Behind the Scenes: Ponce Preludes
The idea to arrange a suite of preludes by Ponce came to me while my wife and I were on vacation at beautiful Lake Como in Italy, and I was missing my guitar. I remembered that Ponce had written 12 preludes, each very charming and full of character. As I looked into it, I came across an album that had 24 preludes. I’d never heard half of them before, and furthermore, the numbering was different for the preludes I was already familiar with. I searched around for some sheet music, and indeed found a publisher offering a set of 24, but they had to be purchased in hardcopy. The book including the sheet music arrived a couple of weeks after I returned home, and it explained the mystery. Andreas Segovia commissioned Ponce to write one prelude for every possible key, and with 12 notes in either major or minor keys, you get 24. However, Ponce did not play the guitar and did not work with a guitarist on the compositions. Upon receiving them around 1930, Segovia commented that half of them were “totally impossible” and that the rest would require revision. Only 12 were published, and the remaining half were lost … at least for a while. Musicologists began finding them decades later. The most recent was found in 2009, and today there is still one missing (though there are options for replacing it).
My suite combines unique arrangements of five of my favorite preludes from the original set of 12 and two from the lost set, and I employed all three of my guitars for the recordings:
G# Minor - this is from the lost set, and is indeed tricky to play because of jumps and finger crossings. I used my 2004 Stephen Hill SP/CY flamenco guitar for this one. I changed some of the voicings to make this more suitable for the guitar.
F# Minor - a favorite from the original 12, and it benefitted from the more traditional sound of my 1998 David Daily CD/IN. I replaced the outro with a true coda to give the suite more cohesion.
D Major - this is also from the lost set though it is not difficult to play. It requires a drop-D tuning. It’s gorgeous, and it sounded very nice on my 2020 Cordoba C-12 SP/IN with its modern design features such as the lattice-bracing. I changed the bass line to hold the notes longer.
B Major - a lively piece from the original 12, and I revised the coda for more uniformity and end the piece with some rasgueado which sound great on the Stephen Hill flamenco guitar.
E Major - this is a fun piece from the original 12 and I used the Stephen Hill for this one, too. I completely changed the ending because the original didn’t feel convincing to me.
D Minor - this is a soulful piece and perhaps my favorite overall, from the original 12. It’s actually in a Phyrgian mode around A. I used the David Daily for this one. I made substantial changes to this especially at the end where I add an additional bar to create some tension.
A Major - a joyful sounding piece from the original 12 and I used the Stephen Hill guitar. I changed the ending, and changed the melody in a few places towards the end.
I recorded the music using an AB pair of AKG C451B mics mounted on a stand aimed down at the sound board with the capsules at a distance of 26 inches. I may have added a slight amount of reverb to 1 or 2 of the pieces but most of what you hear is the wonderful acoustic from my loft. I added a -2 dB dip with Q of 5 at 300 Hz to reduce boominess from the sound hole and another at 5.5 kHz to reduce finger scratch, but otherwise there is no EQ or effects of any kind.
The video was also shot in my loft. I used a Godox S30 5500 K light that I diffused by bouncing the light off a wall, and with a GTO gel to bring down the temperature to more closely match the candlelight. I used two iPhone 13 cameras at different angles and shot in 4K with 24 FPS. I did my best to set the exposure and focus but it is very challenging to shoot video in low light conditions, so it is admittedly grainy looking.
This was a really fun project and I hope you like it! Thanks for reading!