Bach to basics

Born in Rome in 1958, Signor Carlo Ambrosio is a world-renowned classical guitarist, lutenist, musicologist, and composer. On his fifth birthday, he asked for a classical guitar and got one, teaching himself how to play. At the age of eight, he moved to London to continue his guitar studies and attend classes in composition and orchestra conducting at the Royal College of Music. He has taught in the US, Istanbul, and Helsinki and performed over 2,000 concerts all over the world both as a lute and guitar soloist and along with orchestras and string quartets. He has also recorded 24 LP records, many of which were worldwide premiere recordings, and several recitals for international radio and television networks. In conjunction with the Italian Embassy in Islamabad, the Avari Hotel recently invited Signor Ambrosio to perform in Lahore as part of their mutual efforts to promote cultural ties between Pakistan and Italy. This is one of the very few occasions that a classical guitarist of international standing has performed in Pakistan.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you come to play the classical guitar?

I started very early. I was five. Quite by chance, I picked up a classical guitar in a music shop. I could have picked up anything else – a chamber violin, a flute. I picked up a guitar. When you’re lucky enough to pick up what you are designed for, there is no effort, no strength required. It just comes easily. I could have decided to do anything else at five. But, in a fantastic twist of fate, I picked up the one thing that was already embedded in my brain. And when I opened up my first score … [Signor Ambrosio gestures animatedly, showing how reading music had come to him naturally].

After three years, my father had to send me to London to study with Julian Bream because there was no one else I was interested in studying with in Italy. Julian Bream? Who was he, I wondered? The best, I was firmly told. So here I was, this eight-and-a-half-year-old boy clutching two bottles of red wine (which someone had told me he really liked), arriving at his house to say, “You have a new pupil!”

"You have to be able  to feel every breath from the audience on your skin""

You’ve trained as a classical guitarist. Do you play any other instrument?

My music is classical music. The guitar is the means to achieving the end.

Which composers do you find yourself playing the most?

Let me put it this way. The first time I cried was when I heard – live – the “Rach 2” [Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18]. Then I continued crying like a lady over every other piece by Beethoven that I heard. And then over Brahms’ Violin Concerto [in D Major].

You’ve played a lot of Mendelssohn too. Which is your favourite? [There is a brief, but entirely gratifying, pause here while Sig. Ambrosio closes, his eyes, conducts an imaginary orchestra and gently hums the opening bars to Mendelssohn’s glorious Violin Concerto in E Minor].

That is his best. At the end of the day, there is one piece of classical music (or, if you like rock, for example, a song) for which you have asked yourself, “How am I now, in this moment?” There is one song that captures exactly your “moment” and feels as though it has been written for you.

When did you start composing?

The day after I started playing. It just… came.

… like a language…

Yes! It’s like babies. They don’t talk. They create something – sounds – and then organize them into words. The problem with language is that it is a “finished” article. If someone were to tell you which words already existed, you could invent new ones. You could say “troblem” if you wanted to describe trouble and a problem. But no one experiments that way. With music, it’s different. These are the sounds, this is the music, but it’s obvious that you have to create your own.

You’re playing with a tanpura player and a tabla player while here. How closely have you worked with such instruments?

When I was very young, I studied some sitar, some tabla and some sarod in England. I was interested in anything that was happening at the time. It was London. It was the 1960s. I would go out with my friends to have a beer and then, every other evening, we would go and see The Who, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie. Something was happening and it was happening every day! And I was curious, like a monkey! So whenever I saw an instrument I didn’t know, I would think, “What is it? How do you play it?” [He gesticulates to show how one might pick up an instrument to examine it and discover how it ‘worked’.].

When you’re with an audience, it’s alive. It’s not perfect, but it’s alive

London in the 1960s…

Ah, London was like a funfair. I was there when “Lady Madonna” came out. One of the first things I remember was this long queue outside Soho Records, a record shop on Shaftesbury Avenue. I asked them why they were queuing up. (In those days, I was shamelessly curious about everything and would stop to ask anyone anything). It’s the new single, I was told. Single, I asked? The new Beatles’ single, they said. I don’t know why, but I stopped and joined the queue. If all these people are here, I thought to myself, there must be something behind it. So I bought the single and took it home to play, and I thought, wow, that’s @#^$&^* good! I went back to the shop and bought all the Beatles’ records they had. And when I got to Sgt Pepper, I thought, this… Is… It. If Beethoven had been alive then, this is the album he would have poured all his creativity into.

How popular is the classical guitar now? It’s not an instrument one comes across very often in performance or even recordings.

This is a very dark moment for the classical guitar. I’ve experienced some glorious periods in the 1970s and 1980s, which were fantastic years for the classical guitar, but after which its profile began to fall. The core of the problem is courage. You have to be able to walk onstage naked. You have to be able to feel every breath from the audience on your skin. This is very dangerous. But it is the only way to keep our job alive. Before the Internet, if you wanted to see me play, you had to buy a ticket, sit down in your seat, and listen. Now, it’s just… [He taps furiously on the glass table in front of him]. The level of what captures our interest has been dramatically raised. It’s like anything that has to do with emotions and feelings. Now, for me to retain your interest, I’ve got to give you something extraordinary, something alive, that you cannot see or perceive on the Web. Where is the skin? Where is the blood? Where is the smell? If you can’t feel that, then there is no difference between seeing something live and seeing it on the Internet.

This is the problem of every single classical instrument and of every performer. Practically, the classical guitar suffers more than other instruments. The piano or the violin, for example, are loud. You get to hear every note. This instrument, the classical guitar, is not loud. It’s soft. It’s shy. You’ve got to catch it and only then does it tell you the story of the world. In order to compete with the lack of interest in and demand for classical music in the market, the classical guitar has the most to fight against.

Between performance, recording and composition, what works for you?

I need to perform because it’s like a drug. I am addicted. It’s like sex. You’re there with your microphone, thinking, ah how beautiful! When you’re with an audience, it’s alive. It’s not perfect, but it’s alive.