Flamenco Music

I began to fall for flamenco music after going on a couple of trips to Spain two years ago. For those who don’t know, flamenco is a traditional Spanish music/dance which is accompanied by guitars. To me flamenco music always sounds extremely emotive, melancholic, mysterious and makes me wish I could understand Spanish.

I built my first flamenco guitar years ago almost by accident, before I really knew what flamenco was, by following a plan for a Santos Hernandez instrument (a renowned builder of both flamenco and classical guitars). It had a spruce soundboard with cypress back and sides, and was built alongside three other guitars. When I presented them to a classical guitarist, to my surprise after playing them he handed the cypress one back saying “this is a flamenco guitar”. The biggest difference is that flamenco and classical guitarists have different sound requirements. The different sounds are brought about by adjusting the thicknesses of the wood and bracing. Cypress is usually used for the back and sides, and a tap plate glued onto the soundboard.

My first proper exposure to flamenco music was at a guitar building competition, where there were flamenco guitars being judged, and I heard the same pieces being performed on each guitar. The guitarist was Alberto Lopez and the song that stuck with me was ‘Balcón de los Sueños’, on his album ‘Detras de la Verdad’, which I really enjoyed and still revisit often.

The next experience came visiting a particular wood dealership in Valencia called EAG International. It was a brilliant visit, and I’ll have to devote an entire blog post to it at some point. I was able to speak extensively to the truly lovely owner, Eve Armenteros. He comes from the south of Spain where flamenco music originated and is most alive. He gave me a list of flamenco guitarists and singers to check out which I’ve written out below. And he told me that the reason people truly love flamenco is because the words really speak to the soul, with the guitar usually taking a relatively backseat role, and that solo guitar flamenco music is actually quite niche. From the list he gave me, I found Vicente Amigo immediately accessible and it turns out he is indeed extremely well loved by everyone. The flamenco list: CAMARON, VICENTE AMIGO, MIGUEL POVEDA, DIEGO EL CIGALA, NIÑO JOSELE, TOMATITO, ENRIQUE MORENTE.

I’ve added a couple of examples of flamenco music. Hopefully this has given some context to my building of flamenco guitars. At some point I’ll write more about my trips to Spain and other flamenco related ventures.

A close up of the latest flamenco guitar.

Bedford Music Club

I absolutely love Bedford Music Club. It organises ‘chamber music’ concerts; music for small groups of instruments, such as string quartets. I found them because as a teenager I was briefly interested in composing music, and discovered I liked Beethoven’s late string quartets in particular. They were not only amazing, but felt secret because I found them, and they were written while he was deaf. So around 2015 I was drawn towards a performance of one of them at the Bedford Music Club.

They usually hold six or seven concerts per year I believe, with a variety of musical ensembles. Such is the nature of the classical music scene, that it is possible to attract world class musicians to even Bedford. 

The regular audience is an impressive size. The venue I’ve been to is Bunyan Meeting and usually the seats on the floor are full, though there is also an upper floor so there’s room for more.

I usually try to catch the string quartet concerts. My highlights include: Beethoven’s late quartets, mentioned above; Dvorak’s American quartet, written while the composer was in America longing for his Czech home; Britten’s 2nd string quartet, inspired by the second world war; finally, a concert which was this year though it seems an eternity ago (before covid), which was a lutenist called Matthew Wadsworth along with a soprano singer. As a guitar maker, it was brilliant to see not only the lute in action, but the impressive theorbo, which is in the lute family but has an enormous swan neck and more strings. His smaller lute had amazing projection with a penetrating tone which hung in the air. The tone of the lute sounds like something raw and ancient. There is an example of Matthew Wadsworth’s work below.

While I was researching for this blog post, I found The Bedford Music Club has a new website and are live-streaming some concerts in the new year which I recommend:

https://www.bedfordmusicclub.com/

Provided to YouTube by The Orchard EnterprisesToccata VI · Alessandro Piccinini · Matthew WadsworthLate Night LuteReleased on: 2017-06-23Auto-generated by Yo...

Colibri Duo Concert Recollections

This guitar duo concert was in a village in Bedfordshire a few years ago. It was winter so it was dark and I took the train. Walking from the village station I had the sensation of exciting disorientation since I didn’t know the place, even though - looking at Marston on a map afterwards - I was still pretty close to Bedford. 

There was a respectable amount of people there. Despite the guitar being a very old and popular instrument in general, a classical guitar concert is still fairly niche. I think its popularity as a concert instrument ebbs and flows at different times in different parts of the world. Its prevalence is because as a solo instrument which anyone can learn at home it is rather perfect. 

The stand out pieces, which I still remember quite well a few years later, include parts of a suite by Olga Amelkina-Vera, a piece by John Dowland and it was also the first time I’d heard the popular Asturias by Isaac Albeniz. I should mention that although now years later I’ve probably over-listened to that Asturias piece, this first time felt momentous. It’s a solo piece, so Valerie played it alone, with her duo partner Rod sitting amongst the audience to listen which gave it an extra sense of gravitas. Valerie also has a wonderful lattice braced Greg Byers guitar, which seemed to project really well and seems a grand powerful instrument.

I loved the banter between the two guitarists - is it me or are even classical guitarists cooler than the other musicians? 

I am always curious about classical guitarists in general. I do consider professional guitarists and luthiers to be two sides of the same coin. I’ve thought that ever since I met luthier Yuris Zeltins in Spain, who mentioned that both luthiers and guitarists have to be quite mad to go professional in this field. I could already attest to that regarding guitar makers, but it increased my curiosity and admiration for players. Although come to think of it, the same is probably true for all musicians, and most crafts.

I believe I was just about to move into a new workshop in Bromham, and this concert inspired the first guitar I built there - a spruce/birdseye maple classical, which was Torres/Romanillos inspired - and probably pushed me over the edge into complete dedication towards guitar building. 

https://www.valeriehartzell.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/rod.faulkner.5494