources of Dowland at greater length in my articles
‘Warlock, Dowland and Segovia’, Classical Guitar, May 2011 pp.24-29; June 2011,
pp.16-19; and July 2011, pp. 16-20.
10
The Times, 3 June 1927, p. 10.
11
Other pre-War recording sessions included the following items, which are
presumably the ones referred to vaguely in reviews: Bach ‘lute’ prelude BWV 999,
Allemande from E minor lute suite BWV 996, and fugue from violin sonata BWV 1001;
Tarrega, Study in A; Mendelssohn, Canzonetta from String Quartet Op. 12; Albeniz,
Grenada and Sevilla (Suite Espanola nos 1 and 3); Granados, Spanish Dances 5 and 10.
12
The Times, 14 May 1928, p. 21.
13
The Segovia-Ponce Letters, Edited by Miguel Alcázar, Translated by Peter
Segal, Editions Orphée, Columbus, 1989, p. 11/13.
14
My article on Scott’s Sonatina can be downloaded from here:
http://oro.open.ac.uk/40744/
15
The Times, 7 December, 1928, p.14.
16
‘The varieties of tone which we have come to expect’ might be thought also to
refer to the style of Regino Sainz de la Maza, who had played in London six months
before the Pujols’ concert (14 June 1928). However, The Times review of Sainz de la
Maza’s concert (16 June 1928, p. 12) comments on his limited variation of tone. Sainz de
la Maza’s programme included Bach, Handel, part of a Grande Sonate by Sor, Variations
on a Theme of Mozart by Sor, and ‘more modern pieces’, including Turina’s
Fandanguillo.
17
La Revue Musicale, April 1928, p. 280.
18
Most of this information concerning the Société Française de la Musicologie is
culled from issues of its journal Revue de Musicologie for the years 1922–30. The
information concerning Segovia’s concert, and the quoted extract, come from the May
1929 and August 1929 issues.

PART 3 8
19
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, ed. By Miguel Alcázar, Editions Orphée, Columbus,
1989, p. 69.
20
Allende’s orchestration of three of his own piano pieces was performed in Paris
on 30 January 1930. It was warmly reviewed in Le Courrier Musical, 15 February 1930,
p. 123.
21
I know nothing of Giordan, except for a curious similarity of name with a certain
Giordani, some of whose guitar compositions were played at a concert in Paris on 18 May
1930 to commemorate guitarist and teacher Jacques Tessarech, who had died the year
before (Le Ménestrel, 30 May 1930, p. 249). Given the fairly frequent garbling of names
in these music journals, it is possible that Giordan and Giordani were the same.

PART 3 9
 The Judgement of Paris
Part 4 A night at the Opera
Allan Clive Jones
First published in Prior to the building of the new opera house at The Bastille in the 1980s, Paris’s
Classical Guitar, Nov.
1998, p. 16-21. Revised main opera house was the Palais Garnier, often referred to simply as the Opéra.
June 2014 and May 2020. This vast, ornate edifice, completed in 1875, is as famous for its subterranean
artificial lake as for its phantom. In a letter to Manuel Ponce,1 Segovia says that
he has reluctantly accepted an engagement to play there on 19 May 1931. The
following review from La Revue Musicale, published several months later, relates
to that concert.

At the concerts
La Revue Musicale, October 1931, p. 251
What an artist Segovia is! He’s the Cortot of the guitar. His intelligence, his
vast culture serve him no less than the prodigious technique that he created
himself. One was afraid of not being able to hear him in the vast hall of the
Opéra, and not a note of his pianissimi was lost. What a marvel under his
fingers are the pieces by Bach intended originally for the lute and those of
Weiss, who was the last of the great lutenists, prolonging with genius, well into
the 18th century, the tradition of the 17th and composing for his instrument
pieces of which Bach wouldn’t have disowned the expressive and scholarly
counterpoint.
Henry Prunières

By the standard of the other reviews we have seen, this one says little about the
pieces played. It suggests that Segovia was not playing anything new, or, rather,
not playing anything the reviewer thought was new, for the Weiss piece is almost
certainly the fake baroque piece cooked up by Ponce. That Baroque experts such
as Prunières should have been taken in gave Segovia much pleasure.2 But how
well kept was the secret of this piece? When Segovia played it in London a
couple of weeks earlier (6 May 1931) it elicited the following in The Times:
A partita by Leopoldo Weiss showed that modern music all’antico [in the old
style] suits it even better, and that imitation Bach can be quite satisfactory on
the new instrument.3

The reviewer in The Musical Times appeared to know that the Weiss was an
exercise all’antico too:
Not everything he played was worthy of his gifts as an executant and
interpreter. The Scarlatti suite was delightful; the Suite by Leopoldo Weiss, on
the other hand, was nothing more than an academic study. Segovia deserves
better than this.4

Presumably neither reviewer knew who the true composer was; in fact they
appear to think Leopoldo Weiss is a modern composer. To confound the
confusion, the Scarlatti suite was almost certainly another Ponce fake.
In view of the later development of the guitar repertoire, another review of
Segovia’s Opéra concert is particularly interesting. It comes from an Englishman
resident in Paris at the time, the composer Lennox Berkeley. From 1926 to around

PART 4 1
1932 Berkeley was a pupil of the eminent Parisian teacher and conductor Nadia
Boulanger, and between June 1929 and June 1934 he filed a number of ‘Reports
from Paris’ for the British Monthly Musical Record. The edition dated 1 July
1931 contained the following note by Berkeley:
Another recital that aroused great enthusiasm was Segovia’s concert at the
Opéra. I think it is superfluous to praise Segovia’s guitar playing – it will suffice
to say that he was at the top of his form, and amply justified his choice of the
Opéra to perform in. His programme included some interesting eighteenth-
century lute music – a Préambule et gavotte by Chilesotti and a Partita by
Silvius Weiss. He also played Turina’s delightful Fandanguillo, of which there
is an excellent recording on His Master’s Voice. The fact that one heard
perfectly every sound bears witness not only to Segovia’s power of tone
production, but also to the acoustic properties of the Opéra.5

Some time during Berkeley’s residence in Paris he composed his Quatre Pièces
pour la Guitare for Segovia. These pieces remained unplayed and unknown until
their discovery in 2001 among Segovia’s papers by the Italian guitarist,
composer, editor and musicologist Angelo Gilardino, who was himself the
dedicatee of Berkeley’s Theme and Variations (1970) for guitar.

Trouble at La Revue Musicale

To modern eyes, one of the most surprising features of La Revue Musicale is the
almost complete absence of advertising, at least in the issues produced during the
1920s. During the 1930s advertising creeps in, and this is no doubt indicative of
the journal’s deteriorating financial state. The Segovia–Ponce Letters indicate that
during 1932 La Revue Musicale’s founder Henry Prunières was having trouble
keeping the journal afloat.6 In September 1932 he proposed to Segovia, to pianist
Artur Rubinstein and to violinist Paul Kochanski that they should play a benefit
concert for the journal, on the grounds that their careers had benefited from it.
Thus we find the November 1932 issue untypically carrying a listing of the
month’s forthcoming concerts, and prominently displaying a billing for Segovia’s
concert at the Salle Pleyel on 7 November (but not prominently stating that it was
for the benefit of La Revue Musicale). This concert was reviewed in the following
month’s issue by Prunières himself. It is the last time Segovia appears in the
pages of La Revue Musicale.

Andres Segovia
La Revue Musicale, December 1932, p. 424
Andres Segovia succeeded in the tour de force of being acclaimed in the
immense Salle Pleyel where the slightest nuances of his guitar were
perceived, whereas orchestras are heard poorly. Evidently an excess of
resonance. Segovia has never played better. What an artist! Between his
fingers the guitar becomes a magic instrument. The quality of sound is
incomparable. How thin and metallic the harpsichord becomes by comparison,
and how impoverished the piano seems! Under Segovia’s fingers a dance by
Granados acquires a richness, a melodic and rhythmic spontaneity of which
one was not aware when heard on the piano; and what a splendour is his
resurrection of the ancient and beautiful lute piece by Weiss, for example.
Moreover, Segovia’s guitar evokes for us the era of the great lute virtuosos
and gives us an idea of the playing of a Gaulthier, of a Mouton, and of a Gallot.
Henry Prunières

PART 4 2
Up to the war
La Revue Musicale didn’t go under. It kept going until the German invasion of
France in May 1940. Prunières himself died in 1942; after the war, La Revue
Musicale was revived.
As for why Segovia was no longer reviewed in La Revue Musicale after 1932, we
can only speculate. He certainly continued to perform in Paris through the 1930s.
There is no reason to suppose that Segovia was dropped because his playing was
not thought up to scratch. Prunières’s review of the benefit concert for La Revue
Musicale gives no hint of dissatisfaction on that score. It could be argued that
Prunières was bound to write a good review – given that Segovia was doing him a
favour. But a review of the same concert in Le Courrier Musical by composer and
Falla scholar Suzanne Demarquez supports everything Prunières says.7
In a letter to Ponce dated 25 June 1932, Segovia makes it plain that he considers
himself to have fallen foul of the Parisian reviewers.8 Writing of a recent concert,
he says:9
I have seen few reviews of my concert. Have you seen any? I am afraid some
were unfavourable. And they never could have chosen a less opportune time
because I played well and with enthusiasm ...10

He then goes on to name several French or Paris-based composers who have

supplied him with pieces that he has not played, and whom he believes to be
influential with the press. He suspects this is at the root of his poor reviews. If this
allegation is true, then it might also account for his disappearance from La Revue
Musicale, though, as we have seen, his reviews in the journal were never poor.
There may be a less conspiratorial explanation. The reviews of Segovia’s London
concerts through the 1930s show, with one major exception – which I will return
to in a moment – that Segovia’s programmes had a certain predictability to them.
You could be pretty sure of what you were going to get if you went to a Segovia
concert: some Sor or Tarrega; some Bach movements originally for cello, violin
or lute; possibly a Handel, Frescobaldi or Rameau transcription; some
transcriptions from the classical or romantic repertoire (Haydn, Mozart,
Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms); arrangements of Albeniz or Granados; and as for
new music, this increasingly meant something from his now favoured quartet of
Ponce, Torroba, Turina and Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The deviations from this
pattern were, on the whole, minor. After about 1932, the Parisian reviewers may
simply have felt they had nothing to say that they had not already said, and that if
he were to offer something significantly new, their interest would be re-kindled.
As more than one commentator has observed, a taste for novelty appears to be
part of the French, or at least the Parisian, character:
[As to the French] their love of and interest in anything new (in which they
differ so strikingly from the English) assures a fair hearing for the young
composer...11

Nor may ‘the English’ have been entirely lacking in a taste for novelty. As the
decade passes, the reviews in The Times become shorter, though no less
appreciative, and in The Musical Times they dry up completely after 1935.

PART 4 3
This theory is not without its problems, however. Segovia did make a major
programmatic innovation in the mid-1930s that ought to have attracted the
musicologically inclined of La Revue Musicale’s contributors, but it went
unrecorded. I’m referring to the monumental Chaconne from Bach’s Partita in D
minor for solo violin. Evidently the adaptation of this movement to the guitar had
a long germination, for Segovia had been toying with it in July 1927.12 It had its
first London airing on 30 May 1935, and the following day’s Times review (p. 14)
thoroughly approves:
....almost never is it heard on the violin without a sense of strain. The guitar
takes its spread chords and its counterpoint easily in its stride and possesses
the added resource of varied tone colour (according to the place where the
string is plucked). Its permanent pizzicato, of course, cannot reproduce the
violin’s cantilena, but on balance the lay ear cannot but approve M. Segovia’s
annexation.

The Musical Times’s reviewer commented that whereas he might have expected
the successes of the concert to be the genuine guitar pieces, and the failures to be
the transcriptions (by which he meant principally the Chaconne but also a Handel
piece), ‘Actually they [the transcriptions] were the high point’.13
This concert also included a new sonata by Castelnuovo-Tedesco (presumably his
Omaggio a Boccherini, Op. 77). The Paris premiere of the Chaconne was a few
days later, on 4 June 1935.14 A letter to Ponce says that it was well received,15 but
Segovia’s Times obituary says that there was ‘some opposition from the critics’ –
presumably the critics opposed the adaptation of this work to the guitar.16
Another guitar concert, perhaps equally remarkable, took place in Paris at around
this time, and it too went unrecorded in La Revue Musicale. On 28 April 1935, at
the Salle Chopin-Pleyel, the 10-year-old Ida Presti gave her first major concert.
The programme, with its core of Bach, Albeniz, Ponce, Turina and Torroba, could
almost have been one of Segovia’s.

Pujol
Emilio Pujol did, however, have a startling novelty to offer the Parisian public
towards the end of the 1930s, and La Revue Musicale, or rather Raymond Petit,
duly noted it.

Viheula concert by Emilio Pujol

La Revue Musicale, July/August 1938
Perhaps certain people will be surprised at this title. Until a short time ago, no
example was known of this ancient instrument, ancestor of the guitar. And the
way one of them was rediscovered quite recently is almost worthy of a novel.
Emilio Pujol, an equally profound musician whether as an executant on the
guitar or as a scholar (his article on his instrument, in the Encyclopédie
Lavignac is a model of the genre) had vainly traversed all Europe in search of
a viheula; and it was almost by chance that he discovered a very beautiful one
... in our Parisian Musée Jacquemart Andrée! To tell the truth it was in a state
that made it unplayable, but two copies were made of it; one is today in
Barcelona; the other, which we heard, was made by the London-based
craftsman, Arnold Dolmitsch [sic].

PART 4 4
 The viheula’s sound is very distinctive, more biting, and shorter-lived than the
guitar’s, not as insubstantial as the lute’s; and, I venture to say, very
appealing. Some pieces by Luys Milan seemed to me to gain their full
character. But the programme consisted almost exclusively of the revelation of
unknown works, for example by Valderrabano, whose ravishing variations we
heard; by Mudarra, whose parody fantasia ‘in the style of the harpist
Ludovico(?)’ is very amusing; and perhaps above all by the charming Diego
Pisador. All this was transcribed from tablature by Pujol; and [he transcribed]
not only the works for solo guitar [sic] but also the adorable villancicos or the
charming romances, marvellously sung by Conchita Badia. The style of these
primitive Spanish songs, at once so free and aristocratic, refined and popular,
enchants me still.
Raymond Petit

The Encyclopédie Lavignac to which Petit refers is the Encyclopédie de la

Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire, a multi-volume work published in
instalments from 1913 and through the 1920s. Pujol’s entry on the guitar, in a
volume published in 1927, is of considerable interest, particularly the section on
the present-day guitar. That section forms Part 5, the final article of this series. In
it we shall see Pujol’s comments on Segovia.

Postlude
In 1938, when the Petit’s review of Pujol’s viheula concert was published, the
Parisian musical scene was distinctly different from that of 1920, when the first
issue of La Revue Musicale had appeared. Many of the leading musical lights had
either moved on or passed away. Fauré died in 1924, Satie in 1925. Villa Lobos,
who had been a big hit in Paris, returned to Brazil in 1930. D’Indy died in 1931,
Dukas in 1935. By 1936 Prokofiev was back in Moscow, and in 1937 Roussel
and Ravel died – Ravel’s death having been preceded by five unproductive years
of illness. And, of course, international events were taking an ominous turn as the
end of the decade approached.
Of the guitarists we have been looking at, Llobet died in 1937; his passing went
unrecorded by La Revue Musicale. Pujol moved back to Spain in 1941 and in the
post-war period spent much of his time teaching in Lisbon. Segovia, who had
been living in Geneva for much of the period covered by this series, contemplated
moving to Paris in 1933 as his first marriage began to crumble, but eventually
chose Barcelona.17 He had never been much of a francophile. With the return of
his friend Ponce to Mexico in 1933, and his own expanding international
reputation, inevitably Paris became less and less central to his activities. He gave
his last pre-War public concert in Paris on 19 December 1937, at the Salle
Gaveau. In all, he performed publicly at least twenty times in Paris between April
1924 and December 1937.
The subsequent story of Segovia’s career in the era of television, tapes and long-
playing records, all of which made the classical guitar much more viable as a
popular instrument, is too familiar to need mentioning here, as are the names of
the composers he espoused. What is not so generally appreciated, however, is that
he was never again so close to such an advanced musical milieu as he was in
these inter-War years in Paris.

PART 4 5
Notes

1
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, ed. By Miguel Alcázar, Editions Orphée, Columbus,
1989, p. 90.
2
See, for instance, The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 62.
3
The Times, 8 May 1931, p. 14. A fuller quotation is as follows: ‘A modern suite
of Pièces Caractéristiques by Torroba exploited all the picturesque resources of the
instrument and showed that it is capable of modern dissonance. A partita by Leopoldo
Weiss showed that modern music all’antico suits it even better, and that imitation Bach
can be quite satisfactory on the new instrument.’
4
The Musical Times, June 1931, p. 552.
5
The Monthly Musical Record, 1 July 1931, p. 210, quoted in Lennox Berkeley
and Friends, ed. Peter Dickinson, Boydell Press, 2012, p. 29–30.
6
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 128–9.
7
Le Courrier Musical, 1 December 1932, p. 441.
8
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 117.
9
Presumably his concert on 31 May 1932 at the Salle Gaveau. It was not reviewed
in La Revue Musicale.
10
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 117.
11
Lennox Berkeley, quoted in The Music of Lennox Berkeley (Peter Dickinson,
Thames, 1988, p. 28). Berkeley lived Paris from 1926 for several years and studied there
with Nadia Boulanger.
12
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 13.
13
The Musical Times, 1 July 1935, p. 650.
14
Many sources name this Paris concert as the premiere of Segovia’s transcription
of the Chaconne, but its performance in London a few days earlier shows this to be
incorrect.
15
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 159.
16
The Times, 4 June 1987, p. 12.
17
The Segovia–Ponce Letters, p. 144.

PART 4 6
 The Judgement of Paris
Part 5 Pujol’s article in Lavignac’s Encyclopédie
Allan Clive Jones
First published in The format of this final part of my series is different from that of earlier ones. I
Classical Guitar, 5 Dec
1998, p. 24-28. Revised shall give a single, long extract from an article on the guitar written by Pujol, and
June 2014 and May 2020. published in 1927 in the Encyclopédie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du
Conservatoire. The extract is principally of interest for what it says about Llobet
and Segovia, and the composers associated with them.
Musicologist and teacher Alfred Lavignac (1846–1916) began work on the
Encyclopédie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire in 1913, although
he died while work was in progress. The project was continued by Lionel de la
Laurencie until his death in 1933, at which point it was abandoned – the
Dictionnaire part of the project never appearing. The project had many
distinguished contributors, including Emilio Pujol, whose lengthy article on the
guitar is in a volume on wind and string instruments.
Perhaps the first thing to appreciate about Lavignac’s Encyclopédie is that it is not
an encyclopaedia as we currently understand the term. The first part (in four
volumes) is a history of music. The second part, again several volumes long, is
devoted to instruments, and Pujol’s entry occupies pages 1997 to 2035, beginning
in pre-history and working its way through the viheula, tablature, early guitars,
the guitar in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, flamenco, and, towards the end,
‘The present day guitar’. The extract I have chosen is taken from ‘The present day
guitar’. I have numbered the paragraphs for ease of referencing. The footnotes
within the extract are Pujol’s own.

The present-day guitar by Emilio Pujol

[...]
[1] Miguel Llobet, the complete artist, universally renowned, constantly travels
in Europe and the Americas. Acclaimed by all his audiences and taken up by
the most eminent composers, he is the most powerfully and variously gifted of
all his contemporaries.
[2] Though still young, he was by a long way the first to reveal the modern face
of the guitar. Llobet was, in Spain, less a pupil than a ‘disciple’ of the great
Tarrega. Settled in Paris from 1904, he became a close friend of Albeniz,
Ravel and Debussy. His association with these innovators, and the refined
artistic world he inhabited, were a decisive influence on his intellect. His
compositions and his interpretative talent were not slow to feel their beneficial
influence. The already prodigious instrumental technique of Miguel Llobet was
brought to bear in the most notable achievements. Everything was
subordinated to the music.
[3] The first among the contemporary masters, he presented the guitar for the
admiration of the most cautious audiences. The Société Nationale de Musique,
La Trompette, the Schola Cantorum and other Parisian circles and groups
conferred eligibility on the formerly plebeian instrument, now ennobled at a
stroke.

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 1

 [4] Among his compositions are exquisite harmonisations of popular songs; El
Mestre is the most remarkable of them. This piece marks a point of departure
towards new territories, containing within itself the seeds of later coloristic
effects on the instrument. Thanks to Llobet the guitar displayed a new
aesthetic term: it awoke to colour and polyphony.
[5] Manuel de Falla, attracted by these new resources, wrote the Hommage à
Debussy,1 the masterpiece of such a master is also an homage to the guitar.
The good seed has germinated: a constellation of modern composers are now
writing for the guitar, but it is thanks to Miguel Llobet that they dare ask of it
everything that it can give.
[6] Among others, let us name the thoroughly modern Uruguayan composer
Alfonso Broqua, whose numerous works seem to us to make a new
contribution to guitar composition. This composer is one of the first Latin
Americans for whom this instrument has become a powerful means of
expression for his people.
[7] Identified with the modern guitar and with new South American music,
Broqua takes advantage of all the resources of the instrument. His very
personal aesthetic draws on popular sources and expresses itself in vigorous
gestures, without ever losing sight of music; it knows how to ask of the
instrument its hidden colours, so seldom displayed from fear of instrumental
difficulties.
[8] This composer writes more for the guitar than for guitarists.
[9] Daniel Fortea continues the tradition of Tarrega. A performer of the first
rank, he enjoys the highest prestige among musicians. His prolific and varied
output is designed, as with the oeuvre of his master, with an eye to the
distinctive character of the instrument.
[10] Although giving many concerts, he directs his energy especially towards
composition and teaching.
[11] André Segovia is one of the most admired artists of our time. An
exquisitely gifted virtuoso, he knew, while still very young, universal success.
His expressive and remarkably lyrical art, with its delicate timbres, possesses
a strange power of fascination over the public’s soul. The interpretations of this
extraordinary virtuoso always carry within them an element of musical fantasy.
The guitar owes to his zealous and indefatigable propaganda one of the best
reasons for its current prestige.
[12] As with Llobet, he exerts a decisive influence on the best modern
composers, recently won over to the cause of the guitar. His compatriots
Turina, Chavarri, Moreno Torroba, Salazar, Arregui and the Spanish-
Argentinian Carlos Pedrell have dedicated works to him. To this Spanish
contribution are added attempts, often successful, at music in the Spanish
style from the Frenchmen Roussel, Samazeuilh, Collet, etc. Other works of a
non-regional character have come from Ponce, Migot, Petit, Tansman and
others.
[13] Regino Sainz de la Maza, the youngest of the Spanish guitarists, gifted
with distinguished qualities, tours in triumph the principle capitals of Europe
and America, intensively continuing the propaganda begun by his
predecessors.
[14] His budding personality, augmented with creative gifts, allow us to
presume him to be, not only an interpreter but also a composer with a brilliant
future. The Spanish school of the modern guitar is already indebted to him for
several works of great interest.

1 The author of this article had the honour of being the first to play the Hommage à Debussy
for guitar at the Salle du Conservatoire on 2 December 1922.

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 2

 [15] To close this series of Spanish artists, we mention Josefina Robledo,
famous in Spain and South America, Mathilde Cuervas in Paris, Pepita Roca,
Quintin Ezquembre, Alfredo Romea, music critic in Barcelone, Noguès Y Pon
(critic and teacher at the École Municipale de Musique de Barcelone), José
Cirera, S. Garcia Fortea, etc.
[16] In France we have a tally of distinguished guitarists: Lucien Gélas, David
del Castillo, Madeleine Cottin, Mlle Doré, Zurfluh, Marcelle Müller, etc. Alfred
Cottin, who died in 1923, is the author of some quite widely disseminated
works, and was one of the most zealous promoters of the guitar in this country.
[17] In Italy, let us mention Maria-Rita Brondi, author of a recently published
volume, Il Liuto e la Chitarra, and the celebrated Mozzani, who is the most
esteemed by his compatriots.
[18] In Germany, Heinrich Albert, F. Buek, Tempel, Hans Bishop, Munchen,
Georg Meier of Hamburg, Schwarz Riflingen, G. Tuholski in Berlin, Margaret
Muller in Dresden, and others.
[19] In Holland, Pierre Van Es.
[20] In Argentina et Chile, in Uruguay and other South American republics,
Domingo Prat2, Antonio Sinopoli, Adolfo Luna, H. Leloup, J. Sagreras and
others, from whom there stands out the powerful personality of Mlle Maria-
Luisa Anido, who is in the process of winning justified celebrity for the great
glory of her country’s music.
[21] Among instruments of ancient origin, the guitar is the most characteristic,
the most complete, the one which has not been superseded. Its popular roots
are transformed into the most musical utterances, rather than away from them.
All musics are available to it, from the simplest to the most complex, from the
most artless to the most learned.
[22] The conservatoires of Barcelona and Valencia have the exclusive privilege
in Spain of teaching this instrument officially. They keep alive the traditions of
the old masters. The main regions of Spain continue to preserve the popular
side of the guitar.

Llobet, Debussy and Ravel

The ‘close friendship’ of Llobet with Debussy and Ravel, which Pujol mentions
in his second paragraph, is often mentioned in writings on the history of the
guitar. However, I have yet to find a biography of either composer that mentions
Llobet. This is not to say that Llobet wasn’t friendly with Ravel or Debussy or
admired by them, simply to point out that the closeness of the friendship may be
exaggerated – probably from a well intentioned wish to give the guitar more
status by association. Neither Debussy nor Ravel composed for the guitar,
although Ravel intended to compose a suite for the guitar.3
In paragraph 3, La Trompette (or, rather, La Société de la Trompette) was another
of Paris’s numerous concert-organising societies. Pujol also mentions here
Llobet’s playing for the Société Nationale de Musique. As mentioned in Part 2,

2 Domingo Prat, pupil of Miguel Llobet, and Josefina Robledo, pupil of Tarrega, were the
first to spread the modern Spanish school in South America.
3 Composer Jean Francaix, who knew both Ravel and Segovia in the 1930s, revealed this to
French guitarist Alain Prévost, who mentioned it in an interview with the author in June 1998.

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 3

this event took place on 17 March 19064 at the Schola Cantorum, in a mixed
recital that included pianist Ricardo Viñes and other performers.

Mystery composers
Of the composers Pujol mentions in paragraph 12, Chavarri, Arregui, Salazar and
Collet have not appeared elsewhere in this series to any extent. I shall say a little
about them.
Chavarri is no doubt Eduardo Lopez-Chavarri (1871–1970), originally a lawyer,
but also pupil of Felipe Pedrell and a teacher of music history at the Valencia
Conservatory. Presumably this is the Lopez Chavarri whose guitar sonata on
Valencian themes was roundly dismissed by Segovia:
...the work of a rank amateur without technical skills or gift for composition,
poorly structured, lacking in harmonies. .... I put Señor Chavarri’s piece aside,
winning from him a grudge he held against me until his death at the age of
ninety-some years.5

Chavarri founded an orchestra at the Valencia Conservatory, and composed

several concertos, orchestral works, vocal and choral pieces, chamber works and
piano music. In addition, he translated numerous books into Spanish, and wrote a
history of music, and a book on Spanish folklore. Not bad for a rank amateur.
Arregui is almost certainly Vicente Arregui (1871–1925). He spent some time in
Paris from 1902, but was back in Spain towards 1910. He composed operas and
orchestral pieces, apparently uninflenced by his national folklore. A piece by him
was performed by Segovia at the concerts in May 1925 (see Part 2 of this series).
An edition of guitar pieces by Arregui found in Segovia’s library by Angelo
Gilardino in 2001 has been published by Bèrben Edizioni Musicali.
Adolfo Salazar (1890–1958) is the most intriguing name in the set. He was a
musical and literary historian, teacher, critic and composer who studied with Falla
in Madrid. According to one source,
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of Salazar’s influence upon
the musical revival which took place in Spain after the first world war.6

He was an occasional contributor to La Revue Musicale and a member of the

Société Française de la Musicologie. During the Spanish civil war he moved to
America, settling in Mexico. Although an early disciple of Felipe Pedrell and
Falla, he later revised his opinion of them and favoured a younger, less nationalist
generation of artists. Among his compositions are orchestral pieces, chamber
music, songs and a Romancilla for guitar.
The French writer, composer and pianist Henri Collet (1885–1951) was a pupil of
Fauré, Felipe Pedrell and Falla. He wrote a book on Albeniz and Granados, and
contributed articles on Spanish music to Le Ménestrel and to Lavignac’s

4 L’Avant-Garde musicale et ses sociétés à Paris de 1871 à 1939, by Michel Duchesneau,

Mardaga, 1997, p. 266. Duchesneau lists all the SNM’s concerts in the period 1871–1939. The
concert mentioned here is the only one at which Llobet played.
5 Andres Segovia, Autiobiography of the Years 1893–1920, Marion Boyars, 1976, p. 96.
6 Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., Macmillan, 1954, vol VII, p. 373.

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 4

Encyclopédie. Collet coined the journalistic tag ‘Les Six’ for Poulenc, Milhaud,
Honegger, Tailleferre, Auric and Durey. His own music is almost entirely in a
Spanish idiom, reflecting his strong feeling for Spain, where he lived for a time.
The piece he gave to Segovia was Briviesca, now published by Bèrben Edizioni
Musicali. The piece appears to be a reworking for guitar of an identically titled
piano piece dated 1921 an published by Salabert. Sainz de la Maza performed his
own arrangement of Collet’s piano piece Bolero in Paris in 1926.
Of the other composers mentioned in paragraph 12, Georges Migot (1891–1976)
was briefly discussed in Part 1 of this series. He was a pupil of Dukas (at the
Conservatoire, rather than the École Normale). His large output includes
oratorios, symphonies, keyboard music and a large quantity of chamber music.
After his Pour un Hommage à Claude Debussy for guitar (1924) he appears to
have composed nothing further for guitar until the 1960s, when pieces for solo
guitar, voice and guitar, two guitars, and guitar and flute appeared. The guitar
writing is distinguished by its occasional awkwardness, not to say impossibility in
places.7
Segovia appears not to have played the pieces by Chavarri, Salazar, and Collet
publicly, and Migot’s piece only once. The Petit and Arregui pieces were played
publicly as we saw in Part 2, but appear to have been quickly dropped. Tansman’s
piece was performed by Segovia on 2 June 1926 (at the Salle Gaveau in Paris),
but appears not to have featured in his recitals until after the War. Thus, of the
thirteen composers mentioned by Pujol only Turina, Moreno Torroba, Carlos
Pedrell, Roussel, Samazeuilh, and Ponce could be said to have featured
significantly in his recitals, and after 1932 Roussel and Samazeuilh seem to have
been dropped.
In paragraph 13, Pujol mentions Sainz de la Maza. In the mid 1920s he too was
making his first appearances in Paris.8 Although his concerts were certainly well
received, they did not create the stir that Segovia’s had.

Conclusion
To conclude this series, I shall try to pull together some of the threads that seem
to me to run through the extracts that have been presented.
As Pujol’s article makes plain, there were quite a few guitarists performing and
touring at around the time Segovia burst on the Parisian scene. In addition to the
ones Pujol names, a couple more can be cited whose names appear in Le
Ménestrel: they are Sanchez Granada and Fabian (no first name given). Henri
Collet puts them alongside Segovia, Llobet, Sainz de la Maza (and indeed Pujol).9
7 Migot’s first instrument was the piano, but Philip Bone (The Guitar and Mandolin, 2nd
edition, Schott, 1954) states that he was a guitarist. Indeed, after the death of his guitarist friend
Jacques Tessarech (d. 29 March 1929) Migot presided over a commemorative concert in Paris,
reviewed in Le Ménestrel, 30 May 1930, p. 249. However, M. Marc Honegger, a noted authority on
Migot and the cataloguer of his works, considers it unlikely that Migot could play the instrument.
8 For example, 18 February 1925 at the Salle Pleyel, and the concert reviewed by Collet in
Le Ménestrel 10 Dec 1926 p. 529 at which Collet’s Bolero was performed.
9 Le Ménestrel, 21 November 1930 p. 497 (Sanchez Granada), and 6 March 1925 p. 117
(Fabian, mentioned in a review of Sainz de la Maza).

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 5

Thus the strangely persistent idea – in lay circles more than among guitarists –
that Segovia single-handedly revived the guitar as a concert instrument is clearly
false. But it is also clear from contemporary accounts that Segovia was seen as
somehow different from these others, excellent as they were.
On a purely prosaic level, the extent of Segovia’s travelling marked him as
different. His touring was prodigious, and surely unprecedented. As we have
seen, he visited London and Paris almost annually in the 1930s, and there is no
reason to suppose that they were privileged – except for London being the
location of his recordings.
Also marking him out from the rest were the many contemporary composers who
wrote to write for him. No doubt many composers wrote for him speculatively; an
occupational hazard for any virtuoso is the receipt of unsolicited compositions.
However, it is clear from unpublished correspondence held in Paris that when
Segovia first appeared in Paris in 1924 his ambition was to arouse the interest of
composers, and in this he succeeded.10 As we have seen, little of the music
composed in Paris became central to his repertoire, and in the course of the next
few years he seems to have transferred his allegiance to non-French composers he
is now inseparably associated with: Torroba, Turina, Ponce and Castelnuovo-
Tedesco. The first two of course, had already composed pieces for him prior to
his Paris première.
What were the qualities of Segovia’s playing that made such a strong impression
on composers and reviewers? From the items published in this series, we can
identify certain qualities that are mentioned frequently, and it is reasonable to
suppose that they were central to his appeal. I shall group them under three
headings.
First there is his sheer virtuosity, but always put to a musical end. Rather than
being a mere circus trick, his virtuosity reveals the musical potential of the guitar.
Marc Pincherle (in Part 1) refers to this:
A supple left hand allows him any configuration of fingers, hence progressions
of harmonies that one had judged impracticable [become feasible].

Secondly, there is the use of instrumental colour and the sheer quality of the
sound, referred to by numerous writers but quoted here from Arthur Hoérée in
Part 2:
In truth, under the fingers of such an artist, it acquires special significance and
has a variety of timbre which puts it among the richest instruments.

Thirdly there is the question of the musical intelligence that is brought to bear.
This too is mentioned in several places, but is quoted here from Henry Prunières
in Part 4:
His intelligence, his vast culture serve him no less than the prodigious
technique that he created himself.

10 The correspondence referred to here is held by the family of one of the French composers
who wrote for Segovia. The family prefers to remain unnamed.

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 6

I could have extended this series of articles with further extracts from Le Courrier
Musical, Le Monde Musical and Le Ménestrel that would have piled on yet more
superlatives relating to these three factors. Such superlatives become tedious to
read, and add little to our knowledge of the man or his music. In what has been
reproduced, though, it is curious to see how often the imagery of magic and
enchantment is invoked:
His expressive and remarkably lyrical art, with its delicate timbres, possesses
a strange power of fascination over the public’s soul.
.... the magic fingers stroking the six strings, at once discreet and eloquent.
... the most remarkable nuances that Segovia obtains on his magical guitar.
Between his fingers the guitar becomes a magic instrument
Currently he is in the United States where, solo, he repeats many times the
miracle of bewitching the dense crowds

Endowing Segovia with powers of sorcery cuts both ways, for to be enchanted is
both to be transported and to be deprived of one’s reason. Indeed it does seem
that Segovia’s bearing on stage was very winning:
What is compelling is the visible love for his art of this bespectacled, rather
stout man with the absorbed expression, who seems to cradle his instrument
and to rest his chin on it in order better to follow its most subtle voices.11

No doubt the reader will have been struck by other features that I have not
identified. No doubt too there are other factors in Segovia’s appeal that we cannot
now easily recapture – something in the mood of the times: the desire to hear
small-scale music that, perhaps fancifully, appeared to evoke earlier and simpler
times. There are strong hints of this in Pincherle’s review of Segovia’s premiere
in Part 1, and in the places where both Segovia and Pujol are viewed as spiritual
descendants of the old French lutenists. It is worth commenting here on the
curious vogue among French composers in the early decades of the century for
composing suites francaises, which would typically based on old French tunes or
tunes in an old style.12 Such pieces had everything to do with nostalgia, and
nothing to do with musicology.
It was Pujol’s (and most guitarists’) misfortune to be overshadowed by Segovia.
To Pujol’s credit, he was able to recognise and acknowledge Segovia’s gifts
generously in his 1927 article. In that article, Pujol modestly relegated himself to
a footnote, but, as these articles have shown, he deserved much more. Indeed, for
his many endeavours in so many fields, he was fully worthy of the respect of his
more famous compatriot.

11 Le Ménestrel, 22 May 1925.

12 Among the many pieces that could be cited here are Poulenc’s Suite Française (1935),
Roger-Ducasse’s Suite Française (1907), Maurice Jaubert’s Suite Française (c.1930s), Maurice
Emmanuel’s Suite Française (1934–5), Daniel-Lesur’s Suite Française (1934–5), Renée
Staelenberg’s Suite Française (c. 1934), Ravel’s provisionally titled Suite Française, which became
Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914–17), and, in the same spirit but differently titled, Milhaud’s Suite
d’après Corrette (1937), Guy-Ropartz’s Sérénade Champêtre (1932), and Koechlin’s Études
Antiques (1913–14).

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS PART 5 7