Ignacio Fleta (Spanish, 1897–1977). Guitar, 1953. Barcelona, Spain. Spruce, rosewood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Partial and Promised Gift of The Jonathan & Faye Kellerman Foundation, 2010 (2010.420)
From Jayson Dobney, Associate Curator and Administrator, Department of Musical Instruments:
The Department of Musical Instruments at the Met presents a series of gallery concerts on the first Wednesday of every month, from September to June, at 2:30 p.m. At some of these concerts, qualified musicians perform on select instruments from the permanent collection. In June of this year, classical guitarist and conductor Kevin Sherwin performed on a beautiful guitar made by Ignacio Fleta in 1953, which is a partial and promised gift of the Jonathan and Faye Kellerman Foundation. Kevin has received many awards, including top honors from the National YoungArts Foundation, and is currently a student at Yale University. After his performance, Kevin offered the following thoughts about his opportunity to play this instrument at the Museum.
Kevin Sherwin plays the Museum's 1953 Ignacio Fleta guitar during a gallery concert in the Robert Lehman Court, June 2015. Photo by Thomas Ling
«For the June gallery concert at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I had the privilege of performing on a 1953 Ignacio Fleta guitar from the Museum's collection. To me, it was quite a revelation. I realized on my way to the first session with the instrument that I hadn't spent a lot of time playing a guitar made before 1980, so I knew I was in for something really special.»
Playing the Fleta was like interacting with a human being. As I gradually realized the variety of articulations and timbres that are inherent to this instrument, I was able to experiment with my hand position, touch (on both the left and right hands), and vibrato, to name a few factors, which allowed me to immediately express how I heard the music. By the same token, I heard new things in in these compositions, some of which I had been playing for years. The Fleta has a phenomenally warm and resonant sound, with frets that were specially placed to favor pure intonation for thirds and fifths.
The instrument welcomes music from a wide range of styles, from the eighteenth through the twenty-first century. My first piece in the concert was a work by J.S. Bach. In the various neighboring weightings that are built into Baroque music, the instrument responded to slurs and various kinds of rearticulation as if I had been playing with a Baroque bow. The nineteenth-century work of Fernando Sor that followed the Bach greatly benefited from the timbral palette of the guitar by enabling relations between phrases and the wondrous counterpoint.
Playing Spanish works by Joaquín Turina from the first half of the twentieth century was revelatory. I immediately understood why guitar recordings from the 1950s and 1960s sound the way they do. The instrument unlocks an intimacy and expressivity, as well as the shape and arc inherent in any melodic line. Almost surprisingly, works of Andrew York, from 2006, also sounded great on the Fleta, particularly in the nuanced sounds of the different registers, allowing the bass, middle, and upper voices to speak with distinction and ultimately to interact and cohere with each other. In this way, the instrument's soundscape proves remarkable for music not only from its period, but from times both past and future.
It was a privilege to perform at the Met and a really transformative experience for me as a musician to play the Fleta guitar. I'll be looking for a new guitar this summer, and, based on my recent experience, it will likely be one from the mid-twentieth century.
Kevin Sherwin performs Joaquín Turina's Sonata for Solo Guitar, Op. 61, III. Allegro vivo, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recorded June 2015
Related Links
Upcoming Gallery Concert: The New Hudson Saxophone Quartet, Wednesday, September 2, 2:30 p.m.
Of Note: View all blog posts related to guitars in the Museum's collection