Simone Rinaldo - Manuel Ponce: Complete Guitar Sonatas (2023)

Most composers who left major contributions to the guitar repertoire were guitarists themselves. Yet there are some notable exceptions, one of which is precisely Manuel Ponce. And what many of these “notable exceptions” have in common, in turn, is their friendship with a great guitarist, whose talent, skill and expertise frequently inspired them to compose, and attracted them to an instrument which has a very pronounced personality. In fact, the guitar is almost a standalone in the world of classical music. It blends only seldom with other classical instruments in chamber music; it appears even more rarely in a symphonic or chamber orchestra, except as a soloist; and many composers who signed the great guitar masterpieces focused almost exclusively on it, whilst most great composers in the classical tradition wrote very little, if anything, for the guitar.
The figure of Andrés Segovia is pivotal as the catalyst for an impressive renewal of the guitar repertoire. A composer and arranger himself, but most importantly the greatest guitar virtuoso of his time (possibly of all times), Segovia was able to collect an immense repertoire for his instrument, mainly made of new contributions which he had elicited himself. He was the dedicatee and/or he commissioned countless works for his instrument, including some of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century; and he was able to draw to the guitar the attention of some gifted musicians who would not, otherwise, have been particularly interested in it. This was the case with Ponce, whose first steps as a musician were bound to the piano’s eighty-eight keys rather than to the guitar’s six strings.