Minstrel of Magical Strings.

• Author: Bach, Caleb

WITH MASTERFUL COMPOSITIONS AND AN ENIGMATIC PERSONALITY, GUITARIST AGUSTIN BARRIOS LEFT A LEGACY THAT RESOUNDS FAR BEYOND HIS NATIVE PARAGUAY

Agustin Barrios was one of the great guitar virtuosi of this century. Yet driven by self-doubt, he lacked the confidence early in his career to take credit for his own work, attributing it instead to obscure European composers. In seeming counterpoint, he first audaciously billed himself as "the Paganini of the guitar" and "the magician of the guitar." Sometimes, to impress locals, he would say he had just returned from an overseas concert tour when in fact he made only one such trip (near the end of his life). And for a while he adopted the onstage identity of a Guarani cacique named Mangore, to whom he attached the name Nitsuga (his own first name spelled backwards).

But Barrios's opposing sensibilities seemed to find peace in his own deftly blended compositions for the guitar. His music reflects a special awareness of the instrument's potential--in technique and tonal nuance. Much of his music is rooted in a popular idiom because as a youth he first learned to play the traditional polkas, waltzes, galopas, and sambas of his native Paraguay. But his compositions are anything but folk tunes. He also received formal training in music theory, which permitted him to employ the complex thematic variations, counterpoint, and sophisticated harmonies associated with classical music. Notable in his music are its clean melodic lines because despite often intimidating passages--one needs nimble fingers to play Barrios--the song never gets lost.

"What makes the music of Barrios so complex and challenging for performers is the combination of two worlds: classical music and the popular music of Latin America," says Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas. Closely identified with the music of Barrios, Rojas served as artistic director of the 1994 Barrios Festival in Asuncion and continues to direct the ongoing Concurso de Interpretacion, a competition for young musicians in Paraguay. "You have to be a solid guitarist with a strong technique because Barrios was a virtuoso performer who composed with the instrument in his hands."

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in Barrios's classical guitar music. Particularly since the centenary of his birth, in 1985, knowledge of his work, once limited to a small circle of guitar aficionados, has grown steadily. And in 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of his death, more celebrations occurred, among them a juried competition for guitarists and composers in Asuncion, the Concurso y Festival Internacional de Guitarra Agustin Barrios. On that occasion, then-president of Paraguay Juan Carlos Wasmosy posthumously awarded Barrios the National Order of Merit, a postage stamp in his honor was issued, and an effort was launched to renovate and expand a small Agustin Barrios Museum in the composer's birthplace. Today his works, many of them technically demanding, belong to the repertoire of many leading guitarists and often fill entire programs.

"What's special with Barrios is that the music doesn't sound hard when it's played well. It's very expressive, often romantic," says guitarist Richard Stover, who has published four volumes of Barrios's sheet music, as well as released, through his own record label, original recordings of the guitarist himself. "He created music in many different styles, and he didn't repeat himself. There is lots of eclecticism. A performer can get away with an entire concert of only the music of Barrios because of its range: very pure classical compositions, syrupy popular stuff, romantic pieces a la Chopin. In contrast, one couldn't do a satisfying concert of just guitar music by Villa Lobos because essentially it's all the same."

Agustin Pio Barrios was born in the small town of San Juan Bautista de las Misiones, 125 miles south of Asuncion, on May 5, 1885. His father, Doroteo, a native of Argentina, served as his country's commercial vice-consul, while his Paraguayan mother, Martina Ferreira, taught grade school. His mother enjoyed literature and his father played the guitar, thus not surprisingly these interests were transmitted to Agustin and his six brothers: Hector, Romulo, Virgilio, Diodoro, Jose, and Francisco Martin. From the time he first picked up a guitar at age seven, Barrios seemed to have an innate feel for the instrument. Very soon local citizens were touting him as a guitar prodigy. One day, when Argentine guitarist Gustavo...