A tribute to the legacy of Segovia with guitar by Hermann Hauser I, 1931, Frank Wallace plays Villa-Lobos, Turina, Mompou, Tárrega, de Falla and Wallace. Five of the first six tracks on Omaggio, Wallace's 25th recording, are homages. Villa-Lobos dedicated his Prelude #1 to the “Brazilian country dweller” and his Prelude #3 to Bach; Omaggio, Le Tombeau de Debussy is de Falla’s nod to the master and Turina felt inspired to honor Tárrega with his Homenaje a Tárrega. Dreams on a Lullaby, variations on the folk-song Noi de la Mare, is a homage to Catalan guitarist/composer Miguel Llobet and the great art and music of his native Catalunya. Federico Mompou, also Catalan, dedicated his Suite Compostelana to Andrés Segovia. He named it after the famed pilgrimage city Santiago de Compostela, home of Música en Compostela, the festival that featured Segovia’s summer masterclass for decades. Wallace went to that class in 1972. He met jis future brother-in-law, but not Segovia, who was ill. A decade later Wallace performed medieval music at the Música en Compostela festival, unaware that Segovia and the magnificent repertoire he engendered had left an indelible mark on his musical soul, which you will hear here. This CD, was initiated by an old friend, the late Edmund Brelsford. In 2010 Edmund invited Wallace to do a concert of Segovia repertoire on his beloved 1931 Hermann Hauser I guitar (born the same year as he), in honor of the 100th birthday of its original owner, Blanche Honegger Moyse (1909-2011). Smitten by Andrés Segovia’s concerts in Geneva in 1929, the young violinist Blanche Honegger asked Segovia if she could study with him, which she did, even living for a time in the Segovia household in Paris. Two years later, Segovia commissioned a concert guitar from Hermann Hauser. Of the two instruments Hauser delivered, Segovia kept one. The other, the guitar on this CD, he gave to Blanche. At the end of World War II, now a member of the illustrious Moyse Trio with her husband and father-in-law, she and the guitar left France on a boat to Argentina, finally settling in Vermont. Her Hauser guitar, which had not weathered well the long journey, eventually came into the hands of Edmund Brelsford. In 1999 Hermann Hauser III, the master’s grandson, undertook a major restoration, and there it was: a sunburst of sound, with colors of every hue, each tone ever-so-reluctantly melting into the next. Its true voice, muted for fifty years, sings again. Wallace says. "Playing this magical guitar has been a gift to me. In the process of relearning decades-ignored music for that 2010 concert and this recording, music I deeply love, I am more and more amazed at the myriad streams of life that flow into each ocean we call a human being. The decades I spent playing lute and vihuela, singing solo and choral music, teaching young professionals or young and old beginners—not to mention composing—all has made my understanding of the great masters of guitar so much deeper. It is a joy, an honor, an expression of gratitude to dedicate this recording to all my mentors."
