Keywords
Narciso Yepes, Vicente Ascencio, Salvador Bacarisse, Leonardo Balada, Antonio Ruiz-Pipò, Regino Sainz de la Maza, Alan Hovhaness, Rafael Rodríguez Albert, Manuel Palau, Bruno Maderna, Tomás Marco, Xavier Montsalvatge, Maurice Ohana, ten-string guitar, twentieth-century guitar music, Spanish composers of the twentieth century, Levantine composers
Abstract
At his peak, Narciso Yepes was one of the most celebrated figures in the guitar world, as evidenced by the quantity and reach of his recordings. While he is well known as a proponent of the ten-string guitar with an innovative chromatic tuning, less attention has been focused on his activity as a commissioner of new works (many of them for the six-string guitar). Yet in this domain, Yepes was extremely productive, premiering works by such composers as Ascencio, Bacarisse, Balada, Maderna, Marco, Montsalvatge, Ohana, Palau, and Ruiz-Pipò, to name a few. Yepes's role as a collaborator varied from one project to another, but at times he could be a strongly motivational presence who encouraged composers to experiment with new languages and textures. By tracing his contact with different schools and ideas, which embraced folklore, avant-garde, mystical simplicity, and others, we may come to understand how Yepes's long career reflects the complex and constantly evolving musical culture in which he lived and the crucial role that charismatic performers played in making new music accessible to audiences.
Recommended Citation
Pérez Castillo, Belén. 2023. "Narciso Yepes and the Composers of His Time." Soundboard Scholar 9, (1). https://digitalcommons.du.edu/sbs/vol9/iss1/7