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Music Preview: Parkening heeds advice to 'play it beautiful' on guitar
Sunday, February 13, 2000 By Peter B. King, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It's been Rach 3, Rach 3, Rach 3 everywhere we turn in the past three years, since Rachmaninoff's audience-friendly Piano Concerto No. 3 enjoyed a featured role in the movie "Shine."
Where: Heinz Hall.
But let's not forget there are other crowd-pleasing 20th-century concertos. For instance: Forty-three recordings of this one are in print on CD. Miles Davis and Gil Evans made an enduring jazz version. And a snippet underscored that once-ubiquitous "fine Corinthian leather" commercial with Ricardo Montalban.
The piece in question? The "Concierto de Aranjuez," a guitar concerto written by the Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo in 1939 and premiered in 1940. It's the work Christopher Parkening will play with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Friday and next Sunday.
As to the reason for the piece's popularity, Parkening, on the phone from his Los Angeles home, has little doubt.
"It's the second movement. That's the heart of the piece. The theme of that second movement is astoundingly beautiful. The English horn has the solo against the strumming of the guitar, and then the guitar takes the theme. I have played this piece over a thousand times in performance --15 times in the Hollywood Bowl here with the L.A. Philharmonic --and it's such a great piece, people want to hear it again and again. It touches people's hearts."
As does the guitarist who will play it. Since gaining notice when he was still in his teens in the late '60s, Parkening has become the most famous American classical guitarist -- one widely associated with the legacy of Andres Segovia, the late Spanish guitarist who towers over the history of the instrument.
Now 52, Parkening can make the case that his recording of the "Aranjuez," with Andrew Litton conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, hews closely to the composer's intentions. In 1992, Parkening and the Royal Philharmonic performed the "Aranjuez" and "Fantasia para un gentilhombre" at a 90th birthday tribute to Rodrigo in London, then recorded both pieces.
"He was present at Abbey Road studios when we were going through the piece and played the second movement on the piano for us so we could get exactly the right feel. It was an incredible experience for me to study with the composer right before we recorded."
Rodrigo, who died last July at the age of 97, was also at the performance the night before.
"There were 5,500 people there, sold out, and at the conclusion of the concerto everyone stood up for him. He was escorted to the front of the stage, and the whole orchestra was standing up, and they were cheering for him. A picture was taken at that exact moment, and that was the picture that we used for the cover of the recording."
Segovia, Parkening adds, never performed the "Aranjuez" -- in part, because the theme grew so popular. Out of the country when the "Aranjuez" was written, Segovia heard the second movement in every cantina when he returned to Spain. This was anathema to a man who almost single-handedly elevated the guitar to the status of a concert instrument in the face of great skepticism.
"I learned a little flamenco in my youth, and he told me [Parkening affects a Spanish accent], 'You must never play flamenco from the concert stage. I have spent my lifetime redeeming the geetar. Flamenco and classical are on two sides of the mountain, and they do not look at one another!'
Parkening laughs. "And when the Beatles, you remember, George Harrison said, 'Segovia was the daddy of them all,' Segovia was asked about that quote in The New York Times. And he said, 'They are only illeegitimate children!' "
It was a 15-year-old Parkening who met Segovia at a master class at the University of Southern California in 1963. A friendship developed, and Parkening studied with Segovia off and on, eventually visiting Segovia in Spain.
In the late '60s, Parkening began concertizing, releasing two albums at the same time, "In the Spanish Style" and "In the Classic Style."
His career took off. But when it reached a frantic crescendo in 1977, he walked away from it for almost four years in favor of fly-fishing -- a sport in which he has won prizes.
"I was playing 90 concerts a year in my 20s, and I reached a burn-out stage. My dad had retired at the age of 47, and I thought 30 would be a very good age to retire.
"So I left Los Angeles, I went to Montana, found a beautiful ranch and trout stream there. And I said, 'I've found my life's dream. I don't need to work anymore.' "
A year later, Parkening's dream went sour.
"There was a tremendous emptiness inside, and I didn't know why. And it was during that time that I became a Christian and eventually ended up selling the ranch, moving back down here.
"I was reading the Bible one day, and I came across the passage that says, 'Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.' And I realized there were only two things I knew how to do. One was fly-fish for trout, and the other was play the guitar. Somehow a career in 'fly-fishing for the Lord' didn't seem to make it."
Parkening's reasons for playing now are different, and so are the results.
"I desire to glorify the Lord with my life and with the music that I play. And my great example for that has been the music of Bach, when he said, 'The aim and final reason of all music is none else but the glory of God.' And he wrote, at the end of many of his compositions the initials S.D.G., standing for, in Latin, soli Deo gloria -- for God alone the glory.
"I believe that people hear the difference, when your heart's motive is to play music for that reason."
Even before he became a Christian, though, Parkening was concerned with the feelings behind the notes.
"My dad used to say, 'Chris, play it beautiful. Play it beautiful.' If it doesn't move a person's heart, it's not music. And that's what I noticed about Segovia's playing. He played with passion and with feeling and with soul. And he played with a uniquely beautiful sound. And then, of course, he had the ability to communicate all that with the public. He had a wonderful rapport with his audiences."
Despite the efforts of Segovia, who was 94 when he died in 1987, some in the classical world still regard the guitar with prejudice.
"I played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra about 10 years ago. It was the first time in their hundred years-plus that they had ever had a guitarist on their main subscription series. As far as I know, Seiji Ozawa has only had the guitar one time with the Boston Symphony, and that was when Takemitsu wrote a concerto which Manuel Barrueco played."
For that matter, appearances by guitar soloists with the PSO have been few and far between -- Parkening himself made the last one in 1988, playing Rodrigo's "Fantasia." And the PSO has never before performed the "Aranjuez" in a subscription series.
Which brings us back to this weekend's performances.
"When I play the 'Aranjuez,' especially with the second movement, if I try to do one thing, it's going to be putting my heart and soul into playing. ... I'm going to focus on that and trying to play it beautiful."
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Conductor: Norio Ohga.