Summa Kitharologica, Volume 2

This second volume of Ricardo Iznaola’s monumental Summa Kitharologica trilogy is, according to its author, “a playbook for self-guided discovery” in matters related to the expressive interpretation of music.

Its 26 short pieces in all keys, in versions for solo guitar and guitar duo, present the reader with an ample array of musical styles and technical procedures that serve as so many opportunities for exploration of the fascinating and complex growth process that brings the player from basic acquaintance with a score to masterful assimilation of its contents.

As the distinguished British guitarist and pedagogue Jonathan Leathwood remarks in his Foreword to the book, at this point, the player “is so at one with the score that they can stretch it – and occasionally contradict it – without ever betraying its essential meaning,” attaining that “desirable imprecision” proposed as a marker of ultimate mastery by cellist and pedagogue Pedro de Alcántara, as Leathwood reminds us.

The musical contents are complemented by brief epigraphs preceding each solo miniature, ranging from the factual to the poetic, whose purpose is to anchor the music in an evocative, affect-charged context that may hopefully stir the player’s imagination, as will the excellent recordings by Laura Husbands and the Arabesque Duo. 

Additional commentaries in the Working Notes section, in the appendix, and in the afterword deal with topics as diverse as mental practice, synesthesia, musical peak experiences, prosody and rhythm theory, the hazards of a performing career, and the performer’s need for (and the challenges of) introspective self-assessment. Throughout, the book advocates, as its core thesis, the importance of a questioning stance: “what if…” as the path to discovery through changes in points of view, a consistently variable perspectivist approach, in which comparison and evaluation of multiple alternatives, rather than prescriptive pre-ordained solutions, is taken as the foundation for true understanding.

Volume 3 of Summa Kitharologica, Handbook of Comparative Fingering Analysis, completes the set with a comprehensive analytical overview of guitar fingering strategies since the early 19th century.