The last of the Mohicans among classical guitarists

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

“The guitar is a miniature orchestra”- Berlioz
“Atheeta Sihinaya Miyayanne
Nirudaka kataraka satahan se
Udasanaka Pipi Pinibubulakdo ”

The song in the Sinhala feature film ‘Bitti Hatara’ etched in the memory of thousands of filmgoers of 1950s-60s principally on two counts; captivating voice of Neela Wickremasinghe and the talented musician who composed music for the film, Justus Warrington Abeywardene. Warrington Abeywardene is a pioneer Sri Lankan classical guitarist.

Even in the 1950s and 1960s, classical guitarists were a rare breed in Sri Lanka and in fact, there weren’t many classical guitarists in Sri Lanka and one among them was Neil Delai. Gazal Amil played the guitar at the SLBC’s English National Service.

Justus Warrington Abeywardene

However, remaining among the pioneers are only Justus Warrington Abeywardene and Marcus Abeywardene.

Justus Warrington Abeywardene is a dedicated classical guitarist who exploited intrinsic properties of the instrument amply proving Berlioz’s statement on guitar.

Classical guitar

A significant aspect of mastering classical guitar is to master Western Notions and one should also possess a comprehensive knowledge of Right Hand techniques and methods of plucking the strings as Apoyando and Tirando

and one should have the agility to perform rapid yet clear notes with distinctive sound of the guitar.

However, contemporary guitarists are in the habit of playing Chords using Plectrum to pick the melody without using fingers and most of them happened to be by-ear musicians.

Andrés Segovia, Marques de Salobreña (February 21, 1893 – June 3, 1987) is considered the greatest classical guitarist who claimed to have rescued the guitar from the hands of flamenco gypsies, and built up a classical repertoire to give it a place in concert halls.

Exposure

Though fortuitous like the greatest classical guitarist Segovia, Warrington had the exposure to guitar as early as eight years when he came under the training of his mother who herself was an accomplished pianist. Justus Warrington had the privilege of holding his first ever solo guitar performance at the tender age of sixteen.

As a classical guitarist, Warrington plays Back on guitar and compositions of classical guitar masters of 18th century and 19th century musicians such as Ferdinand Sor, Francisco Tarrega, Mauro Guiliani and Matteo Caracassi. His ideas for creating music particularly the background music for films is based on classical principles of western music.

For instance, he believes that one could create background music for a film on a dominant theme with musical variations based on the principal theme with different instruments. He firmly believes that such music scores should be created with a wide range of treatment and utilising vast rich pool of diversified harmony from the Western school of music.

One could orchestrate in four part harmony for any single given melody (tune); soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The melody should be designed to create a piece of music that has unity, variety, music logic, expressive power and should be emotionally effective. The music that Warrington composed for the move Hewaneli Eda Minnissu amply proves the application of his philosophy of music in practical domain.

Warrington commenced his long and the distinguished career at SLBC in the 1960s as an Auditioned graded artist on the English National Service with the porgram ‘Concert Style’ until 1981. He also produced a series of weekly radio programs such as ‘Six Strings and a man’ and ‘History of the guitar’.

Milestones in his career

One of the important milestones in Warrington’s career as a classical guitarist is when he held one and half hour classical guitar recital on January 29, 1964 at the Lionel Wendt theatre. It was sponsored by the Art Centre Club of Ceylon. Significantly, it was the first ever such classical guitar recital by a Sri Lankan artiste.

His extensive European tours in the 1960s had given him much needed exposure and had the rare opportunities of performing at premier European venues such as Academy de Guitarre in Paris. During his tour, he held two guitar recitals over TV Iran, and broadcast over Radio Karachchi and Radio Bombay. Warrington’s signature of music is not confined to SLBC but spread over areas such as film music. His music compositions for films such as ‘Heweneli Eda Minissu’ and ‘ Bitthi Hatara’ directed by Parakrama De Silva and for the film ‘ Tharanga’ by Vimal Waidiyasekera, rendered them a defining music character.

Warrington created music scores for the film Tharanga within a short period of 48 hours and yet with such an amazing diversity. He directed music for short-films such as ‘Bagna Asha’, ‘Eliya’ of Parakrama De Silva, ‘Eternal Conflict’ of Berwin Lye, “ Anthima Da’ of Bopitiya and ‘Conservation of Forest’ of Sangadasa.

Computer-aided compositions

One of the innovative areas that Warrington has stepped into is using computer for his composing music scores. However, he stressed that musician should possess a sound knowledge of harmony of Western music to derive maximum utility out of the software packages. Using computer, Warrington has created a bank of over 80 string melodies which can be described as ‘readymade songs’ for background music as all introductions, interludes and orchestrations have already been done as a final product.

The melodies are designed in such a manner that they can be used individually as instrumental music. In fact, they are songs without words and are fully orchestrated for Brass, Woodwind, Strings and Percussion instruments. A salient aspect of the compositions is that musical instruments are used in such a manner as to amplify and demonstrate rich diversity of harmony/counter point balance of four part writing of Western music (Soprano, alto, tenor and bass).

Significantly, Warrington has skilfully blended the Western harmony system into Sinhala tunes in a conspicuously concentrated orchestration to highlight the fact that even the simplest tune can be enlarged beyond life-size with the application of four part Western harmony.

Music motifs and sources of music for the compositions includes even various Sinhala folk music thematic materials enriched with Western harmony, with woodwind, Brass and Strings including Harp , three or four Classical Guitars and Indian instruments such as two or three Sitars and Shenai.

Perhaps, Warrington Abyewardene’s forte as a classical guitarist, is his vast knowledge of music and hard-earned practical acumen in wide areas and in the widest possible scope.