The Ponce-Segovia Collaboration: Creating the Modern Guitar Repertory

Manuel Maria Ponce (hereafter referred to as Manuel M. Ponce, 1882-1948) was one of the

most prolific and significant composers for the guitar. His output extends from 1923 to 1948

and includes thirty-three separately published works, comprising thirty original works and

three published arrangements, including a collection of three previously published songs, the

Tres canciones populares mexicanas (1924), the Canción popular gallega (EI Noi de la mare, c.1927) and the Prelude(1936) for guitar and harpsichord, based on the earlier Prelude in E Major (1931) for

guitar. His original compositions encompass solo, chamber and orchestral media and a

diverse range of compositional forms, including a concerto, five sonatas, a sonatina, two

theme and variations, two suites, numerous preludes and dance forms, and the monumental

Variations sur “Folia de España” et fugue (1929). These works reflect an eclectic range of

compositional styles that embraced the folk and popular music traditions of Mexico, Cuba

and Spain, the Mexican salon genres, baroque, classical and romantic characteristics, as well as

the harmonic language, and melodic and rhythmic techniques of impressionism and

neoclassicism.

From the second decade of the twentieth century, Ponce was a leading musical and cultural

voice within Mexico. Beginning around 1912, critics in the popular press defined him as a

modernist. His efforts at this time were concentrated on performance and teaching and the

presentation of an all-Debussy recital by his students in 1912 in the salon of the Casa Wagner

was received as being of character" and "introducing the new and exquisite music of Claude Debussy".7 The description of Ponce as a "modernist" at this time is a reflection

of the dominance of imported European and North American popular music, and also salon

music in middle and upper class Mexican musical life. His compositions up to this point

reveal an eclectic but conservative style encompassing popular salon forms, historical and, from 1909, overtly nationalist works based on the canción tradition. Though

his compositional output reveals multiple influences, Ponce's music is aesthetically linked to

the romantic period, as is illustrated in his harmonic language and vocabulary.