Stefan Koim, head of the guitar department at the University of Osnabrück and a specialist in both the modern classical guitar and historical plucked instruments, continues his exploration of the rarer corners of the twentieth-century repertoire for Siccas Media. After his recording of Milhaud's Segoviana, he turns here to a closely related rarity: Segovia, Op. 29 by Albert Roussel. You can read more about the artist in our profile of Stefan Koim.
About Segovia Op. 29
Roussel wrote Segovia in 1925 for Andrés Segovia, making it one of the very first works a major French composer dedicated to the Spanish guitarist — years before most of the famous Segovia repertoire existed. Segovia premiered the piece in Paris the same year. Like Milhaud's later tribute, the title honours the man who commissioned it: in the 1920s, writing 'for the guitar' still meant, in practice, writing for Segovia.
The piece is a compact character work. Roussel, who was never a guitarist, approaches the instrument from the outside: angular melodic lines, tart harmonies and a dance-like drive that owes more to his crisp neoclassical style than to Spanish folklore. Exactly this friction makes the work valuable — it documents a French modernist meeting the guitar on his own terms, and it demands a player who can make unidiomatic writing sound inevitable.
About Albert Roussel
Albert Roussel (1869–1937) came to music late — he first served as a naval officer, and voyages to Indochina left lasting traces in his harmonic imagination. After studies at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he later taught Erik Satie and Edgard Varèse among others, he developed from Impressionism toward the clear-edged neoclassicism of his mature symphonies and ballets such as Bacchus et Ariane. Alongside Ravel, he was one of the most respected French composers of the interwar years — which makes his single guitar work a small treasure of the repertoire.
The Segovia Commissions
Segovia's campaign to build a modern repertoire produced works from dozens of composers, and the earliest responses — Roussel in France, Ponce in Mexico, Torroba and Turina in Spain — laid the foundation everything later built upon. Read more about the guitarist who set it all in motion in our profile of Andrés Segovia.
Watch the Performance
Explore more of the repertoire this era created in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces.
