Turina's Hommage to Tarrega: Analysis for Performers
Hi there everyone! So excited to be fulfilling ya’ll’s requests for more analysis streams via Turina’s Hommage to Tarrega (requested by a subscriber last week!) I chose this piece because understanding the musical language of composers of the 20th Century can present a challenge since that’s when composers began to experiment or even ignore basic tonality. Looking forward to it!
In his Hommage a Francisco Tarrega, Joaquin Turina blends the ever-familiar sounds of Spanish Romanticism with the newly popular musical idioms of Impressionism. His tribute is well-paid through sophisticated imitation of the expected harmonic relationships, scales, melodic figures, and modulation; but more impressive (excuse the pun) is how Turina expands upon these tried and true methods through the use of 20th century compositional techniques as if to say, “Thank you Maestro Tarrega, I’ve got it from here.” Learning how to interpret music of the 20th Century requires expanding musical language understanding past the strict conventions of purely tonal music, and the Late Romantic/Impressionist Era is a great place to begin.
Find the start time in your time zone by clicking the photo or following this event link:
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/turina-hommage-tarrega-analysis
We are going to be using this thread to gather suggestions and questions!
- What questions do you have on this topic?
- Any particular area you would like me to focus on?
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Hi Ashley,
Looking forward to this!
I have one very general idea that I'd like to hear your thoughts about. As you mentioned, it was in the 20th century that composers began to experiment with atonality. It seems to me, however that popular music has not followed this trend at all. Do you think the atonal movement has led to the sharp divide between classical and popular music today? This divide is typified perhaps by casual audiences who will enjoy a performance of classical music, as long as the music doesn't get too "weird" (as my mother describes some of the things I play). What are your thoughts?
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Eric Phillips This is a great discussion topic and the philosophical and factual details that go into are vast. My thoughts simplified are that the functions of music play an important role in this divide. "classical" music often requires "active" listening and as "unfamiliar" elements were introduced to the language of this music, audiences had no connection or familiarity with those sounds. Popular music's function is generally quite distant from requiring much active listening or thought (unless you specifically choose to study pop music or find a group that warrants that attention purposefully) and needs the familiar to stay, as it is called, popular. So why would they take the risk of expanding the musical languages that work already to keep people listening?
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Ashley (Ash) Lucero Thank you so much for responding. I wonder if people in earlier eras tended to be more active listeners since the only music ever heard was live music, which tends to engage us more. While the recording of music brings obvious advantages, perhaps it has the negative side effect of making us engage less while listening to music, especially today with the almost ubiquitous background music that bombards us.
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Eric Phillips Those are some good points too!
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.Looking forward to this.
I feel it is difficult to find Tarrega in this piece outside the title.
It is a great guitar piece, like all TurinasAllthough I find two first Sevillana and Fandanguillo the best from a composotional view.
Maybe we will also learn about to these one day from a more theoretical view. There are two excellent lessons on how to play Sevillana on Tonebase that I have enjoyed
ThankLars, Denmark
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Lars Kjøller-Hansen Thanks for that feedback; we can add those two pieces to our list of works requested for analysis.
Looking forward to "finding Tarrega" this week!
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Thank you so much for providing this seminar on these pieces that I requested. I am genuinely surprised you have been able to do this so quickly. There are so many twists and turns in these pieces it is almost like an opera with so many dramatic contrast! I will be joining you but I may have to leave half an hour into the seminar because I have a hospital appointment. I will catch up tomorrow! Kind Regards Dennis
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Hi Ashley, More of a general question:
Can you suggest the easiest/best resource ( The "go to" place online, etc) for researching particular composers, which would also describe the related music period/era history and musical performance practices? So that the performer can keep it in mind when forming his/her interpretation/phrasing. This would be needed, especially if the composer has not already provided it in notes accompanying the score.
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Ashley (Ash) Lucero and Mircea
Thank you for such a fantastic seminar. I watched this today and it has taken me 5 hours to go through very slowly everything you have explained. Every-time I had a question you somehow managed to answer it a few minutes later. You explained everything I had a question about when I first suggested this. I am so sorry I couldn't stay for the live stream.
Kind Regards and I feel so humble that we have great teachers like you for us at Tonebase! Dennis
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WOULD LOVE A WORKSHOP ON HOW TO USE FORSCORE!
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
