Pablo Sáinz-Villegas wants to bring the classical guitar ‘back to the people’

No one did more in the 20th century to thrust the classical guitar into the international spotlight than Andrés Segovia, whose magnetic personality and impassioned artistry gained him enormous popularity through a huge performing career that ran from 1909 to nearly his death in 1987.

Many of the classical guitarists who followed, including Julian Bream, Christopher Parkening, Pepe Romero and John Williams (not to be confused with the famed film composer), rode the wave he launched, commissioning new works for the instrument and gaining considerable fame of their own.

“But after that second generation after Segovia,” said Spanish-born guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, “the guitar started to fade out from the main orchestras, the main stages, and it went back to smaller concert halls and more classical-guitar societies.”

When Sáinz-Villegas, now 48, was a teenager, that’s the classical-guitar world he encountered. Right from the start, he strived to become one of the leaders in trying to restore the prominence of the instrument, performing with increasingly celebrated orchestras and conductors around the world. “To me, it was a matter of I want to play for people,” he said. “I want to play as Segovia did. I want to bring the guitar back to the people. That’s been my goal since then.”

Sáinz-Villegas returns to Symphony Center on Nov. 6-8 to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti, Music Director Emeritus for Life, in what remains by far the best-known concerto for guitar: Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. The guitarist made his Chicago debut in the summer of 2017 with the Grant Park Music Festival and appeared for the first time with the CSO  (also in the Concierto de Aranjuez) in 2019.

The creation of Concierto de Aranjuez was sparked during a dinner in Santander, Spain, in September 1938 that included Rodrigo, guitarist Regino Saínz de la Maza and the Marqués de Bolarqué. During the evening, his companions urged the composer write a guitar concerto, and he agreed. The resulting piece, finished the following year, is inspired by the lavish gardens at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez in Madrid, one of the official residences of the Spanish royal family that was built by King Philip II in the last half of the 16th century.

Sáinz-Villegas, probably like many classical guitarists, loves this classic and plays it regularly. But at the same time, he wishes that orchestras would present more of the other wonderful concertos for the instrument, including about 15 that he carries in his repertoire. “On one hand, it’s a blessing,” he said of the Concierto de Aranjuez, “because it’s an entry point to so many orchestras. It’s a great piece, I love it, and I’ve played it so many times that it’s part of my voice.”

But every time he plays the work, he tries to use that opportunity to apprise orchestra leaders of some of the many other concertos out there they might consider. He is a big fan, for example of John Corigliano’s Troubadours (Variations for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra) (1993), which he describes as “full of poetry.” He also praises the guitar concertos of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Manuel Maria Ponce and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

“People don’t know very much of the repertoire of the classical guitar,” said Sáinz-Villegas, “and it is my purpose to not only expand the repertoire for guitar and orchestra, but also to introduce pieces to orchestras and maestros.” Last season, he premiered a guitar concerto that he commissioned from Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, and he continues to perform it on tour. “It’s a beautiful concerto, full of rhythm and dashes of color,” he said.

"As Berlioz used to say, the guitar is a micro-orchestra where you can find all the timbres and atmospheres.” — Pablo Sáinz-Villegas

Unlike many of today’s major classical guitarists, Sáinz-Villegas does not use any specialized amplification of his instrument. “That makes a difference, because it’s presenting the guitar with its vulnerability on one side and with its drama on the other,“ he said. ”It’s a very impressive instrument with so many colors, and as Berlioz used to say, the guitar is a micro-orchestra where you can find all the timbres and atmospheres.”

The conventional thinking is that the instrument does not have a big enough sound to be heard alongside a symphony orchestra, especially in a large theater like Orchestra Hall. But he disagrees, saying it can project with the correct right-hand technique. “When I was 15,” he said, “I had a teacher who was obsessed with the sound production of the right hand, and for three years, we were focused on that technique.”

Producing a voluminous sound on the guitar is like achieving a powerful stroke in tennis, he said. In that sport, it’s a matter of achieving leverage through the full use of the arm, and in the case of the guitar, it’s about maximizing the strength of each finger strumming the strings. “This technique is based in starting the movement from the first articulation [of the finger], the one in the knuckles, and then bending the second articulation and third articulation with a lot of commitment to the string, so you really maximize all the power of the string and the instrument. It’s a matter of physics.”

Also necessary for the guitar to be heard properly is a conductor sensitive to the balance between the guitar and orchestra, and a composer who understands those sound variables as well. “Joaquin Rodrigo was very sensitive, and when this concerto premiered in 1939, nobody played with amplification because the technology wasn’t there yet,“ Sáinz-Villegas said. ”He was very aware of creating a very delicate orchestration, and it works perfectly.”

Born in La Rioja in northern Spain, Sáinz-Villegas pursued the instrument at the local conservatory and continued at the Royal Superior Conservatory of Music in Madrid with José Luis Rodrigo. From 1997 to 2001, he studied with at Germany’s Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, finally earning a postgraduate diploma in 2004 with David Starobin at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Villegas has won honors in more than a dozen international competitions, including first prize at the 2003 International Guitar Competition Francisco Tárrega.

As he has built his career, he has strived to enhance the popularity of classical guitar, which he believes can help draw new audiences to the classical genre in general. “The guitar is a natural bridge between popular music and classical music,” he said. “It’s always been so since its conception in the Renaissance, when in Spain, there was guitar in the streets, but also in castles and being played for kings and queens. So that’s part of the DNA of the classical guitar.”

A big change in today’s generation of top classical-guitar soloists is that many come from places other than Europe and North America. An example is Xuefei Yang, the first classical guitarist to earn a bachelor’s degree from China’s Central Conservatory of Music and first Chinese-born soloist on the instrument to build an international reputation.

“The guitar is very international,” Sáinz-Villegas said. “Nowadays, there are international students from all around the world, from South America all the way to Asia. There are amazing guitarists.”