Guitar

The guitar has never been an exalted instrument, has never made great history in music. Its living has been a meagre one, eked out on the vaudeville stage, thwanging accompaniments to this ditty and that. Last week in Manhattan, for the first time in memory, it braved a formal recital. There was nothing extraordinary about the recital guitar. It had just six strings. Andres Segovia, the Spaniard who brought it to the U. S., had just the allotted ten fingers but he made big music. Long black hair, a sack coat, flowing black tie and shell bound spectacles--he was like a comic in a cinema until he sat down, cuddled his instrument under a great black arm and began to play. Then did the skeptics in the audience forget altogether the guitar of the barbershop ballads. Sor, Malats, Tarrega, Torroba, Grandaos, Albeniz and even a suite of the great Johann Sebastian Bach were played, with an amazing virtuosity and an infinite variety of tonal color. Some moments the music was bright, crackling like a harp's chord, then full, glowing like an E 'cello. Always it was more than a guitar, the mouthpiece of a rich imagination, intelligently directed.