Agustín Barrios

Agustín Barrios (1910)

Agustín Barrios (1922)

Agustín Pío Barrios , also known as Agustin Barrios Mangoré and Nitsuga Mangoré (born May 5, 1885 in San Juan Bautista de las Misiones, Paraguay ; † August 7, 1944 in San Salvador ) was a Paraguayan composer and one of the first guitar virtuosos in South America .

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The parents of the young barrio, convinced of their son's abilities as a guitarist, sent him from his small hometown in southern Paraguay to the capital Asunción . Here he appeared as a guitarist, rewrote piano pieces by Bach and Beethoven for guitar, developed a great interest in mathematics, literature and philosophy and later confessed: "You cannot be a guitarist if you have not bathed in the sources of culture." In Asunción Barrios was trained musically by Gustavo Sosa Escalada (1877-1944), a student of the Argentine guitar composers Carlos García Tolsa , Juan Alaís and Antonio Ferreyro , and later at the Instituto Paraguayo under the Italian-born musician Nicolino Pellegrini . In 1910 Barrios undertook a concert tour to Argentina , which was such a great success that over the next two decades he toured almost every country in South and Central America and gave concerts there. In South America he met Andrés Segovia in 1921 and played him (but without further consequences). A failure in Buenos Aires in 1928 prevented a North American tour.

In the late 1920s he was fascinated by the Indian culture of his homeland. At the beginning of the 1930s, at his concert evenings, not least on the advice of his agent, he no longer appeared exclusively in traditional tailcoats, but in Indian costume, even with feather headdresses. He took the name of a Guaraní chief, "Mangoré", and appeared in the first half of the program as the Indian "Nitsuga (Agustín backwards) Mangoré, the Paganini on the guitar from the jungle" with his own works. After the break he played works and transcriptions for guitar by Bach and other European composers in tails.

In 1935 he spent a year in the company of the Paraguayan ambassador (to Mexico) Tomás Salomonis and his family in Europe, including in Belgium , Germany and Spain , although there were no concerts in Germany (in Berlin during the Nazi era ), but successful ones Performances at the Conservatoire in Brussels and Madrid. When the civil war broke out in Spain , he left for South America. A few years after his return he took over a professorship in San Salvador , where he died in 1944 at the age of 59.

Works

Barrios composed all his life. His works are considered innovative, both in terms of their unique expressiveness and their romantic harmony. Francisco Tárrega is partly to be regarded as a role model in playing and composition technique , although the influence is small if one considers the use of the same forms such as B. Preludes, etudes and tremolo studies, on the use of dance forms such as minuet, waltz, mazurka and the like. a. as well as the use of folklore elements in the compositions. Barrios was probably the first classical guitarist to record his own records (1913) and the first guitarist to play a complete Bach lute suite with the guitar in a public concert. The historical audio recordings were made by the Chanterelle label with the scrapbook Agustin Barrios plays his own Compositions and other Works. The historical Recording 1913–1942 .

About 105 of a total of 300 works are known, including major works of romantic guitar literature such as La Catedral (3 movements, inspired by the cathedral in Montevideo , where he heard an organist perform Bach chorales and was then inspired by a busy street), Sueño en la Floresta (“Dream in the forest”, tremolo study) and Una limosna por el amor de Dios (“An alms from God's love”, last tremolo study).

Guitar technique

According to tradition, Barrios used waxed steel strings, which produced a slightly softer sound than pure steel strings, which were only used by folk musicians. Gut strings were used by European guitarists such as Miguel Llobet , Andrés Segovia and Regino Sáinz de la Maza , who were performing at the same time as Barrios in South America, and they found the use of steel strings strange or rejected from. Barrios was one of the first guitarists to make records .

To perform the high "C" in his composition Sueno en la floresta , Barrios used modified guitars with a 20th fret.

Appreciation

Barrios' works have acquired a similar significance among guitarists as those of Frédéric Chopin, who was admired by Barrios, for pianists. John Williams , one of the discoverers of Barrios in the 1970s, valued Barrios, whom he made known worldwide with his recordings from 1977, 1991 and 1995, more important than Fernando Sor , Mauro Giuliani and Heitor Villa-Lobos :

“… As a guitarist / composer, Barrios is the best of the lot, regardless of era. His music is better formed, it's more poetic, it's more everything! And it's more of those things in a timeless way. So I think he's a more significant composer than Sor or Giuliani, and a more significant composer - for the guitar - than Villa-Lobos. "

“... as a guitarist and composer, Barrios is the best of all, regardless of the era. His music is better formed, it is more poetic, it has more of everything! And she has it in a timeless way. So I think he's a more important composer than Sor or Giuliani and a more important composer - for the guitar - than Villa-Lobos. "

Others

With Series D since 2007, the 50,000 Paraguayan Guaraní notes on the front show Augustín Pío Barrios. They were introduced in 2008 after Series C notes with a different motif were stolen on the way from the print shop to Paraguay.

literature

• Richard Stover: Six silver moonbeams. The life and times of Agustín Barrios Mangoré. Clovis, Calif. 1992, ISBN 0-9632233-1-3 .
• Hannes Fricke: The guitar myth: history, performers, great moments. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , p. 195 f.

Web links

• Agustín Barrios International Guitar Competition
• Works by and about Agustín Barrios in the catalog of the German National Library
• Agustín Pío (Mangoré) Barrios on the Portal Guarani website. Retrieved April 23, 2014 (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hannes Fricke: Myth guitar: history, interpreters, great hours. 2013, p. 195 f.
2. ^ Hannes Fricke: Myth guitar: history, interpreters, great hours. 2013, p. 196.
3. ↑ Agustín Pío (Mangoré) Barrios : Ejemplo 13: Un Sueño en la Floresta, compases 108-110. on the Portal Guarani website . Retrieved April 23, 2014 (Spanish).
4. ^ Hannes Fricke: Myth guitar: history, interpreters, great hours. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , p. 195 f.
5. ↑ Banco Central del Paraguay: El Guraní 70 Años de Estabilidad (PDF) . Page 186 ff. October 2013. Accessed April 23, 2014