Ricardo Moyano • Interview and Photographs • Classical Guitar Magazine

Before living in Turkey, you lived in Paris for a few years. Could you tell us about your life there?

I moved to Paris to deepen my knowledge of Renaissance baroque music, performing with musicians from several countries and different regions of Argentina, each with their own styles and rhythms. I also had the benefit of the magnificent documents that are available to all; in the excellent public libraries, and I participated in many musical festivals of all kinds and styles. My years in Paris were very important for my self development as a musician.

You began to live in Turkey in 1993. What brought you to this country and what keeps you there?

I was tired of the miserable working conditions in which I was forced to live, the always gray sky and the absolute certainty that these conditions would not change. By chance - if there is such a thing - I was invited to play several times in Istanbul and, during one of these concerts, I met Sibel who became my companion. She came to France. After being rejected for nine months by all the employers to whom she had submitted her brilliant CV - just like me, who had been rejected for six years. We had finally given up any dream or hope of living in Europe, and came to the Third World. Despite all the disasters that occur there, we are better off here than anywhere else.

How would you describe the music you create in general?

Instrumental. In other words, music without songs or lyrics, that is, music that almost nobody wants to listen to.

The term "Baroque music" is widely used today, but opinions often differ as to its meaning. For example, in her essay "The Baroque and Music" (1948), the Belgian musicologist Suzanne Clercx attempts to find elements in musical language that can be paralleled with plastic phenomena. Sometimes, she explains, this attempt at harmony, which is successful at the level of detail, does not hold at the level of synthesis; there is therefore no precise definition of the concept. How do you define the music of the classical baroque and, more precisely, of the "Latin classical baroque"?

The term "Latin Classical Baroque" was coined by my wife to refer to the styles I play. I am not familiar with the work of this Belgian musicologist, because this type of association - architecture-painting-music - does not provide useful ideas to an instrumentalist for the interpretation of the music of this period. As almost everyone knows, it was written in one way, but performed in another. I take this opportunity to recommend to the curious these five important books on the subject: "Apuntes de interpretación para el

renacimiento y el barroco",by Jorge Cardoso (2010), "Les secrets de la musique ancienne", by Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume (1964), "Essai d'une méthode pour apprendre à jouer de la flûte traversière", by Johann J. Quantz (1752), "Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments", by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1753) and finally, a foremost (where the same thing is explained, which connects Baroque music to a consequence and logical continuation of Renaissance music), "Arte de Tañer Fantasía", by Fray Tomas de Sancta María (1565).

There are definitions of baroque guitar music that summarize it as: "...filler chords, strumming effects, and dissonances, usually dealing in some way with reentrant chords and idioms". How do you approach this tradition without buying a baroque guitar?

The batteria is a specificity of the style, yes. Our early music teacher, Javier Hinojosa, used to say that it is more convenient to approach a score with an original mind than with an original instrument; with a modern guitar, one can interpret a baroque tablature perfectly for 99% of the time. It is enough to inform oneself, besides everything was well explained by the friends and sons of Bach, without going further. Most musicians, especially those who play on an "original" instrument, ignore this. Phrasing, articulation, metronomic measures and rhythmic mutations are essential elements of style, which are not written in the score or tablature. For this, one must read the treatises of the time to which I referred above. As far as I know, only Marco Meloni and Jorge Cardoso respect these things... and me. Anyway, this beautiful music can be perfectly adapted to another context, Jacques Loussier tells me, more than with dozens of harpsichord specialists…

What made you decide to become a "Latin classical baroque guitarist"?

Chance, which governs everything in this life, and the desire to explore more deeply these three styles of music: baroque, classical and Latin American music. I would never play music I didn't understand.

What is your favorite place, scene or reason to play guitar or give a concert? 

No preference for the place, the stage or the reason. The important thing is that there is silence and that it is not cold.

The Tango was inscribed on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009 by UNESCO. Presumably, tango must hold a special place in your life.

As a child, I listened to Gardel, accompanied by guitars, a record that I still have but now listen to on the Internet.

In Paris, I had the chance to meet and work with Tata Cedrón; we traveled almost all over France with a repertoire of old instrumental tangos. I have beautiful memories of these trips. In Turkey, I also worked a lot with the bandoneonist Gustavo Battistessa. I see tango as being more related to voluptuousness, while the brain and/or the heart are in charge of love, and the body, the physical effort, is focused on the dance. Tango in the heritage of humanity? Well, I did not know.

The French newspaper Dépêche du Midi calls you "The Maradona of the tango guitar" and continues: "Ricardo Moyano's music reflects the path of the man, made of heart and roots: Argentinian parents, Madrid diplomas, stays in France and daily life in Istanbul. Do you agree with this way of presenting it?

I appreciate this exaggerated and complimentary epithet from the French newspaper, but I can't agree, because I'm not a tango guitarist to begin with. To tell the truth, it's a style I've listened to a lot, but never practiced... Needless to say, there's a difference in financial reward between a man who runs and kicks and one who just plucks strings and makes a little noise. The difference between what a sportsman - not a "virtuoso" like Maradona, but a "normal" one - earns and what a musician - even a virtuoso - earns is obscene, and a perfect example of how the powerful who rule the world and public opinion rule. As for travel, degrees and roots, I agree.

Is there a deep meaning, a hidden meaning, behind your music?

I don't think so at all, but I can say that listening to or making music helps to live.

What are your musical influences?

Without a doubt, what you listen to as a child is the main influence - in my case, classical music - and then comes all the others, which are not influences in themselves, but perhaps indirectly. Traditional music from any country - all of them, without exception - and jazz. As for the guitarists, Eduardo Falú in the first place, Baden Powell, Jorge Cardoso, Juan Falú, Toninho Ramos, Carlo Domeniconi, Marco Meloni, Egberto Gismonti, of course Atahualpa Yupanqui, and without a doubt, I forget to mention some others.

It is sometimes said that "the guitar is an extension of the guitarist's body". In terms of your relationship to the instrument, you are intertwined, creating a totality that is much more than an extension of the body. Could you help us understand this impression?

I don't understand it myself, but that's how it is... It's always been that way.