{"id":6915,"date":"2017-05-24T14:58:59","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T21:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=6915"},"modified":"2017-05-24T15:00:51","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T22:00:51","slug":"30-years-on-perspectives-on-the-legacy-of-andres-segovia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/30-years-on-perspectives-on-the-legacy-of-andres-segovia\/","title":{"rendered":"30 Years On: Perspectives on the Legacy of Andr\u00e9s Segovia"},"content":{"rendered":"
From the Summer 2017 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em> | BY GRAHAM WADE<\/h6>\n

Thirty years ago\u2014June 2, 1987\u2014Andr\u00e9s Segovia<\/strong> died at the age of 94. <\/span>As with the date of his birth, there was some confusion about the time and circumstances of his passing. The Guardian <\/i>of London commented that it occurred during the afternoon of May 29, the Neu Z\u00fcrcher Zeitung <\/i>said it was in the evening of that day. The Star, The Daily Express, <\/i>and Le Monde <\/i>gave the date as June 3. Some newspapers alleged he died watching television (a report later considered unreliable). That the international press was bamboozled in this way would have amused Segovia.<\/p>\n

Since his death, considerable amounts of scholarship\u2014books, dissertations, and articles\u2014have been published. We are now in a better position to assess Segovia\u2019s concert career between 1909 and the beginning of 1987, and can begin to understand the complexities of his biography.<\/p>\n

The central pillar of Segovia research, indispensable and unique, is Alberto L\u00f3pez Poveda\u2019s two-volume masterpiece Andr\u00e9s Segovia, Vida y Obra <\/i>(University of Ja\u00e9n, 2009) which runs to 1,260 pages and is considered the \u201cofficial\u201d biography. Poveda spent nearly 50 years writing this account, and died in July 2015, aged 99. His book, among many other things, lists Segovia\u2019s yearly recital activities and informs us that during his life Segovia gave 5,402 concerts, averaging some 70 platform appearances every year from 1909 to 1987, with no year being free of such commitments, despite illness, family tragedies, or wars, civil and world-wide. His professional tours took him to 60 countries and 723 cities.<\/p>\n

From 1927, Segovia embraced the new recording technologies, ultimately producing around 50 long-playing records, nearly all of which are available today on compact disc. From the 1920s, he worked on dozens of editions encompassing the repertoire from the 16th-century to the contemporary composers Segovia inspired to write for the guitar. Segovia also participated in hundreds of broadcasts and television appearances, and in the 1950s began giving master classes, an activity which came to its climax in 1986 at the University of Southern California Segovia Conference and in 1987 at the Manhattan School of Music (March 8\u201310).<\/p>\n