The first thing we notice upon meeting is the guitar, his guitar. It is difficult not to stumble over the instrument when trying to shake his hand, as it is difficult to understand Narciso Yepes without listening to him play this guitar which he has played for the attentive ears of half the world. He has just arrived from Paris, where, with Mauricio Ohana, he was a judge at the French Radio-Television Convention dealing with works for the guitar, and for the guitar and orchestra. He is going today, up Europe to continue his own series of concerts.

Jimenez: What verb conjugates the guitar: plays, sings, sounds, dreams?

Yepes: I would say that the guitar suggests. And seduces. Or better: suggests and invokes.

Jimenez: What definition would suit you more; would disturb you less?

Yepes: The guitar is sound put in motion. With a single note, you can create beauty. It is an instrument that makes time beautiful.

On the shelf is the time of Marcel Proust, the book-binder. It is sounding from the hand of Vepes, a time that has gone and has remained. Between abundant amounts of coffee and small talk, he has made his important statements. The guitar of Narciso Yepes is with us. It is not an ordinary instrument. First, clearly, because it is his, but moreover, because it is a different guitar-a ten string guitar-a guitar we could call unusual. An instrument with which Vepes, its inventor, extends old borders, enlarges its range, and establishes, for the guitar, a new frontier.

Jimenez: How did the idea for the guitar come to you?

Yepes: While thinking about its deficiencies.

Jimenez: Was it really a limited instrument?

Yepes: Yes. There are notes, which played on it do not reach harmonious resonance.

We are entering into a technical explanation which I best understand when Yepes illustrates it musically, but I do not know if I can explain it with the necessary precision. I can say that there is more sound. That the guitar sounds better. It seems, as it were, that its throat has been enriched and its heart enlarged. Even its form seems better.

Yepes: One string can produce simultaneously, two harmonies of different sounds.

He tells us that there is in this guitar, great technical difficulty. But he is content; serenely sure of his discovery. It appears to him to be a logical discovery. Something which inevitably had to happen, as the rivers inevitably flow to the seas.

Yepes: Everything about it is an advantage. There are works from the Renaissance, from the Baroque period, which never, on the guitar, have been played in their pure, original state. Guitars have always required transcriptions from original scores, but these transcriptions have not always been accurate. At times, rather than translations, accomodations, and in some cases, adulterations result.

We think that because of this unconfessed horror which frightens so many people, and because of his perserverance in not departing from the original meaning of scores, and his insistence upon fidelity to that meaning, that all are not going to be in favor of Yepes' magical and logical guitar.

Yepes: I expect very strange reactions. At first, they will criticize it, of course, as something new, which it is. They will say that it is not a guitar. They will say everything they can think of. But it will assert itself in time.

He does not say it with prophetic concern. Nor with emphasis. With candor, yes. I have heard Yepes play many times. Entire evenings, with the Bay of Santander opposite. In the repertory, Gaspar Sanz, Bach, Vitoria, Cabezon, Galilei. I do not know why I remember Galilei. A name which recalls something. And, nevertheless, moves one. It is something like this, if you will permit me, that I believe Yepes wishes to say. The guitar of the new frontier will assert itself on its own merits. And, of course, it sounds better.

There is no name for this guitar. It is the only example in the world. It has not been christened. Perhaps it does not need a new name. It is called a guitar-which already is a name-and it was born of a distinguished family. It has gone from six strings-a number which was not a constant throughout its historical development-to ten strings, a number of great philosophic significance . . . the "tetrarch" ... the sum of the first four numbers by which swore the members of the Pythagorean sect, who were mystics of numbers. The guitar now has as many strings as there are fingers on its player's hands. It has entered the metric decimal system, and is, if I have properly understood the explanation, now in respect to its immediate past, somewhat as the piano once was the clavichord.

It is a lute which produces more sound. With a touch of inherited artfulness, Yepes insinuates that one would be able to call it a "laudarra". It brings to mind romantic words, an Arabic-Andalusian poem, a mystery, a well. Was that what Gerardo Diego meant when he wrote: "The guitar is a well with wind instead of water."

Yepes says that the idea for the guitar arose a year ago. When he was playing a "Prelude" of Bach, corroborating something with which he was already experimenting in previous sessions. He had notes that remained muffled; without resonance. Last September, he spoke of his plan with Jose Ramirez, an artisan deeply in love with his beautiful occupation as a tamer of wood. Ramirez seriously took on the request that Yepes made. He put his heart into the project. He spared no attention in the workshop. And this is the result. Vivaldi, Mudarra, Sanz, Bach,-all are heard this afternoon from the pure, faithful hand of Yepes-proof, ten times over, of what he has spoken. An innocent and knowledgeable hand which speaks the musical truth without concessions.

I asked him about the following the guitar enjoys in the world today. If it has increased; if it has grown.

Yepes: In a gigantic, incredible way. The guitar has reached even the most exotic countries. There are, in Japan, more guitarists than in all of Europe. They exceed three hundred thousand. The people there will travel hundreds of miles to attend a concert.

I invited him to review the pages in his album of memories and to tell me where he had his greatest satisfaction.

Yepes: Perhaps the greatest success has been in Helsinki. The Nordic public is more passionate than that of Seville, and it reacts more warmly than one would imagine. I was much satisfied when, in Strasberg, I presented for the first time, Ohana's Concert for Guitar and Orchestra which he had dedicated to me. And in Tokyo, at one recital I had to give nine encores. But possibly the greatest satisfaction in my life took place in Vienna. It was one of those moments when what most pleased me was also what most pleased the public. A spiritual identification.

Enrique Franco calls it a spiritual "striptease". A form of baring his soul before the public.

Narciso Yepes possesses almost a scholarly timidity. His eyes, so long disciplined, are perfectly level with the guitar at his waist as, Franciscan-like, he gazes toward the floor. He has something of the meditation of a monk who has always thought leisurely in his cell. Deep wrinkles, like furrows in the sand, are present in his forehead; and his eyes seem like two little balls of mercury about to spring-like atoms in action. He practices five hours daily. He has the flexibility of a Latin, and the methodism of a German. Without the vanity of a Frenchman. Have I already stated that he is an optimist?

Yepes: It is not difficult to play well, only to practice well.

Such is his explanation concerning his inspiration. But how did the guitar-his first guitar-feel in his hands? There is no one tradition. The reply, because of its sincerity, is almost surrealistic.

Yepes: My first guitar was a stick.

Yepes placed a stick in the position of a guitar and simulated playing upon it. That broom handle which we have all mounted as if it were a horse! All day long he hummed songs, melodies, popular ballads. He was four years old.

Yepes: Then my father, seeing me play with the stick as if it were a guitar, bought me one.

He played only by ear. In the Guerra Theater, he gave his first concert when he was seven. It was in 1934. The program then did not reach Tarrega. Later he studied with Jesus Guevara, and solfaed, with Pedro Huertas, at an institution. Still later, he studied with Vicente Asencio and Rafael Balaguer. He jumped to Paris, where he is an alumnus of two clavichord instrument teachers: the violinist, Enesco; and the pianist, Gieseking. Yepes truly desired to enter the music profession.

The distinct specialties of the teachers that he chose readily explains Yepes' rigor. He continues to study.

Yepes: I am now practicing Falla's Retablo on the new guitar, especially the part don Manuel composed for the harp and lute. It plays distinctly.

He plays a few measures. I am sitting so near that I am afraid to get any closer. I dwell upon this stool-this foundation which always accompanies the guitarist-as an external sign of humility that gives him a poor scholarly air.

Jimenez: Is the stool necessary? How would you play more to your liking?

Yepes: I would prefer to play while seated on a sofa or in a big armchair. It is the most comfortable posture. But it does not appear aesthetic or proper to present myself on the stage in such a manner. So there is no other alternative but to use a stool. The circumstances demand it.

We speak about poetry. Yepes likes that of Antonio Machado. We talk about the rare poet, Eliodoro Puche, of Lorca, who is like a living monument.

"Wine, sentiment, the guitar, and poetry," writes Manuel Machado. But Yepes seems to have modified the stanza. Because his guitar has more strings and more clefs, among other things, he is now seriously pursuing composition. He regaled us with fragments from Concerto for the Guitar and Orchestra by Vivaldi.

Jimenez: What music sounds best inside you?

Yepes: We should say that there are three types of music. One, which heard, you do not wish to hear again. Another, which you would like to hear again, and the third type, barely finished, which you would not want to hear, but only because you want to continue listening to it within yourself, because it resounds and accompanys you within.

I have spent an evening at home with Narciso and Marisa, and his unusual guitar-a unique mirror reflecting, in this artist, nothing narcissictic. Yepes has converted the guitar into a normal vehicle for playing music free of folk lore and those libertinisms and misdeeds that the guitarist tolerates because of the acknowledged limitations of the instrument, Vepes calls exigency, musical rigor.

I glance at his books. Many philosophic titles. And many concerning astronomy. He anticipates my question.

Yepes: I am quite interested in astronomy. I have, besides, a 150-power telescope. The next night you come, I invite you to look at Saturn's ring.

Pythagoras, Fray Luis, the music of Salinas. Who speaks about the music of the stars? I see beginning to burn, those stars, so illuminated by Yepes, which lightened the sky of Aranjuez and Joaquin Rodrigo. I don't know if he is familiar with Neruda's prologue for the guitar. It goes like this; "and so the entire night is transformed into the starry case of the guitar, the firmament trembling from its sonorous cup."

I will return. To take lessons on the guitar. Lessons from the heavens.

(Credits to Arriba, 1964, Madrid)