Franco Carreri wrote:

>The thing is.  'Alhambra is part of the repertory that has led to the
>classical guitar as being described as "beautiful".  Many classical
>guitar listeners find anything other an abomination.

This notion that all guitar music has to be "beautiful" is a problem with
getting more members of the CM community interested in the guitar; it leads
to very boring recitals and recordings.  I'm afraid Segovia is to a large
degree to blame for this.  For a long time, he was so influential that
everyone thought his style of playing was the only correct one.  But the
younger generation of guitarists is widening the scope of the instrument
considerably.

>I have a very bombastic style of playing.  When annotated 'mezzo forte' I
>play 'forte'.  When 'forte', 'molto forte'.  I can break strings before my
>finger nails break - the envy of many a guitarist I can tell you.

Learning to play with maximum volume, while retaining a good tone, is
indeed difficult.  Most of us habitually shrink from attacking the strings
forcefully enough, for some reason.

Speaking of the Recuerdos de la Alhambra, I think it is a lovely piece,
but in all of the recordings of it I have heard (and there are a lot) it
is played with almost no expression, at a steady mezzoforte, which makes
it rather boring to me.  Although I can't by any means handle the tremolo
in a professional manner, when I try to do it I always feel that it calls
for a much livelier performance than the "professionals" give it.  I wonder
why.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]