Download As with other works by Ponce, Segovia did suggest several changes

Paquita Madriguera was a pianist and student of Granados in Barcelona. Paquita was my aunt. She had
quite a career as a concert soloist and performed also
with Maestro Segovia in many concerts internationally.
Alberto Escande, an Uruguayan journalist, has released
a book entitled Don Andrés and Paquita. The book discusses their lives together on many levels. It is in Spanish, and I believe that the book was reviewed recently in
Soundboard. … Also, a biography of Segovia by Alberto
Lopez Poveda, the director of the Segovia Museum and
Archive, has a photo and some detail about Segovia and
Paquita. The two-volume set is a recent publication of
the University of Jaen (Spain). Finally, there is a CD of
Paquita Madriguera released by a British company on a
series entitled Great Women Pianists. It is re-mastered
from a piano roll which my aunt made, in the late 1920s
I believe. While Paquita did not play the guitar, she did
compose at least one piece, Humorada, published by
Columbia Music and recorded by John Williams.
As with other works by Ponce, Segovia did suggest
several changes to the guitar part of the concerto. In one
letter, Segovia wrote Ponce stating that: “I have modified
a few small things … All the essentials are intact.” In another, Segovia requested several changes to the cadenza of
the first movement. Viewing a copy of the original score,
one can immediately see that several modifications to the
guitar part were made. However, a thorough comparison
of the original score with the published score will be left
for another article.
Finally, through Segovia’s tenacity and hard work, the
plans for Ponce’s visit to Montevideo were completed. The
composer arrived there on August 29, 1941. The next evening, Lange hosted a reception of the Society of Authors and
Composers of Uruguay, with Ponce as the honored guest. On
September 20, Ponce gave a lecture on the history of Mexican
music to an audience of about two thousand. Ponce wrote to
his wife, Clema, that: “I don’t think there could ever have been
a more cultured and attentive audience … I had to go back on
the stage three times. More than two hundred people came
to congratulate me.”
The following review of Ponce’s lecture appeared the next
day in the newspaper La Mañana:
Yesterday in the SODRE, before a large audience, the Mexican composer Manuel Ponce gave a lecture, as announced,
on the development of the art of music in his country. He
began with the Aztecs and all pre-Hispanic music, down to
our own day, in the course of this interesting lecture. One
can say, then, that yesterday we were present at a worthy
expression of Latin-Americanism.
10
Ponce’s first concert took place on Oct. 4, 1941, at the
Estudio auditorio del SODRE. The program featured some of
Ponce’s most important orchestral works and the newly composed Concierto del sur. Ponce conducted all of the works except the Concierto del sur, which was conducted by Lamberto
Baldi. According to the Uruguayan guitarist Abel Carlevaro
(1916-2001), who attended the rehearsals and the premiere,
Ponce specifically “asked Baldi to take over for his own work
so that he could listen to its first public performance.” The
program included the following compositions:
Pequeña suite en estilo antiguo
Concierto del sur (with Andrés Segovia, soloist)
Poema elegíaca
Chapultepec
This first concert was a tremendous success. El Debate,
one of the major newspapers in Montevideo, published the
following review the day after the concert:
The magnificent concert offered yesterday in the OSSODRE with music by maestro Ponce, and with the guitarist
Andrés Segovia, has left a very deep impression. We have
been present at an evening of superior art. The music of the
eminent composer Manuel Ponce is magnificently inspired
and of extraordinary quality. His guitar concerto, a new
work offered in absolutely its first performance, gave much
pleasure and drew from the public a long ovation, so that
the third movement had to be repeated.
After this first concert, Ponce wrote to his wife, “God
be thanked; enormous success last night. I cannot remember
how often I had to go out and thank the audience. The public
was delirious.”
A second concert of Ponce’s music took place on October
11, 1941, again at the Estudio auditorio del SODRE. This
concert featured the following orchestral works:
Estampas nocturnas
Concierto para piano y orquesta (with Paquita Madriguera as
soloist)
Ferial
Ponce would later travel to Buenos Aire where a concert of his orchestral works was presented on October 20,
1941, in the Teatro nacional de comedia. Ponce was the
conductor for all of the works. The program included the
following works:
Chapultepec
Concierto del Sur (with Andrés Segovia as soloist)
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1