Since his passing in obscurity in El Salvador the 7th
day of August, 1944, the ever-expanding shadow cast by pioneering
Paraguayan guitarist-composer, Agustín Barrios Mangore, falls today on
every corner of the earth. In a career spanning 34 years, Barrios’
performance tour took him throughout South America, the Caribbean,
Central America, Mexico, and three countries in Europe. Performing
original compositions as well as a broad spectrum of arrangements of
works by other composers, Barrios’ demanding concert schedule required
his generating a continuous flow of new material, which he assiduously
and continually refined.
It is generally accepted by
historians and scholars of this esoteric subject that Barrios’ bohemian
lifestyle and constant peregrination were not conducive to the
preservation of a significant number of his compositions, also ensuring
that an overwhelming majority of his works would go unpublished during
his lifetime. Editions of varying quality of the Barrios canon have been
published over the past century with editors and transcribers often
relying on the artist’s commercial recordings when original manuscripts
were inaccessible.
Now, Dutch guitarist Chris Erwich
has helped rectify this situation with this thorough and methodical
study using preferred source materials – Barrios’ original recordings
made from 1913 to 1942 – meticulously analyzing 67 works performed by
this genius from the jungles of Paraguay. Using digital tools previously
unavailable to transcribers, Mr. Erwich has captured to a high degree
of precision, “Barrios as played by Barrios”.
Mr.
Erwich adds these unique transcriptions to his previous publications
exploring the decades-old mystery shrouding Barrios’ 1935 performances
in Nazi controlled Germany, in which are detailed the intrepid
Paraguayan’s stay in Berlin in the company of his Brazilian, mulatto
companion, Gloria Silva (1903-1965) and friend and patron, Paraguayan
Ambassador, Tomas A. Salomoni.