Salvador Garcia (1891- 1964)

Garcia began studying with with Tárrega in 1902. In exchange (and probably in lieu of payment), Garcia’s father gave Tárrega lodging. Garcia later studied harmony and composition at Valencia conservatory with Manuel Palau, and gave his first public guitar concert age 20. He went on to tour Europe, Asia, and North Africa. However, he retired from international concert performance early in his career, confining his activities to Spain (possibly because of psychological illness). Following the example of Tárrega, he gave free guitar lessons;¹ his students included José Luis González and Antonio Chover.²

Garcia reportedly had a unique way of stringing his guitar. According to his student Antonio Company, he would use steel strings for the trebles, because of problems with gut, and to avoid shrillness he would tie silk threads to the strings, near the bridge. Apparently the effect was admirable (playing with flesh may have helped him temper the harshness of the strings), and although some of his students tried to copy it, none could achieve the same effect.³

One of his students, Antontio Verdú, described his teacher’s playing:

His recitals were unpredictably long, though usually long because he never tired of playing. On one occasion, after a brilliant recital, he was carried out of the Teatro Serrano on people’s shoulders. People admired his heartfelt interpretation of the works; he was unique. His broad, vigorous sound was due to his way of plucking, but also because of the metal strings.⁴

There is tantalising evidence that Segovia studied with Garcia. The most detailed account is given by Angelo Gilardino:

… Melchor Rodriguez [student of Garcia] told me, in private conversations, that Segovia never revealed an important point of his youth: when he visited Valencia (around 1915) and he had unfortunate contacts with Tarrega’s students, he was warmly acknowledged by an irregular member of Tarrega’s milieu, Salvador Garcia. According to Rodriguez, and also to other Spanish guitarists who knew him, Garcia was actually the best student Tarrega ever taught, an exceptional performer and also a cultivated musician (he studied also composition with Oscar Espla). He was the son of the owner of a hotel on the coast, called “Pancha [Panxa] Verda” (Green Belly). This became the nickname of Garcia, who was taught by Tarrega when the maestro was a guest in the hotel (it happened pretty often). Garcia did not develop a career as a concert player – though he gave occasionally some recitals – because he was a wealthy man and because he had some mental problem (all those who told me about him, described him as a man who got crazy for women, regardless of their age and beauty). However, Garcia was very friendly to the young Segovia and he had him as a guest in his “finca”, and he taught him all the secrets of Tarrega’s technique. Melchor Rodriguez was one of Garcia’s students. He told me that the best Garcia’s student was José Luis Gonzalez. My attempts to bring light of this attractive character – Salvador Garcia – were unsuccessful: after his death, his documents were dispersed and missed. However, Melchor told me that when he went to Santiago de Compostela and he had his first lesson from Segovia, after he had finished to play a piece, the maestro asked him: “Whom did you learnt from?” and, when Melchor answered “From Salvador Garcia”, Segovia felt visibly touched and asked “Is he still alive?”⁵

Robledo, Llobet and Pujol were all also referred to as Tarrega’s best students. At least, Garcia seems to have been among the best.

Unfortunately, there is not much else I find about him. Although he apparently wrote many transcriptions and compositions, he never published anything, nor did he make any recordings. There is a book on Garcia by Seguí Femenía, but I’ve been unable to get hold of a copy.

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1. Wolf Moser, Francisco Tárrega y la guitarra en España entre 1830 y 1960, trans. Antonio Gómez Schneekloth and Alfredi Botons Muñoz (PILES, Editorial de Música S. A., 2009), p. 345. ↩︎
2. Moser also lists Narcisco Yepes as a student, but I’ve been unable to confirm this. ↩︎
3. Moser, p. 346. ↩︎
4. https://www.festivalguitarragandia.com/historia/salvador-garcia-biografia/ ↩︎
5. Angelo Gilardino, posted in an online forum c. 2010. I have been unable to locate the original post, but the post was saved by another user. Elsewhere, Rodriguez repeats the claim that Segovia studied with Garcia, see https://www.festivalguitarragandia.com/historia/salvador-garcia-biografia/ ↩︎
6. Carlos Blanco Ruiz, Integral de la obra para guitarra de Antonio Chover Salom Biografía, edición crítica y grabación (MundoPlectro, 2017), p. 48. ↩︎