Luigi Attademo plays Thème varié et finale by Manuel Ponce on a 2025 guitar by the Munich luthier Vinzenz Bachmayer.
About Thème varié et finale
Ponce wrote Thème varié et finale in 1926. As the title says, it is a theme with variations, closed by a finale. It belongs to the remarkable body of guitar music that grew out of his friendship with Andrés Segovia in the 1920s, alongside the Sonata mexicana, the Sonata clásica, the Sonata romántica and the Variations on "La Folía de España" and Fugue of 1929. Our Ponce repertoire guide introduces these works.
About Manuel Ponce
Manuel María Ponce was the first Mexican composer whose music reached an international audience. He wrote for many instruments, but the guitar became central to his work through Segovia, for whom he also wrote the guitar concerto Concierto del Sur. His last known work, the Variations on a Theme of Cabezón, dates from 1948, a few months before his death. More in our portrait of Manuel Ponce.
About Luigi Attademo
Few guitarists are closer to this repertoire. Attademo studied with Angelo Gilardino and won the Concours International d'Exécution Musicale in Geneva in 1995. He worked in the archive of the Andrés Segovia Foundation, where he discovered and catalogued important manuscripts. He teaches at the Conservatorio Bruno Maderna in Cesena and at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. On our channel he has also recorded music by Sor, Falla, Scarlatti and Bach.
The Guitar
Vinzenz Bachmayer was born and raised in Munich, began the guitar at seven and built his first instrument at seventeen. After training as a woodcarver in Oberammergau he opened his own workshop in Munich, and he studied Renaissance and Baroque lute making with Günter Mark. From 2011 he worked with the acoustician and engineer Karl Sandvoss, research that led to his Kaskadensystem. In 2014 he completed his master qualification in guitar and lute making in Mittenwald and received the gold medal and the Bavarian State Government's Master Craftsman Award.
The Vinzenz Bachmayer 2025 has a bearclaw spruce top and African blackwood back and sides, finished in French polish. Bachmayer uses traditional seven-strut fan bracing with an added diagonal bar, and the neck extends into the body towards the rosette. The scale is 650 mm. More instruments in our Vinzenz Bachmayer collection.
Watch the Performance
Browse the repertoire in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces.
