La Traviata

The recording of these opera fantasies represents for me at long last the realization of a dream project that I wanted to undertake over ten years ago after my first recording of violin music by Bach.

However, the genre of opera paraphrases, transcriptions, or variations for guitar - which naturally is limited to the nineteenth century, to the grand era of the opera as well as of the classical guitar - offers such a great many compositions from which to choose that I was always revising or rearranging my personal program selections. It was thus that pieces that earlier very much formed a part of my concert repertoire did not end up being included in the present program, while others were prepared afresh because they represented just the right complements. Finally, this collection of works was supposed to show in its proper light one of the not only especially exciting but also historically important and instructive musical genres. Here one finds oneself on tricky terrain and has to proceed with special care and caution when it comes to the constant rediscoveries and acts of reverence within this branch of the repertoire. This, in turn, is a factor of the popularity of a large part of the productions of guitar music from the nineteenth century and its purely Biedermeier utilitarian character. In addition, the historical context that made the composition of these guitar fantasies so very compelling, that makes their former success and epidemic dissemination so very credible, has been forgotten today and has yielded to completely different circumstances.

The opera, by which the Italian opera is meant, was very popular and much admired among the middle class in major European cities. Indeed, its popularity and the admiration it inspired were so great as to seem incredible today. For its part, the middle class was increasingly becoming an important cultural factor. The best-loved melodies of Mozart, Rossini, and Verdi as well as forgotten composers had a great potential for dissemination. From today's perspective, this potential is comparable only to that of the classic hits of pop music from the 1960s until the present.Today electronic forms of dissemination form an essential part of our listening culture. In the nineteenth century, before the the age of recording, natural forms in keeping with those times evolved in order to satisfy the listening desires and needs of the middle class. The public wanted to be able to enjoy its favorite music not once or only in the opera house but on repeated occasions and in various settings. One could order arrangements of popular melodies that could be played by amateurs from the large and omnipresent music publishing houses and relive the opera experience in the private setting of one's own home. Or one could go to a concert, where well-known tunes were presented in new guise, varied form, and different instrumentations.

At the time the guitar was a popular instrument among fashionable young ladies and in well-to-do households. It was also a »dangerous weapon« in the hands of virile traveling virtuosos of the caliber of Dyonysio Aguado (1784-1849), Mauro Giuliani, and Fernando Sor as well as the phalanx formed by their pupils and imitators throughout Europe.It thus only seems natural that a large share of the repertoire from that period consists of opera material for home performance or of those virtuoso bravura pieces that conjured up an »opera in miniature« before an amazed public.The opera fantasies brought together here employ the genre in different ways both in terms of form and content. Sometimes they are geared more to home performance, and sometimes more to virtuoso display.

Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806-56), a traveling Austro-Hungarian guitar virtuoso, offers alone in his Opernrevue op. 8 thirty-six such extensive compositions, each one devoted to a different opera. Like most of his competitors, he cites the catchy opera melodies to simple accompaniment figures in a form that could be realized by amateurs and would be welcomed by them. In his imitations of orchestral overtures and transitional cadenzas he always gives free rein to his virtuosity. The level of his works is not always above that of pure utilitarian music. With Il Trovadore, however, I believe that I have chosen an outstanding piece and a representative one, this in a positive sense.

The methods employed by Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) are much more refined. He does his capricious take on his fellow Italian, the triumphantly successful and greatly esteemed Rossini, not only in his six Rossiniana op. 119 to 124 but also in numerous other arrangements. Rossini, who knew Giuliani and valued him, is said in contemporary reports to have encouraged him to write these paraphrases. Giuliani seems to have been the most-esteemed and most-celebrated guitar virtuoso in Vienna at the beginning of the nineteenth century.In his Rossiniana Giuliani was able in unique fashion to suggest both an orchestra as well as to conjure up the feeling of dramatic suspense forming part of an evening at the opera instead of just forming a sequence of individual scenes. Depending on the situation, the melodies are cut down to their core or lavishly ornamented, enriched with orchestral citations or celebrated in a series of variations. More so than his contemporaries, he heightens the dramatics through skillful modulations, even into surprising and more remotely related keys.

On a comparable level, Fernando Sor (1778-1839) seems to form the classical antipode. Although his Variations on a Theme by Mozart op. 9, up until today his most successful piece and one that I have deliberately omitted from my selection, follows the well-known scheme of introduction, theme, and bravura variations, his actual importance lies in his not-at-all-vain striving for craftsmanly sincerity and in the simplicity of his moving expression.It is thus that his Six Aires op. 19 form the greatest possible contrast to the other works of the genre. Perfect in their compositional technique, they are miniaturized guitar transcriptions of the numbers concerned and refrain from any attitude calculated to the producing of external effect. Their intention over against the original is one of serving, and it is precisely this factor that lends them their magic.

The line of guitar virtuosos inspired by the opera world draws toward its close with Francesco Tárrega (1852-1909). The instrument, its playing technique, and its musical environment had undergone a revolutionary change pointing ahead to the future. Accordingly, in its character the Traviata fantasy moved away from its historical predecessors in a significant way. One no longer has the impression of an instrumental virtuoso aiming at a public of opera fans and composing on the strength of his own enthusiasm for the opera, but rather one sees the product of the sound magician grappling day by day with the refined expressive resources of the guitar. In Tárrega it is not so much the pertinent opera atmosphere that is evoked but a new guitar atmosphere characteristic of this instrument, an atmosphere in which there are marvelous reminiscences of the opera experience. The only formal connection between the pieces is the D note ontinuing throughout as the basic tone, the original melodies are cited without any variation, and the art of the most skillful registration of tone range, tone color, and playing technique takes the place of the imitation of operatic effects.It is with Tárrega that a process began in which the guitar found its way to itself and emancipated itself as an independent, appealing instrument for the twentieth century.

The guitar, the quietest, most intimate, and most sensitive of all concert instruments and the grand opera - a crazy contrast and therefore one especially attractive in its synthesis.While occupying myself with this musical topic, I already feel the urge to follow up on it with a Volume 2.

Frank Bungarten

Translated by Susan Marie Praeder