Antonio Lauro's Biography

Antonio Lauro was born in 1917 in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. His father was a barber who enjoyed singing and playing the guitar, but who died when Antonio was only five years old. The family moved to Caracas where Antonio studied the piano and composition at the Academia de Música y Declamación with teacher and distinguished composer Vicente Emilio Sojo. In 1932, after hearing the legendary guitarist and composer Agustín Barrios in concert, he was determined to abandon piano and violin and concentrate upon the guitar(he was already an accomplished folk guitar player). From 1933, he studied with Ral Borges, who introduced him to the traditional classical guitar repertory. In the next decade, Borges’ pupils would also include Rodrigo Riera, José Rafael Cisneros, and Alirio Díaz, who was responsible for exposing Lauro's works to an international audience and introducing them to the likes of Andrés Segovia and John Williams.

Lauro was a fervent cultural nationalist, like many of his compatriots of his generation, determined to rescue and celebrate his nation's musical heritage. As a member of the Trio Cantores del Trópico in 1935-43 where he sang bass and played both guitar and cuatro, Lauro toured nearby countries to introduce them to Venezuelan music. He was particularly attracted to the myriad colonial parlour valses created in the previous century by accomplished national composers such as Ramón Delgado Palacios. Unfailingly melodic, alternately wistful and brilliant, and characterized by a distinctive syncopation, such music was precisely the sort of folkloric raw material which the likes of Smetana or Granados had elevated to national art in Europe. A programme of such valses by the distinguished Venezuelan pianist Evencio Castellanos convinced Lauro that the guitar, too, should have such pieces in its repertory.

Among his first compositional efforts in this genre were the pieces later known as Tatiana, Andreina, and Natalia, composed sometime between 1938 and 1940; their popularity still inspired others. In addition to his guitar pieces, Lauro composed dozens of works for orchestra, choir, piano and voice; many of which remain unpublished. He sometimes experimented with modern compositional techniques, but most of his guitar music remains essentially on the Calle real or "main street", an expression used by musicians of Lauro's generation to refer to a straight and direct route, without distracting harmonic detours.

In 1951-2, the military junta of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez imprisoned Lauro for his principled belief in democracy. Lauro later shrugged off the experience, telling his friends that prison was a normal part of life for the Venezuelan man of his generation. While in prison, he continued composing and after his release, he immediately returned to performing with a pioneering professional classical guitar trio, the Trio Raúl Borges.

In the next decades Lauro's compositions were published, recorded, and performed throughout the world, and his contributions to his nation's musical life were recognized and acknowledged. Lauro was appointed professor of guitar at several distinguished schools including the Juan José Landaeta Conservatory, and was named president of the Venezueland Symphony Orchestra.
In spite of his modest insistence that he was a composer rather than a performer, his friends persuaded him to embark on a solo concert tour which began in Venezuela and culminated in a triumphant 1980 performance at London's Wigmore Hall.

Shortly before he died in 1986, he was presented with the Premio nacional de música, his country's highest artistic award.

The works of Antonio Lauro remained very popular among theguitarists worldwide, yet there have been few recordings devoted exclusively to him. However, several recordings by John Williams and David Russell, in a fashion very similar to what these two virtuosos had already done for Agustín Barrios Mangoré, have set Lauro's fame in the honorific place he deserves. John Williams is quoted as having justly referred to Antonio Lauro as being the "Strauss of the guitar".