Pasquale Taraffo never learned any musical theory. “O
Rèua” (“The Wheel”) - the nickname he was given in Genoa by
his friends because of his amazing fingering technique which made his
right hand appear to be moving like a wheel on the strings – did not
seem to see why he should play “alone for himself” just for the sake
of practicing (at least according to contemporary evidence at home). His
inborn gift reminds us of the one Mozart was blessed with that made him
love playing when people were listening to his music, be it in a great
theater or in a tavern somewhere.
Sleeping until noon, like many artists do who
perform at night, he could stand playing in a “matinée”
and eventually straight on into night on the stage of a
Vaudeville theater, always shouldering his fourteen-string guitar built
by the luthier Settimio Gazzo, a good friend of his.
Despite his amateurish attitude towards his
professional life he dared venture abroad, leaving his beloved
native town, touring first in Italy, then in Europe - he was not
even twenty when he was acclaimed in Spain as “El
Dios de la guitarra” - and finally in South America and in the
States, when he first crossed the Ocean on board of S/S “Re Vittorio”,
gaining fame to the point of competing against Andrès Segovia, a
well-off person by the way, who was only five years younger than him
(being born in 1893), and who had brought the fame of classical guitar
in a triumphal “tournée”
from Spain to the United States to worldwide attention.
Such a parallel comparison might look disconcerting
at first sight. Yet, that little reserved man capable of transferring
the sound of 120 orchestral players or even that of a complete choir
into the strings of his guitar, whose art comes from centuries-old
musical tradition belonging to popular art, might well stand up, say,
even to the Bach transcriptions by Segovia.
The wonder of the achievements by an artist like
Pasquale Taraffo doesn’t come out of the blue. Even admitting he was
an instinctive genius sprouting from the street, it would be worth
reconsidering the idea of the way popular art could develop in daily
life. Genoa, the very same town giving birth to Taraffo and Paganini,
had clearly been for centuries the most convenient soil for this kind of sprouting. Paganini, who in the beginning was a player
of plucked instruments, had transferred to the four strings of his
violin the nodal technicalities belonging to guitars. Similarly, what
Taraffo had absorbed and given out when he played his harp-guitar came
from centuries-old traditions belonging to their common maritime town.
He really should be considered as a genius, as a worthy follower of a
line dating back to Simone Molinaro in the 16th century and
even to earlier times in the Middle Ages.
Taraffo also loved to compose hits for
entertainment purposes. His marches, polkas and mazurkas were
appreciated by a wide audience for their catchy rhythm and liveliness.
At that time, operatic music was extremely popular among all the
longshoremen and all people who were Vaudeville theater goers.
Taraffo’s transcriptions of operatic music received standing ovations
because that kind of audience knew that music by heart. They were the
same people who rooted for world renowned opera singers like Beniamino
Gigli, Tito Schipa or Giacomo Lauri Volpi. It should be emphasized here
that Romantic Opera was extremely popular among the working class. In
the same way that in Northern Europe works of fiction became widely
popular because of the higher level of literacy achieved there thanks to
the Reformation of the Evangelic Church
requiring everyone to be able to personally read the Holy Bible,
in Italy - homeland of composers such as Verdi - romantic operas had
likewise become extremely popular even among the lower class, somehow
counterbalancing their poor level of literacy, which happened to be
partly caused, and sometimes even enhanced by, the Catholic Church
attitude.
So, by playing the Intermezzo of “Cavalleria
Rusticana” or the Choir of “La Sonnambula” together with his
“Tango” or “Serenata”, Pasquale Taraffo seems to teach us in a
straightforward way that operatic music should be brought back to its
very origin of a popular musical tradition accessible to everyone. If
Segovia transcribed Bach, Taraffo transcribed Bizet, Bellini, Mascagni….The
approach by Segovia when he transcribed a piece from the original score
was clearly a learned one due to his excellent cello studies. By
comparison, Taraffo, who hadn’t had any musical theory training,
simply played his guitar, re-harmonized, added his creation, made the
fascination of the original piece come out through his feeling, through
his precious sensitivity and his heart, leaving the stave aside together
with all those analyses that written music usually brings with it.
When we read the history of music, we can see that
Segovia was towering over all other guitar players until the end of
1950’s. He was the only one who first understood that classical
guitarists should be given back their original soloist role which had
been lost since the beginning of the 19th century. But the point to be
focused on here is essentially the difference between an ordinary
guitar, and the type of guitar played by Taraffo, which was in fact a
sort of “souped-up” guitar meant to improve the bass register and
the projection of sound for a wider audience. One just needs to read the
opinions of the press in the States by the end of 1920’s to see that
this comparison between Taraffo and Segovia was self-evident and could
consequently be reasonably argued. In the daily newspaper Il
Progresso Italo-Americano of December 25, 1928, we can read about
the concert held by Taraffo at the Gallo Theater in New York: “Taraffo è meraviglioso nei suoi pizzicati, nei suoi trilli, nei suoi
arpeggi, come nel canto spiegato, come nei robusti bassi. Spesso si ha
la illusione precisa che siano più strumenti a suonare insieme. Segovia
è, forse, più levigato, più elegante. Taraffo è più robusto, più
espressivo, più efficace” (“Taraffo is splendid in his
pizzicatos, arpeggios and trills, as well as in his singing melodies and
robust basses. One has the clear sensation of listening to more than one
instrument being played together. Segovia is possibly neater and more
elegant. Taraffo is stronger, more expressive and forceful”). Among
the concert programs presented during that season in the Big Apple there
were also a few concerts held by a young virtuoso violinist whose name
was Yehudi Menuhin at Carnegie Hall with the Philarmonic Symphony
Society, and a recital held by Andrès Segovia at the Town Hall - the
very same theater where two weeks later Taraffo performed and even
dedicated a composition of his to President Herbert Clark Hoover.
We shall deliberately ignore here any legendary
(though reasonably believable) tales about possible direct encounters
between Taraffo and Segovia, be they in Spain or over the Ocean
somewhere in America, or even in Genoa. Comparing these two artists
however might well be the right thing to do, bearing in mind that
whereas Segovia stays as “official” myth, Taraffo’s name might
have undeservedly been long neglected by almost everyone.
As evidence we can mention here what is said in “The
New International Year Book - A Compendium of the World’s Progress for
The Year 1928” edited by Herbert Treadwell Wade, published by
Dodd, Mead and Company. It is a voluminous tome – over 800 pages –
giving a picture of the state of the arts and disciplines both
scientific and humanistic for the year 1928.
In the section devoted to music, and more precisely to artists,
on pages 477-478, the text first refers to the American debut of the
pianist Vladimir Horowitz (as a soloist in Concert n.1 for piano and
orchestra of Cajkowskij, conductor Sir Thomas Beecham); then to two enfants
prodige of the violin who struck the audience at international
level; we are talking about Yehudi Menhuin who was just a teenager and
Ruggiero Ricci who was eight at that time. The Compendium pays “unusual
attention” in that year to an instrument never heard being played
before in concert halls. This was the guitar. Attention was further
drawn to it owing to the outstanding performances of two artists: One
was Andrès Segovia, and the other was Pasquale Taraffo.
The original text reads: “Unusual
attention was attracted by the remarkable performances of two artists
who introduce an instrument entirely unknown in serious concerts, the
guitar. Andrès Segovia, a
Spaniard, scored an instantaneous success at his début in New York
(January 8) by his masterly rendition not only of national folk songs
and dances but also by his arrangements of familiar pieces of the
classic masters. His success in other cities was equally emphatic. Still
more surprising was the exhibition given by the Italian Pasquale Taraffo
(New York, December 23), who played an instrument greatly improved by
his ingenuity. By increasing the dimensions of the ordinary guitar and
adding several strings, he obtained not only a wider range, especially
in the lower register, but also a mellower tone and more volume. This
instrument he handled with real virtuosity”.
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