Trinidad
Francisco Huerta y Caturla
(b.
Orihuela, 8 June 1800; d.
Paris, 19 June 1874)
Trinidad Huerta was
acclaimed during his lifetime as "the Paganini of the guitar." He was
highly praised by Hector Berlioz and Victor Hugo. A music critic for La
revue musicale declared that Huerta was the best guitarist he
had ever
heard—even while Fernando Sor and Dionisio Aguado were performing in
Paris. The Allgemeine Musikalische
Zeitung went further and claimed
Huerta to be the greatest living guitarist. Yet Huerta is completely
unknown to classical guitar audiences today. This probably resulted
from a decline in his later years that brought him to die in poverty in
Paris, forgotten there as well as in his native Spain.
Nonetheless, Huerta's achievements
were considerable. Paris music critic Arthur Pougin (1834-1921) claimed
that he wrote the "Himno de Riego," formerly the Spanish national
anthem. Huerta was the first classical guitarist to concertize in the
United States (1825) and he toured Spain, Portugal, England and France,
and even claimed to have traveled to the Middle East with Sir Moses and
Lady Judith Montefiore.
Contemporary critics were astounded by his technique and simultaneously
applauded and criticized his trying to make the guitar a symphonic
instrument. A century before Segovia, Huerta did much to overcome the
stereotype of the guitar as an inferior instrument, only useful for
strumming accompaniments to parlor songs. Berlioz, in his Grand
Traité d'Instrumentation, advised "If one wants to get an
idea
of what virtuosos are able to achieve..., the compositions of such
famous guitar players as Zanni de Ferranti, Huerta, Sor, etc. should be
studied."
Judging from existing opus numbers,
Huerta composed at least 64 works. A new
edition, edited by Robert Coldwell and Javier
Suárez-Pajares, presents 24 of these works together with all
historical information on Huerta compiled to date.
A new CD recording on the
Harmonicorde label, with
guitarist Stuart Green, soprano Teresa
Radomski, and pianist James Radomski, makes the extant works available
to the listener for the first time. The recording features a
reproduction of a Panormo guitar (Louis Panormo, b. 1784; d. 1862)
built by Koji Ishii in San Bernardino California. The warm sound of the
Panormo guitar is especially suited to the music of Huerta because,
inasmuch as Huerta was married to Panormo's daughter, he most certainly
played a Panormo guitar.
—James
Radomski
Click here to purchase the CD at Amazon.com:
Listen: No. 4 of Huerta's "Six Waltzes for Guitar"
Bibliography:
Robert Coldwell and Javier Suárez-Pajares (ed.) A.T. Huerta (1800-1874): Life and Works,
DGA Editions, 2006.
James Radomski, "Trinidad Huerta y Caturla: First Spanish Virtuoso Guitarist to Concertize in the United States,"
Inter-American Music Review, vol. 15 (Summer-Fall 1996), no. 2, pp. 103-121.
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