AGUSTIN BARRIOS (1885-1944) Time:

Vals no. 3 4'12

Preludio en do menor (in C minor / c-moll / en ut mineur) 2'13

Cueca 3'29

Maxixa 2'42

La catedral 6'57

Julia Florida (barcarola) 4'29

Vals no. 4 4'20
Una limosna por el amor de Dios 3'27

Las abejas
A Mazurka appassionata 5'08

Medallon antiguo
2'18

Choro de saudade
3'21

Aire de zamba
4'49
2'46

Preludio en sol menor (in G minor/ g-moll / en sol mineur)

IM Aconquija 4'16
2'49

Villancico de navidad
113 Sueiio en la floresta 6'42
3'17

Total time: 67'24

This recording was made using 20-bit technology for "high definition sound".
Producer: John Williams.
Co-producer / Engineer: Mike Stavrou.
Recorded June 20-28, 1994 at the Air Studios, London, England.
All works are in public domain and edited by John Williams.
Booklet Editor: David Montgomery.

A
THE GREAT PARAGUAYAN: "BROTHER TO THE TROUBADOURS"
gustfn Pio Barrios was born in 1885
in San Juan Bautista de los Misiones,
Paraguay. He began the guitar as a
child, playing traditional and popu-
lar music with his parents and many brothers;
they were an educated and cultured family. In his
teens he was sent to high school in Asunci6n,
where he continued to study classical technique
with an important guitar teacher and then the-
ory and other musical subjects. By now, Barrios
was also composing: this was to be his life and he
remained dedicated to his instrument as com-
poser and performer until his death in El Sal-
vador in 1944. He was also a poet and later, in
1930, he wrote his "Profesi6n de fe" (Profession
of Faith):
Tupa, the Supreme Spirit and protector of my race,
found me one day in the middle of a verdant copse
wrapt in admiration whilst contemplating nature.
And said to me: `Take this mystery box and un-
mask its secrets.' And locking up in it all the singing
birds and the resting souls of the plants, left it in my
hands. Obeying the orders of Tupa I took the box
and, placing it close to my chest, I embraced it and
spent many moons at the side of a spring. And one
night Jacy, our Moon Mother, painted in liquid crys-
tal, feeling the sadness of my Indian soul, gave me
six silver rays of light so that with them I could un-
musical expression. Making a living was a constant
struggle... sometimes he relied on the help of loyal
friends and often he had enormous success, as in
Venezuela in 1932 when he played twenty-five
concerts in two months. The British conductor
Sir Henry Wood - founder of the BBC's Henry
Wood Promenade concerts - heard Barrios in
Trinidad in 1932 and wrote: "I have had the great
pleasure of hearing Senor Agustin Barrios give a
private recital this afternoon ... (He) is quite a
unique artist ... his colourful playing, rhythm, per-
fect intonation and splendid interpretative abil-
ity, make his playing a real pleasure and delight to
all music lovers" (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 18 Jan-
uary 1932).
Barrios's last years were spent in El Salvador,
where he taught at the National Conservatory. He
was in poor health but still composing and play-
i ng, with plans to make more records and travel
to North America ("Una limosna por e1 amor de
Dios" -An Offering for the Love of God- was his
final piece, sometimes called "La ultima cancion"
-The Last Song). As a player Barrios had an amaz-
ing technique and a natural, emotional style which
was in total contrast to the sophisticated affecta-
tion of so much European interpretation. The
Cuban composer and guitarist Leo Brouwer says:
"Just as Bach continued to write superb baroque
music up to the year of his death (1750)... Barrios
was writing exquisite romantic music long after its
passing in Europe. Also in Barrios there occurs a
certain kind of innovation in the 19th century har-
monic language which can only be done from a
mask the secrets of the box. And the miracle oc-
curred: from the depths of the mysterious box there
emerged a marvellous symphony of all the virgin
voices of our America.
Mangore
This was a time when he was proudly proclaiming
his part Guarani Indian ancestry, promoting him-
self as the "Paganini of the guitar from the jungles
of Paraguay" and appearing in full Indian dress; he
also adopted the name "Mangore" - a legendary
Guarani chief. Except for one visit to Europe in
1935, when he played in Germany and Spain, he
lived all his life in Latin America, the early years
mostly in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil,
and later in Venezuala and Central America. He
once wrote in a poem to a friend: "I am a brother
to those medieval troubadours who, in their glo-
ries and despairs, suffered such romantic madness."
From 1913 on Barrios made many recordings,
which are important sources for many of his pieces
which were lost or not in his manuscript - those
that were are beautifully written out, as he was a
fine graphic artist. His concert programmes com-
bined transcriptions of classical composers such as
Bach and Chopin, guitar composers such as Tar-
rega, and his own music, which was inspired by
classical and popular music but which, more
importantly, took the guitar into a new world of
point later in time -'out of the period'." The spe-
cial magic of Barrios is that this romantic musi-
cality is expressed by a far more imaginative and
developed guitar technique than anything that
had gone before-in this he was a great original, a
kind of Chopin of the guitar. A few examples are
specially noticeable in the weaving of melody and
harmony across the strings ("Mazurka appassion-
ata"), the inventive use of the open strings (mid-
dle section of "Vals no. 4"), the unusual chord pro-
gressions he finds with the bass strings tuned down
("Choro de saudade"), the shifting harmonies and
contrasting melodic lines in the "Tremolo" pieces
("Una Limosna por el amor de Dios") and even
the simple combining of the "drumming" sound
with chord changes ("Cueca" and "Aconquija").
There was for a long time in Latin America
a cultural deference to the Old World, the result
of centuries of colonization which was also re-
flected in Europe's condescending attitude to
Latin American culture, especially popular cul-
ture; Barrios was underestimated in his lifetime
for both these reasons and outside Latin Amer-
ica he was practically unknown. However, the
second half of the 20th century has revealed
the narrowness of the Eurocentric view and has
led to a renaissance of indigenous and New
World culture. Barrios plays his part in this by
speaking through his music, not only to gui-
tarists, but by touching the hearts of people
everywhere who love music.
1995 John Williams