Ponce/ Ghiglia - Guitar Works

Manuel Maria Ponce was born in Fresnillo, Mexico on 8 December 1882. He began his musical studies in Aguascalientes and later moved to Mexico City where he enrolled at the National College of Music. In 1904, Ponce travelled to Europe to complete his studies, in Bologna with Enrico Bossi and Luigi Torchi and in Berlin with M. Krause. After returning home, he held a variety of teaching posts at the National College of Music in Mexico City where he had once studied. Ponce was never one to rest on his laurels and although he had already done a great deal of composing and teaching, after World War I he decided to return to Europe to resume studying. In Paris in 1925, he took classes with French composer Paul Dukas, who held his student in the greatest esteem - Ponce was awarded full marks - and made no secret of it. The quality and quantity of Manuel Ponce's compositions for the guitar makes them one of the major bodies of work in music in the first half of the twentieth century, although he wrote practically all of them in a period of just nine years, between 1923 and 1932. Ponce was constantly spurred on and encouraged by the ever-enthusiastic Andrés Segovia, who applied himself to each new piece in rehearsal and in concert with a zeal and commitment unmatched by even the most forward-looking proponent of the avant-garde. And so, in this short period of time, Ponce produced five sonatas, three themes and variations, a cycle of twenty four preludes, two suites in baroque style, a sonata for guitar and harpsichord and some ten small-scale pieces which were no less inspired in character than their bigger brethren.