Three years ago during these days (May 9th, 2001) I announced in this NG as
well as in other sources of informations about the classical guitar that I
had been allowed to open the sealed cases containing the music manuscripts
of maestro Andrés Segovia. On that occasion, I took on myself the
responsibility of the publication of all the works written for him by
distinguished composers - mainly works which had been left unpublished and
which Segovia had not performed. At the distance of three years, I think I
can remark the fact that I have filled my duties: the new series "The Andrés
Segovia Archive" - which has been completed - has made available during
these time 25 books with pieces whose relevance in the history of the guitar
and within the frame of its repertoire go beyond any discussion. Here the
list of the published works:

Vicente Arregui

Piezas liricas

Lennox Berkeley

Quatre Pièces pour la guitare

Pierre de Breville

Fantaisie

Gaspar Cassadó

Works for Guitar

Henri Collet

Briviesca

Ettore Desderi

Sonata in mi

Pierre-Octave Ferroud

Spiritual

Aloÿs Fornerod

Prélude op. 13

Vito Frazzi

Due pezzi

Hans Haug

Works for guitar

Raoul Laparra

Cuadros

Henri Martelli

Quatre Pièces

Federico Mompou

Canción y Danza

Suite Compostelana

Federico Moreno-Torroba

Sonata-Fantasia

Jaume Pahissa

Canço en el mar

Tres temas de recuerdos

Raymond Petit

Sicilienne

Fernande Peyrot

Thème et Variations

Ida Presti

Segovia

Pedro Sanjuan

Una leyenda

Padre José Antonio de San Sebastián (Donostia)

Errimina

Cyril Scott

Sonatina

Alexandre Tansman

Posthumous Works for Guitar

Guillermo Uribe Holguin

Pequeña Suite

To these 25 books, at the end of the program of publication, I have added
one, with a piece written for Segovia, but not during the years of his
glory. Here, with the permission of the publisher, I reproduce the foreword
introducing the 26th book of the series. Given or taken two or three
possible - but not certain - additions to the series, I have finished my
work with the Segovia heritage. My shoulders are now lighter and my mind
free. I thank God, destiny, life, maestro Segovia and his heirs doña Emilia
and dr. Carlos Andrés  for having choosen my person for such a tremendous
task: I have worked as never in my life, and in my life I always worked very
hard.

Angelo Gilardino

-----------------

A note from the composer

The collection The Andrés Segovia Archive was created with the aim of making
available to all readers the works written for Andrés Segovia during his
glorious life and career that were unpublished during his life and whose
manuscripts were found (by myself) among the papers of the maestro in the
Segovia Museum at Linares. Through the courtesy of their owner, Mrs. Emilia
Segovia de Salobreña, and through the legal arrangements with the heirs of
the composers concerned, a significant number of important works for guitar
have been rescued from silence and added to the guitar repertoire of the
20th century - mainly the first half of the century.

Although I was neither a student nor a follower of Andrés Segovia during his
life, the task and responsibility of supervising the publication of this
wealth of music fell to me as one of the duties connected with my
appointment (in 1997) as the Artistic Director of the Andrés Segovia
Foundation (which is the Museum created at Linares by the Segovia family and
by the Spanish authorities to commemorate the great artist). I accepted this
responsibility fully aware of how difficult it might be to fulfil, with
respect both to Segovia's memory and to the expectations of all those who
were passionate about or interested in his artistic heritage.

During my years in this post I have worked hard to perform my duties both as
an artistic director of the Foundation and as the general editor of the
works published in The Andrés Segovia Archive. These duties called on my
skills and background as a composer only in connection with the editorial
work of publishing the newly found works. As a composer in my own right, I
have only once composed a piece related directly to the activities of the
Foundation, when, following a suggestion by the Segovia estate, I wrote a
piece for string orchestra as part of the ceremonies for the return of the
maestro's mortal remains to Linares, in June 2002. For that event I did not
feel I could write a piece of my own to celebrate Segovia's memory, because
my respect for his art encompassed an awareness of how distant I was as a
composer from his beautiful world. Thus, I created a suite for string
orchestra (Retrato de Andrés Segovia) by orchestrating four pieces for solo
guitar which had been composed for him by authors whom he loved (Manuel
Ponce, Hans Haug, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco).

It was on the occasion of the premiere of the Retrato at Linares that I was
asked by a friend, the distinguished Italian guitarist Frédéric Zigante, to
write a solo guitar piece as a memorial to Andrés Segovia. He told me he
believed I could do it, and I was somewhat surprised because I did not
believe I could at all. But in the following months, during the summer of
2002, whilst teaching in my Summer School at Muzzano (a beautiful village in
Northern Italy, close to the Alps), I thought of the affection Segovia had
shown for the composers of my country, from Girolamo Frescobaldi, Domenico
Scarlatti and Luigi Boccherini to Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and I thought
that I could attempt to become one of them, by composing a piece as my part
in a dialogue with Segovia, in the musical language which he liked. The fact
that such a dialogue could no longer take place in this world was not to me
an obstacle: telling something to somebody sub specie aeternitatis instead
of talking in the real world is far from being alien to my way of being,
especially if this "something" is told in music.

When Segovia was in this world, I did not seek his friendship - though our
mutual respect was complete and sincere. I did not ask him for his
assistance in the form of testimonials about my skills as a musician (which,
such as they are, are revealed by my own works), or scholarships to enable
me to attend his courses (which I never attended), or recommendations to
influential music organizers (whose attentions were never among my aims).
This is why I take the liberty of offering to Segovia a musical homage: I
was and I am free of obligations to him; and this is why I maintain also
that a piece written for Segovia after his death is not out of place in a
series which hosts the works written for him when he was alive, young and
powerful. It is an offering whose reward I will receive in the only terms I
appreciate: and for describing them, I have no words.

Angelo Gilardino

Vercelli, October 2003.