Are you guitarist? Did you play "Julia florida"? If you played Barrios' music, you will find he's actually a very talented, romantic and just wonderful guitar music composer.
Agustin Pio Barrios Mangore was born in May 5, 1885, in the small town of San Juan Bautista de las Misiones (Paraguay), into a large family which esteemed both music and literature. He began to play the guitar at a very early age. By the age of 13 he was recognized as a prodigy and given a scholarship to the Colegio Nacional de Asuncion, where, in addition to music, he distinguished himself in mathematics, journalism and literature.
Barrios was quoted as having said: "One cannot become a guitarist if he has not bathed in the fountain of culture". In addition to spanish he also spoke Guarani, the native tongue of Paraguay. He read French, English and German and was immersed in philosophy, poetry and theosophy. Musically he was a tremendous improviser, and his fantastic creative ability enabled him to compose over 300 works for the guitar!
On June 22, 2002, the 1911 Jose Ramirez guitar used by Agustin Barrios to record what many scholars have said were the first commercial classical guitar recordings on the Artigas and Atlanta record labels, was sold at auction at my Evanston workshop to an anonymous American collector.
As described in the Rico Stover Biography of Barrios, Six Silver Moonbeams, this was the instrument acquired by Barrios from his first major patron, Carlos Trapani, who owned a music store in Montevideo, Uruguay. Trapani sponsored Barrios in his first public appearance in Montevideo in 1912. Later in 1921, Trapani was the first to publish Barrios' compositions. During his stay in Montevideo, Barrios also went to a photography studio where he had a publicity photo taken holding this same guitar, which is illustrated in the Barrios biography.
According to the legend surrounding this guitar, Barrios was crossing a river with his car tied to a ferry when the car lost its moorings and fell off the ferry into the river, taking the guitar with it. The guitar was retrieved from the river and repaired, the repairmen writing a date of 1913 on the inside end block. However, it was not until 1914 that Barrios made his first recordings, so it was in this repaired condition that the guitar was used for the historic first commercial recordings.
