Asturias – Leyenda

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (29 May 1860–18 May 1909) was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor. He is one of the foremost composers of the Post-Romantic era who also had a significant influence on his contemporaries and younger composers. He is best known for his piano works based on Spanish folk music idioms.
Transcriptions of many of his pieces, such as Asturias (Leyenda), Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz, Córdoba, Cataluña, and the Tango in D, are important pieces for classical guitar, though he never composed for the guitar.

Asturias (Leyenda), named simply Leyenda by its composer, is a musical work by the Spanish composer and pianist Isaac Albéniz.
The piece was originally written for the piano and set in the key of G minor. It was first published in 1892 as the prelude of a three-movement set entitled Chants d’Espagne.
The name Asturias (Leyenda) was given to it posthumously by the German publisher Hofmeister, who included it in the 1911 “complete version” of the Suite española, although Albéniz never intended the piece for this suite. Despite the new name, this music is not considered suggestive of the folk music of the northern Spanish region of Asturias, but rather of Andalusian flamenco traditions. Leyenda, Hofmeister’s subtitle, means legend. The piece is noted for the delicate, intricate melody of its middle section and abrupt dynamic changes.

Mario Gropp Spezial/La Onda Guitar

Every guitar has it’s story. This Spezial/La Onda guitar hand-crafted by the German luthier Mario Gropp ( https://www.gropp-gitarren.de/en ). Mario completed this guitar in December 2012 as Spezial SE-C II model serial number 515, which is top of the line of his guitar at that time. 

During 2014 Mario took this guitar to Shanghai for exposition of Music China. After the event he left this guitar to his China exclusive distributor Guitar Era. I bought this guitar at 2015 from Guitar Era. I am delighted with this guitar, it’s beautiful exotic appearance, ease of playing,  the balance and pleasing tone….etc.

I played this guitar in most of my performances. After years of playing the finished are wear out and I send it back to Mario last July to refinish it and fix a problem that there’s some buzzing from the bridge sometimes. But Mario couldn’t find out what’s the problem, he even took the guitar to a laboratory to check what’s happened but no idea. 

Mario suggested that to change the soundboard and with his latest top model design – La Onda. Of course it cost some money but Mario offer me a very special price, he even let me change the soundboard from cedar to a bear claw spruce, then I accepted the offer. 

I received this new born Spezial/La Onda guitar at last September. I found that the guitar sound is more focused especially on the bass and more tone variety(maybe because of spruce?).

Mario Gropp Spezial/La Onda 2012/2021 guitar

Bear claw spruce top

20th extra fret for the treble strings

Exotic rosette design & made by Mario

Both new & old labels are signed by Mario

Separated saddle

Elevated fingerboard

Exotic head design

V shape head joint

Aged 50 years Santo Palisander back & sides

Serial number 515

Original Mario Gropp Spezial 2012

Here’s the links that I played with the old Spezial and new La Onda of Mario Gropp guitar to let you compare the difference.

Stephan Connor cedar/Madagascar 2021

Custom order from Stephan Connor and received it June 2021

Madagascar rosewood back

John Gilbert tuning machine with ebony buttons

Western red cedar top. Jascar stainless steel frets with 20th extra fret. Mother of pearl and abalone inlaid rosette

Luthier’s signed label

12 holes tying block

Elevated fingerboard

Sound port (opened)

Sound port (closed)

Madagascar rosewood sides

Madagascar rosewood back

Lattice bracing with moon harvested spruce

If you wonder the function of the sound ports on guitars here is the demonstration of the sound port on my new Stephan Connor guitar. I played the Estudio of Tàrrega twice,  the first time with the sound port closed and the second time with the sound port opened let you found out the difference.

Scordatura 10 – Vihuela tuning

Guárdeme las vacas by Luys de Narvàez

Contemporary copy of vihuela

Luys de Narvàez’s birthplace sometime around the year 1500 in Granada, Spain. Highly regarded as a composer and vihuelist in his lifetime.

Guárdeme las vacas was composed in the  16th-century for vihuela and published in Los seys libros del Delphin(1538) by the composer Luys de Narvàez. It consists of a set of variations on a Spanish folk theme.

The vihuela is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shape like a guitar and the tuning is very similar to guitar. Vihuela have 6 courses string which mainly tune in 4th except the 3rd and 4th courses tune in 3rd. As the modern guitar is also tune in 4th but the 2nd and 3rd strings tune in 3rd. The common practice to play the vihuela music in modern guitar is tune down the 3rd string a semitone to F# so the 3rd and 4th strings is in 3rd the others remain tune in 4th. There is some different tuning among vihuelas it depends on its size, the bigger size tune lower; the smaller size tune higher but still tune in 4th except the 3rd and 4th courses tune in 3rd. The most popular tuning is tune G C F A D G from 6th to 1st string respectively. When I played this famous tune from Narvàez firstly I tune the 3rd string down to F# and used a Capo on the 3rd fret so the tuning becomes G C F A D G . And I chose my old Contreras (1988) guitar with its crystal clear sound come close to the sound of vihuela. And I improvised to put some ornaments here and there when the music was repeated which revealed the style of the music of that period.

Coffee time – Moka Serenade

Italian composer/guitarist Simone Iannarelli was born in Roma in 1970. Moka Serenade is the first piece of a series of Italian coffee short pieces by the composer.
Moka coffee is brewed with Moka pot (as shown in the photo above which my wife bought me recently) by passing boiling water pressurised by steam through ground coffee. Moka was named after the Yememi city of Mocha, it was invented by Italian engineer Alfonso Bialetti in 1933 and quickly became one of the staples of Italian culture.

Smoke gets in your eyes

Patrizia is a well trained soprano from Roma who watched my video through YouTube and fond of my playing of “Smoke gets in your eyes”. She approached me through social media and requested if she sings over my playing. The music flowing quite match though we never met personally ( I hope someday will). Hope you like it too.

Here’s the original guitar solo version

Scordatura 9 – Koyunbaba op.19 by Carlo Domeniconi

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Carlo Domeniconi is an Italian guitarist and composer who spent many years living and teaching in Istanbul. The influence of Turkish music plays a large part in his compositions, particularly in this piece — Koyunbaba is an area of southwest Turkey and it also means “shepherd.” Domeniconi writes here for the guitar to be tuned in C-sharp minor (C#, G#, C#, G#, C# and E from 6th to 1st string respectively), totally different from normal, and the sound is rich and exotic. Based on fantasy and variation, the music gradually builds during the work’s four movements, using the special tuning to hypnotic effect in creating the musical intensity and excitement. 

The guitars used in this video are Greg Smallman 2016 (1st movement), Simon Marty 2012 (2nd movement), José Ramírez 1A 2016 ( 3rd movement) and Gregory Byers 2016 (4th movement).

Scordatura 8 – Orient Express op.2 by Carlo Domeniconi

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This is the early work by the composer which was composed at 1973. The title is famous by the railway from Paris to Istanbul from the beginning of 20th century.

The work open in a slow introduction which is full of oriental overtones. This part the guitar 6th, 5th and 1st string is tune to D, G and D respectively. The second part is in a fast rocking rhythm to imitate the train running in the railway and with some double notes slur. The tuning of the guitar in this part is the 6th and 5th string remain in D and G but the 1st string is tune to F, this make the whole piece full of exotic sound.

Made in Hong Kong

A Hong Kong guitarist played a composition of a Hong Kong composer on a guitar made by Hong Kong luthier and produced by a Hong Kong production house.
Here’s some words about this work from the composer :

“Simple Thing, Subtle Change”  for solo guitar (2020)                                         
HUI Cheung-wai

Runs through with the common practice tonal language, this bagatelle is very accessible as a short piece for lyrical expressions or a study in basic performance techniques. Within the simple formal structure and tonality, the music always proceeds with subtle changes instead of mere repetitions. There are more interests in analysis and aural observation for performers and listeners with attention to details. It also contains the space for contrast and freedom of expression for different interpretations to reveal the characters and artistic levels of different guitarists.

《小小念頭 》   結他獨奏 （2020）                                       

許翔威 曲

此小品以常用的調性語言運行，作為抒情的表演或學習基本彈奏技巧皆很合適。在簡單的曲式及C調結構內，音樂進行時總是帶出微細變化，彈奏者及聆聽者若能留意細節會更加趣味盎然，樂曲亦包含許多尋求對比與自由表達的空間，讓不同的演繹反映不同的個人性格與音樂水平。

Scordatura 7 – Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Ruyichi Sakamoto

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This well-known theme by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto is from the movie of the same name. This version is arranged by Hirokazu Sato. He used a special scordatura in this piece : 6th string tune E flat and 5th string tune G in the key of G minor. At the introduction there’s some high position broken chords sometimes beyond 12th position, after the main theme comes a fast arpeggios passage and a cadenza, then comes back to the main theme and finish.