Alberto Garcia
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Alberto Guerrero in 1930s
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Birth name
| Antonio Alberto Garcia Guerrero
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Born
| (
1886-02-06
)
February 6, 1886
La Serena
,
Chile
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Died
| November 7, 1959
(1959-11-07)
(aged 73)
Toronto, Ontario
, Canada
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Musical artist
Antonio Alberto Garcia Guerrero
(February 6, 1886 – November 7, 1959) was a
Chilean
composer, pianist, and teacher. While he is most famously remembered as the mentor of Canadian pianist
Glenn Gould
, Garcia influenced several generations of musicians through his many years of teaching at the
Toronto Conservatory of Music
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Born in
La Serena, Chile
, Guerrero first studied piano with his mother and older brother Daniel; he was otherwise self-taught. After the family moved to
Santiago
in the early 1890s, he became part of a group of artists and intellectuals who called themselves Los Diez. As a resourceful composer and talented concert pianist, Guerrero would have a reform-minded influence on Chilean musical life.
[1]
His brother Eduardo became a music critic and Alberto contributed articles and reviews to the newspaper
El diario ilustrado
. He published a treatise in 1915 entitled
La armonia moderna
(now lost).
Guerrero introduced Chilean audiences to the modern music of his day, including works by
Debussy
,
Ravel
,
Cyril Scott
,
Scriabin
, and
Schoenberg
. He founded and conducted Santiago's first symphony orchestra and was active in founding the
Sociedad Bach
in 1917.
In 1918, during a honeymoon trip to
New York City
, Guerrero came in contact with members of the Hambourg family, who invited him to teach at the recently established
Hambourg Conservatory
in
Toronto
. Guerrero accepted this position and emigrated to
Canada
with his wife and daughter the following year.
In Toronto, Guerrero performed for a few years with the
Hambourg Trio
(having replaced pianist
Mark Hambourg
). While he shifted his focus to piano technique and pedagogy, he expanded his performing repertory to include works from
Purcell
through
Les Six
. As one of Canada's most active pianists, he played regular radio recitals (a highly innovative move at the time) beginning in the mid-1920s and through to the early 1950s. He also initiated a subscription series of solo recitals from 1932 to 1937. Each season's four or five recitals would cover often neglected works by
Bach
,
Alessandro Scarlatti
,
Haydn
,
Mozart
, 18th-century Spanish composers, 20th-century French composers, and
Stravinsky
. Bach pieces included the complete inventions and sinfonias as well as the
Goldberg Variations
, all of which would be later popularized by his pupil
Glenn Gould
. Guerrero performed in various chamber ensembles with musicians such as with Frank Blachford (violin), Leo Smith (cello),
Harold Sumberg
(violin), and Cornelius Ysselstyn (cello). For over a decade, he was also a member of the Five Piano Ensemble.
In 1922, Guerrero left the Hambourg Conservatory and joined the Toronto Conservatory of Music (
Royal Conservatory of Music
), where he remained until his death in Toronto in 1959, having established himself as one of Canada's preeminent music teachers.
Guerrero was known to be quiet and focused.
[1]
His near self-effacement instead gave rise to the most prominent Canadian musicians of the late 20th century. He had a decisive technical and aesthetic influence on
Glenn Gould
, whom he mentored for 10 years, even though Gould would later claim to be self-taught. Guerrero was also known for his keen intellect and eloquence vis-a-vis painting, poetry, and philosophy (
Comte
,
Husserl
,
Sartre
). "He was one of the few musicians from whom a student would get a vista of ideas beyond music," recalls composer
R. Murray Schafer
,
[2]
who composed
In Memoriam Alberto Guerrero
a few months after his teacher's death.
Compositions
[
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]
Guerrero had been known as a versatile composer in
Santiago
. In addition to a number of chamber works and piano solos, he wrote music for 4 or 5 operettas and zarzuelas (now lost) which were produced in
Chile
between 1908 and 1915. However, after moving to
Canada
, Guerrero focused more on teaching, though a couple of piano works (
Tango
and
Southern Seas
) were published in 1937. He also collaborated with his second wife
Myrtle Rose Guerrero
to co-author
The New Approach to the Piano
(2 vols., 1935?36).
Students
[
edit
]
As a prominent member of the music circles in
Santiago
and later at the
Toronto Conservatory of Music
, Garcia influenced generations of students who would go on to shape the musical life of
Chile
,
Canada
, and beyond. What follows is an incomplete list:
Recordings
[
edit
]
- Glenn Gould: His First Recordings (1947?1952). Video Artists International 1198 (2001).
Notes
[
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Archive collection
An archive collection of Guerrero's manuscripts and papers is located at the
University of Toronto
Music Library.
External links
[
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]
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