Ana Vidović: preference

Transcript context

…You mention limited repertoire. For you, what are what you might call the limits of transcriptions? There are versions of the Goldberg Variations for guitar. Kazuhito Yamashita — he’s done almost everything on guitar. Mussorgsky, Stravinsky — it actually seems to work. Where is it going too far with the transcription? Well, you have to be careful. Of course, a guitar — as every other instrument — has technical limitations. Whenever you play something — and again, we’re all human, so we have to try to — something that was composed for piano, it’s very difficult to play on classical guitar no matter how well you arrange it. Of course, you still want to sound natural. You still want to sound good. Obviously, Yamashita is an amazing guitarist. He can play anything he would like to play. When you choose the repertoire, you have to be very, very careful. You have to be mindful of your own limitations and what you’re capable of. For me, personally, I’m very, very careful. I want something that I play to sound good, technically and musically. There are limitations, but I think it’s everybody’s choice. It’s a personal choice, what you would like to play. Goldberg Variations are very, very difficult. It takes many, many years to get it to the level where you want it to be. Also musically, dynamically, we obviously don’t want to sound like a pianist, but we have to apply that to our own instrument and what we do. Except for the G to B string, as you know, guitar is tuned in perfect fourths. How much of a limitation is that? And why aren’t there more alternate tunings in classical music the way you find, say, in country blues guitar?…

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