 Le compositeur espagnol Federico Moreno Torroba doit son corpus pour guitare à sa longue et intense collaboration avec Andrès Segovia, de deux ans son ainé. À partir de sa rencontre en 1926 avec ce dernier, il ne cesse de composer pour l’instrument. Marqué à ses débuts par le wagnérisme de son professeur Conrado del Campo (notoirement présent dans ses zarzuelas et sa musique symphonique), Torroba puisera par la suite dans les œuvres de Debussy, Ravel et Bartók, découverts lors de ses fréquents séjours à Paris, de quoi élaborer son propre langage harmonique. Les quelques pièces choisies par le guitariste Pietro Locatto sont des œuvres de jeunesse exceptée la tardive et ambitieuse "Sonata Fantasia" composée en 1953 qui évoque furtivement Villa-Lobos. Cette musique délicate et soignée montre un attachement viscéral au folklore, aux paysages et aux parfums ibériques, andalous et surtout castillans (Pittoresques "Piezas Caractericas" (1931)). "Burgalesa" évoque Burgos tandis que la petite suite "Castellana" (1920) compile trois danses régionales. (Fandanguillo, Arada, Danza) Moreno-Torroba n’a jamais été d’avant-garde, ignorant superbement Stravinski et d’autres mais il accompagna activement durant sa carrière ses confrères musiciens (Manuel De Falla) et guitaristes, les frères Romero, Sabicas mais surtout Segovia qui resta son interprète d’élection. Quant à Pietro Locatto il défend cette musique avec une grande élégance entre "saudade" et "swing". Une belle découverte. (Jérôme Angouillant) This recording is not primarily created for the purpose of creating a monographic work based on part of Federico Moreno Torroba’s repertoire for guitar, but originates from a personal and deeper need to recognise the relationship with my instrument in an expressive world. A world that can encompass within itself the aspects of my own way of playing, which is closer to how I personally “feel the guitar”, thus fixing an image, as true as possible, of this first step of my life and my artistic research. I have always been strongly fascinated by the Impressionist pictorial world, or more generally speaking of what actually comprises Art, by virtue of the fact it is able to synthesize a broader picture through micro images. Impressionism is a current which does not claim to elevate itself as an ambassador of “high ideals”, it is more hedonistic. It finds its strength in grasping that disenchanted beauty which originates from the joy itself of enjoying the smaller things of everyday life, that become the celebrated main actor in all its nuances. This kind of art is born within a context where the rhythms of Man are still marked by its relationship with the earth. Throughout Spain at the time, even more so than elsewhere, this expressive universe had as its leading actors landscapes, nature en plein air, popular songs, village dances, changing colours, light, sounds (the Piezas características of this record are an emblematic example in this sense). Federico Moreno Torroba’s guitar music is heir to this expression. Not only. This is also one of the deepest “souls” of the guitar,which reveals itself in a completely unique way, both narrator and main integral participant of this reality, of which it is an eloquent spokesman.
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