Gustavo "Cuchi" Leguizamón (1917-2000) was a unique figure in Argentine music, a poet, composer, pianist and guitarist from Salta. He was rooted in the folk forms of the north-west but open to Debussy, Ravel and Schoenberg. On El Cuchi bien temperado the Salta-raised guitarist Pablo Márquez arranges seventeen of his songs for solo guitar. The title points to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and Márquez set himself the rule of never repeating a key.
Márquez knew Leguizamón personally. The composer was his history teacher at the Colegio Nacional in Salta when Márquez was thirteen. This is his second album for ECM New Series, after Musica del Delphin, his 2007 recording of Luys de Narváez. It was recorded in May 2012 at the Auditorio of Radiotelevisione svizzera in Lugano, in collaboration with RSI Rete Due, with Manfred Eicher producing and Markus Heiland as engineer. The booklet carries a long conversation between Márquez and Thierry Rougier. In it Márquez explains that avoiding repeated keys "was my way of enriching folk practice, and also a reflection of my classical training".
Eight zambas alternate with chacareras, a cueca, a bailecito, a carnavalito and vidalas, and Márquez uses different scordaturas to widen the guitar's colours. The opening Coplas de Tata Dios, a vidala-baguala, imitates the tambora drum by tapping near the base of the strings. In Chaya de la albahaca he adds dissonant clusters and scraped strings. In Zamba del pañuelo the lowered bass strings set a darker register against the high voices. The album closes with the quiet vidala Canción del que no hace nada, which carries hints of Debussy.
Graham Rickson of The Arts Desk noted the music's "unusual modulations and playful rhythms". He found it at its best in the smallest gestures, such as the quiet phrase that opens Zamba del carnaval. Juan Rodriguez of the Montreal Gazette found the results "mesmerizing, avoiding expectations of what Argentine music should be (i.e. tango-based)". Writing in International Classical Guitar in 2015, Thérèse Wassily Saba heard in the arrangement of Carnavalito del Duende an allusion to Juan Falú's piece of the same name.
CD edition of ECM New Series 2380, released on 20 February 2015.
