2024-03-19 05:05:00
“This old guitar that accompanies me/has the bitter sorrow that tortures me,/knows why the morning star/always finds me alone with my bitterness.”
It is still heard at religious festivals in our Andean provinces, blended into the bustle of multicolored rockets. Albazo. Dawn. Dawn Voices and guitars that burst into the early mornings to confess blessed or proscribed loves. When the Yaraví wanted to dance without giving up his air of melancholy, the albazo came to light.
Round. Old Quito street scented by faded legends and traditions, bohemianism spun with music, poetry and that sparkling wit that the ancient Quiteños displayed. Was it in one of his houses where Carrera Andrade met the woman who inspired his beautiful and disdained poem? Mademoiselle Satan; Is it true that Ernesto Noboa and Caamaño met in another nearby town and his courtship to pay tribute to opium? Idyllic vision of the past that is just that, images carved by time.
The year 1930 was dying. Quito was still “San Francisco with sackcloth and guitar.” Carlos Guerra Paredes, accomplished composer and guitarist, invited his house in La Ronda to his jam. Hugo Alemán, memorable author of Presence of the past; Augusto Arias, dapper essayist and poet; Hugo Moncayo, intellectual and diplomat; Leo Rivas, radio man, and Galo Plaza, future president of Ecuador. He started the afternoon with partying and guitar. In the midst of the rejoicing, mockery flew about the host’s guitar. Its owner had bought it used and its heart seemed badly hurt.
Hugo Moncayo wrote the farewell verses for the old instrument and Carlos Guerra composed the music for this classic albazo that continues to be heard, with the exceptional performers who love our music and continue to cultivate it.
“The breeze plays restlessly with our complaint/If the soul is moved by so much sorrow/And the heart reels out notes that sound/Accompanied by this old guitar.”
#guitar #Ronda