As musicians, one of our greatest rewards is giving a performance that is really

enjoyed and accepted by the audience. All performers must struggle with the task of
selecting repertoire that remains consistent with their own tastes and at the same time
provide meaningful entertainment for the audience. Guitarists in particular have a limited
repertoire due to the young age of the instrument and its historical applications involving
mostly musical accompaniment for poems and songs. Before the middle of the twentieth
century the guitar had never graced the concert stage with any regularity or recognition
since the virtuosi of the nineteenth century such as Sor, Giuliani, Legnani, and ert!.
"hile achieving great popularity in some parts of #urope, the guitar never enjoyed such
long lived respect and appreciation boasted by instruments of the string family. $he
guitar repertoire suffers because of this newly found popularity in the instrument which
places additional burden on the performer.
$he guitarist must carefully select music that will either be pleasing to the
audience because they have heard it before and will enjoy hearing it live, or hope to
captivate the audience with something new that may or may not be openly accepted. $his
is an obstacle that is familiar to all musicians% the &new' music. $here is no easy way to
present new music to an audience, especially when the compositional trends of our
generation are a result of a departure from the standardi!ed forms and harmonic language
of the &Great (omposers'. #ven new music that follows the tonal characteristics and
same harmonic language that we are familiar with struggles because it is compared with
music of the great classical and romantic composers.
As a performer ) have found that an audience will be very accepting of new ideas
if they are first consoled by a familiar piece that they can identify with. As long as they
feel like they got their money*s worth they will be docile enough to sit through a
twentieth century work and their gratitude will carry over until the end of the concert
+hopefully,. )f musicians could solely perform for themselves there is no doubt that the
hori!ons could be broadened at a much faster pace. -owever, by definition musicians
should share their music with the public and that is why you can never leave an #agles
concert without hearing &-otel (alifornia'.