As one of the world’s best-known classical guitarists, John Williams has been responsible for both raising the instrument’s profile and expanding its repertoire. Born in Melbourne, Australia, he began his studies at age 4 under the direction of his father, a jazz guitarist; as a young man, he traveled to Spain to study with classical master Andrés Segovia. Today Williams, 69, has performed and recorded virtually every piece for the standard classical guitar repertoire; he has also championed African, Cuban, and Latin American composers, as well as collaborated with a wide range of pop and jazz artists, including Pete Townsend and Cleo Laine. He returns to the Bay Area for a concert Oct. 17 at Herbst Theatre; hosted by San Francisco Performances in association with the Omni Foundation, he’ll perform works by Villa-Lobos, Leo Brouwer, Francis Bebey, and Augustín Barrios Mangoré, in addition to two of his own compositions. In a recent call from his home in London, he talked about his work and this week’s concert, which marks his 10th appearance for San Francisco Performances.
You started your career in the late 1950s. Obviously, the music business has changed quite a bit since then. How have opportunities for classical guitarists changed?
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I think the classical guitar is much more widely ... I could say “accepted,” but I don’t think that’s the right word, because I think that was very much a self-conscious sort of battle that the guitar was fighting in the 1950s and ’60s: to get to be respected. I don’t go along with that. I don’t think it’s ever had a problem. I think its problem then was being cast in with 19th-century European classical music: In other words, it was the effort to get it accepted in the same established way as European instruments like piano and violin. With the guitar, what’s happened is that the classical music horizons have widened and the establishment has realized that there’s more music than just European music. I hate to use buzzwords like world music and multiculturalism, but the guitar is very central to all these cultures, Africa and Latin America in particular. So the so-called fight in the ’50s and ’60s to get the guitar established has become a little postdated. It’s more than accepted. It’s a very popular instrument, even to the general public, whether it’s film music or Bach or Albéniz.
Also, I don’t think the actual act of giving concerts has changed at all. In the music business, as far as publishing and recording [are concerned], it’s changed a lot. But that’s neither here nor there. The constant thread is that people still like going to concerts, and as a musician who likes giving concerts, you go along and you play, and people come and listen. That hasn’t changed at all, and I hope it doesn’t.
Yet the guitar still seems a much more specialized instrument, in some ways. There are, for example, many more violinists than classical guitarists before the public today. Why is that?
I think it’s only more specialized from a classical point of view. We spent a long time trying to establish both the character and the sound of the instrument, but also a repertoire. With the best of intentions, Segovia, in particular, wanted to establish the guitar as a serious classical instrument. But that’s not the sum total of music today. It never was, but with communications and musicians from different continents mixing together and playing together and audiences getting a chance to hear African music, it renders this idea of the guitar as a specialized instrument a bit passé. Of course it is specialized, from a 19th-century point of view. But from the point of view of a popular instrument, I would say the violin is more specialized. The violin and the piano don’t belong in traditional music the way the guitar does. I think that’s an important distinction, and I think it cannot be overestimated, the importance of this: that classical musicians have a lot to learn from popular music. It’s proving quite a bitter pill for them to swallow, but I think they’re going to have to.
The program you’ll perform in San Francisco certainly reflects that wider view. Can you say a little about how you put it together?
I thought it would be really nice to have a Latin American theme. That’s apart from Francis Bebey, who’s from Cameroon, and from my own little pieces. The Five Preludes of Villa-Lobos are, by now, very expanded repertoire for the guitar, and along with Leo Brouwer, who I think is the greatest of the guitar composers, I thought that would make a nice first half. Then Augustín Barrios Mangoré [a Paraguayan guitarist and composer] is someone I’ve played for years; I love his music, and always try to include it. For me, that completes the character of major Latin American guitar music. They’re the pillars of the program.
The reason I’ve put in my own pieces, and those of Francis Bebey, is that a lot of Latin American music is greatly influenced by African music, whether it’s the Caribbean or Brazil, even the west coast of the Andes — there’s a lot of African influence in Ecuador and Peru. Until the last 20 or 30 years, that’s been very underestimated, very undervalued. It’s common knowledge now, or should be. But the Leo Brouwer piece, El Decameron Negro, is based on traditional tales taken down in the late 19th century in West Africa, and a lot of Brouwer’s music is influenced by the Afro-Cuban tradition — in small musical ways, the way he uses harmony and rhythm and things like that. So I thought it would be quite nice to have a piece from West Africa. And then my own pieces, simply because I’ve been writing a lot of short pieces in the last few years: the three pieces from the suite From a Bird, but the fourth piece, “Hello Francis,” is a little homage to Francis Bebey, and is based on a rhythm from his piece. I’m quite keen to encourage the African side of the guitar, because I think it’s something that should be explored more by guitarists. So those pieces are kind of stuck in the middle of the program as a little link.
I don’t see any Bach on the program. Will the audience hear a little bit of Bach?
No, it’s strictly a Latin American program — with a few interruptions by me.
You’ve done a great deal to advance those composers, and you’re very active in commissioning new works. Who are the composers you most admire?
There are so many, in their own different ways. So far, for me, the most continually interesting composer is Leo Brouwer. I think he’s the one who can speak to the wider public. There’s a lot of music being written for the guitar, but it’s largely for a guitar audience, as opposed to a general music audience. Steven Dodgson, in England, and Peter Sculpthorpe, in Australia, have also reached outside the guitar audience to a wider public. But I think Brouwer is outstanding. Thank God he’s still going strong in Cuba! And I look forward to whatever he does.
What is your own system for practice and learning new works?
I can’t give an overall answer; sometimes I don’t practice for a week or two, then I have to practice a lot to get the fingers strong for a concert. There’s no routine whatsoever.
What do you recommend for guitarists who are just starting out?
I recommend they enjoy their practice. Find a way to enjoy it. That’s the most important thing. It’s the process of learning, thinking about what you’re doing, enjoying it, and doing it because you understand what you’re doing. Practicing endless scales and studies by rote, simply because your teacher told you to do it ... if you don’t enjoy it, then find a different way of doing it.
What else is on your schedule this fall?
I’m doing a lot of concerts in England this month, and in November. Then I’m taking three months off. After that, more concerts — I have a duo with John Etheridge, and we do a lot in England, and then I’ll be coming back to the U.S., to the East Coast this time, and then to Japan.
What will you do in your three months off?
I can’t tell you yet. I’ll tell you when I’ve done it [laughs]. I work at home; I have a social life, family life, dogs. Just ordinary life.