AGUSTÍN BARRIOS UNA LIMOSNA POR EL AMOR DE DIOS
This month Bridget Mermikides celebrates a piece by the Romantic Paraguayan guitarist whose dexterity and melodic sensibility are much admired.
He was one of the greatest classical guitarists in the history of the instrument. Bridget tackles Barrios’s ‘An Alm For The Love Of God’.
Today we’re looking at a work by perhaps most important guitarists and composers of the classical guitar discipline. Augustín Barrios was a Paraguayan guitarist of phenomenal skill and dexterity, with the ability to write for the guitar with a beguiling Romantic melodic and harmonic sensibility. As a performer, poet, composer and (very selective) educator, Barrios was very well respected in his day. However, his body of about 300 works was rather neglected for about 30 years after his death, but now many have become staples of classical guitar repertoire including: La Catedral; Un Sueño En La Floresta; Waltz No.4; Julia Florida; and Una Limosna Por El Amor De Dios - which we are tackling here.
Part of Barrios’s neglect may be attributed to a rather fractious attitude by the prominent and seminal classical guitarist of the early 20th century, Andrés Segovia. It seems Segovia may have been jealous of Barrios’s guitar and compositional skills and also disliked his affinity for Central and South American folk culture (which manifested in his music, dress and artist name of Augustín Barrios Mangoré). Barrios, however, is now fully embraced, with John Williams saying of him: “Barrios is the best of the lot, regardless of era”.
Una Limosna Por El Amor De Dios (An Alm For The Love Of God) – also known as El Ultimo Trémolo. The story about the composition of this work (written just a month before his death), runs as follows: Barrios lived his last years in San Salvador, El Salvador, among friends, fellow musicians and his selected students. While teaching one evening, an old lady knocked on the door to beg for an alm (limosna) ‘for the love of God’ (Una Limosna Por El Amor De Dios). That evening, Barrios wrote the work, the opening two bars (which continues under the beautiful tremolo melody), referencing the knocks at the door.
Clearly this piece relies on the tremolo technique. And although it’s a supreme example of such an approach, there are precursors in the guitar works of Tarrega, Regondi, De Fossa, Mertz and indeed in other instrumental approaches. The technique itself is a magical effect that gives the illusion of a long sustained note by playing a continuous stream of fast, repeated notes that can go on indefinitely. This means we can create the effect of a singing line that has enormous scope for dynamics, phrasing, rubato, sensitive and dramatic playing. It consists of a repeated four-note demisemiquaver pattern – the order of the picking hand is ‘pa m i’. The thumb plays the bass note and harmony (often counter melody) notes, and the three fingers play the melody note repeated in succession. When the tremolo pattern becomes fast enough you no longer hear the gap where the thumb note is played and the illusion of a continuous stream of notes emerges.
PArt of BArrios’s initiAL nEgLEct mAy BE AttriBUtED to A rAthEr frActioUs AttitUDE By thE ProminEnt gUitArist AnDrés sEgoviA