Manuel Ponce (1882-1948) COTW 8-12/02/16

[Serial_Apologist]

The Mexican composer, of whose music I have only ever heard a short guitar piece on a mono Segovia album.

Pleasant Falla-ish neo-classical Mexican music is my admittedly limited impression, but as important as Chavez or Revueltas? Should be interesting but I somehow doubt it.

[Richard Tarleton]

I expect we'll be hearing more about the Ponce-Segovia friendship. Graham Wade says in his biog of Segovia, "[But] it is likely, because of the strength of the friendship, that Manuel Ponce's innate traditionalism and conservatism of harmonic language reinforced Segovia's own preferences for a musical vocabulary rooted in tonality and removed from any kind of experimentation......"

Pleasant, yes, but not a bit like Falla, I'd suggest....

[Serial_Apologist]

I expect we'll be hearing more about the Ponce-Segovia friendship. Graham Wade says in his biog of Segovia, "[But] it is likely, because of the strength of the friendship, that Manuel Ponce's innate traditionalism and conservatism of harmonic language reinforced Segovia's own preferences for a musical vocabulary rooted in tonality and removed from any kind of experimentation......"

Pleasant, yes, but not a bit like Falla, I'd suggest....

Early days, Richard, but the first piece played could just about have been a bit of posthumously revealed Falla, or maybe more like Rodrigo.

[Richard Tarleton]

His guitar music neither here nor there, really - pleasant enough, but pretty forgettable. And for Segovia, he was the best of all the composers who wrote for him

As Graham Wade says in his biog, "If Segovia had managed a friendship of a similar depth with Stravinsky (or even Villa-Lobos), the history of the guitar in the twentieth century would perhaps have been quite different". But with Segovia's innate conservatism of course this wouldn't have happened. Fortunately for the future of the guitar repertoire, Julian Bream came along.....

[gradus]

I like his music and thanks to Donald I can now pronounce his name properly. Off topic, there was a delightful Ponce-ish piece on Sarah Walker's show this am - Berceuse by Leo Brouwer and utterly delightful.

[Serial_Apologist]

Brouwer would make a most interesting COTW - especially since we hardly hear anything about Cuban classical music on R3. Most people probably think there isn't any!

[Richard Tarleton]

Brouwer would make a most interesting COTW - especially since we hardly hear anything about Cuban classical music on R3. Most people probably think there isn't any!

I discovered his music at a classical guitar recital in the Purcell Room in 1972 - I think the guitarist was Cuban. Here's a wistful little piece....

[gradus]

Many thanks for the link to a lovely piece exquisitely played.

[Lat-Literal]

An interesting choice for COTW and I will listen to the programmes with interest. I wonder how many South and Central American composers have been featured?

[Lat-Literal]

The Mexican composer, of whose music I have only ever heard a short guitar piece on a mono Segovia album.

Pleasant Falla-ish neo-classical Mexican music is my admittedly limited impression, but as important as Chavez or Revueltas? Should be interesting but I somehow doubt it.

His guitar music neither here nor there, really - pleasant enough, but pretty forgettable. And for Segovia, he was the best of all the composers who wrote for him

As Graham Wade says in his biog, "If Segovia had managed a friendship of a similar depth with Stravinsky (or even Villa-Lobos), the history of the guitar in the twentieth century would perhaps have been quite different". But with Segovia's innate conservatism of course this wouldn't have happened. Fortunately for the future of the guitar repertoire, Julian Bream came along.....

I enjoyed this programme about this pleasant and driven if not ever so fiery man and I find his music enjoyable. While he is best known for guitar compositions and his association with Segovia, I have a preference for the piano work and the songs including "Estrellita" ("Little Star"). Classification is difficult. Frank Oteri writes: "If Silvestre Revueltas might be considered Mexico's Charles Ives and Carlos Chávez Mexico's Aaron Copland, Ponce is probably more analogous to a composer like Edward MacDowell. But unlike MacDowell who died prematurely, Manuel Ponce lived well into the 20th century and wrote some of his most durable masterpieces during this period of unprecedented cultural transformation to which even he was not completely immune". That word "even" hints strongly at the romantic and, I guess, conservative nature of much of his work. Little of it today sounds massively groundbreaking. However, I think it would be unfair to describe him as " musically conservative". In younger age, he was restless in conventional domestic forums. He travelled widely, spending time in many European countries. He absorbed wide-ranging influence there - he was the first to bring Debussy to Mexico - and he also spent time in Cuba. At least as significantly, he took Mexican song onto a wider international stage and was described perhaps with some over-emphasis "Creator of the Modern Mexican Song".

Because of my musical preferences, his collecting of folk songs and incorporation of them in his compositions appeals. In general terms, I am, of course, aware that with hindsight any impetus in that sort of sphere is not regarded as modernistic and it can have overtones of nationalism. But it was innovative in its time and in many cases it wasn't top-heavy. As the programme explained, Ponce was criticised by some for a street-style vulgarity which is somewhat odd given the gentleness of much of his work and the subtlety he applied to what might be described as elements of cultural nationalism. The great Villa Lobos with whom there is also some scope for comparison remarked: "I remember that I asked him at that time if the composers of his country were as yet taking an interest in native music, as I had been doing since 1912, and he answered that he himself had been working in that direction. It gave me great joy to learn that in that distant part of my continent there was another artist who was arming himself with the resources of the folklore of his people in the struggle for the future musical independence of his country". Like Villa Lobos, there was a forward looking strand in Ponce. There were not simply links to Debussy, Liszt, Puccini, Rodrigo, Granados and Dukas but to Copland, Martinu and Prokofiev. In fact, in the programme there is even a reference to Gershwin. One further point. Credit should also be given to the certainty that he was more prolific than was generally recognised. His legal heir Carlos Vasquez explained during the 1970s that several of Ponce's compositions had been attributed wrongly to other people. That was agreed with Segovia as Segovia was reluctant to perform too many pieces attributed to the same composer.

[Pianorak]

I have a preference for the piano work and the songs including "Estrellita" ("Little Star").

I do as well, although I'm less familiar with the songs. There are also more substantial works for piano such as the Rapsodia cubana, Suite cubana, a two-movement Sonata as well as some delightful shorter Danzas Mexicanas and Etudes pour piano (recorded by Edison Quintana on the URTEXT, S.A. de C.V. label).

[Lat-Literal]

I do as well, although I'm less familiar with the songs. There are also more substantial works for piano such as the Rapsodia cubana, Suite cubana, a two-movement Sonata as well as some delightful shorter Danzas Mexicanas and Etudes pour piano (recorded by Edison Quintana on the URTEXT, S.A. de C.V. label).

Thank you for your comments Pianorak. Here are a few of his other songs:

Que Lejos Ando - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoQENss2rFw
Por Ti - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJqS4sJqWbA
Cuiden Su Vida - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v262lQT1Ks
Seranata Mexicana - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihYsccE3i0A