On Jun 2, 8:46 pm, "Lare" <Lmcdona...@wi.rr.

com> wrote:
> Segovia was self-taught? I read this (again) in some liner notes
> today. I don't buy it. What this really means is that he wasn't
> formally taught; that is, he was taught on the streets, so to speak,
> by the community of guitarists around him.

Segovia was a genius, and he learnt as a genius. Though it is not yet

completely documented, it seems clear that, since his tender childhood, he
learnt playing as a flamenco guitarist. In fact, the first guitar he owned
had formerly been played by Paco de Lucena, the greatest flamenco guitarist
of the epoque, who died when Segovia was five years old. Since then, Segovia
was given some instruction by Agustinillo, an amateur flamenco player who
was a fan of Paco de Lucena. There is a story going around in Andalucia -
which has never been supported by documental evidence, but which is
insistent nevertheless - telling that Andrés was the illegittimate son of
Paco de Lucena. According to Segovia autobiography, he had the first chance
to listen to classical guitar and its music one day in Granada, on the
Albaicin, when he listened to a Gabriel Ruiz de Almodovar performing (though
unproficiently) one of the Preludios by Tarrega: Segovia's motion, in this
occasion, was a very strong one. According to Domingo Prat, Segovia had the
revelation of the classical guitar when listening (in Granada) to a recital
of the Tarrega's student, Paco Sanz (who was also a ventriloquist). Prat
writes also that this happened at an epoque when the young Segovia was a fan
of Paco de Lucena (it seems that the story of Segovia being a son of Lucena
was already going around when Prat wrote his Diccionario). It is a fact,
however, that Segovia, even much later, did not hide his admiration for Paco
de Lucena, whose personal shining was - according to Segovia - powerfully
attractive to all women. Since then, we have no further record of Segovia's
taking formal lessons from someone, but we know for sure that, when he met
Miguel Llobet, he carefully watched his playing and he learnt from him the
notes of his (Llobet's) transcriptions from Granados. Yet to be brought to
paper, those transcriptions were memorized by the young Segovia directly
from Llobet's playing. Likely, he did not watch only the notes, during those
transmissions...
A guitarist, a teacher and a publisher who leaves in Madrid, and who leads
Ediciones Musicales Soneto, Melchor Rodriguez, told me, in private
conversations, that Segovia never revealed an important point of his youth:
when he visited Valencia (around 1915) and he had unfortunate contacts with
Tarrega's students, he was warmly acknowledged by an irregular member of
Tarrega's milieu, Salvador Garcia. According to Rodriguez, and also to other
Spanish guitarists who knew him, Garcia was actually the best student
Tarrega ever taught, an exceptional performer and also a cultivated musician
(he studied also composition with Oscar Espla). He was the son of the owner
of a hotel on the coast, called "Pancha Verda" (Green Belly). This became
the nickname of Garcia, who was taught by Tarrega when the maestro was a
guest in the hotel (it happened pretty often). Garcia did not develop a
career as a concert player - though he gave occasionally some recitals -
because he was a wealthy man and because he had some mental problem (all
those who told me about him, described him as a man who got crazy for women,
regardless of their age and beauty). However, Garcia was very friendly to
the young Segovia and he had him as a guest in his "finca", and he taught
him all the secrets of Tarrega's technique. Melchor Rodriguez was one of
Garcia's students. He told me that the best Garcia's student was José Luis
Gonzalez. My attempts to bring light of this attractive character - Salvador
Garcia - were unsuccessful: after his death, his documents were dispersed
and missed. However, Melchor told me that when he went to Santiago de
Compostela and he had his first lesson from Segovia, after he had finished
to play a piece, the maestro asked him: "Whom did you learnt from?" and,
when Melchor answered "From Salvador Garcia", Segovia felt visibly touched
and asked "Is he still alive?".
This is the state of the art regarding Segovia's life and studies before he
left Spain for the first time (1920), when he went to Argentina, where his
international career started.

Angelo Gilardino