Biography of Agustin Barrios Mangore - Part 5

Back in the New World

Barrios arrived to Caracas, Venezuela in February 1936 and he left in March for Trinidad. There he didn’t play many concerts but he gave guitar lessons to one pupil: Robert Edgeworth Johnstone, who declared about Barrios in 1985, amongst other things:

“But Barrios was obviously not a teacher. One had to get the information out of him by seeing what he did and then asking him about it. By watching the way he did it one learnt a great deal, but one had to drag out of him how he did it, because in some cases he almost didn’t know. He was a rather quiet player; he didn’t aim at volume. I don’t know whether it was his guitar or his technique, or what it was. I can say only at the time I found it very satisfactory. If a good manager had gotten hold of him, he should have been a world figure. A world composer, too. Certainly he was not a man to push his own affairs or drive forward. But he was at least contented. He had no complaints about not being recognized. I didn’t detect any of that sort of attitude.”

Here Johnstone is talking about a typical Paraguayan attitude. Being contented with what one has. Paraguayans very rarely drive forward for an affair, they had to be motivated by extreme needs, friends or social pressure. That is generaly speaking, of course there are exceptions.

Barrios was always pushed by his friends. Pellegrini told him to go abroad to pursue a career, his friends in Buenos Aires pushed him to go to Montevideo, Pagola locked him in a room to write his compositions. Those are just a few examples where Barrios needed the motivation given by a friend to start something. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t have confidence, that’s just the idiosyncracy or “way” of Paraguayans: to be happy with what they have. That most of the people that “pushed” him weren’t Paraguayans makes this clearer.

In August Barrios returned to Venezuela. He played some concerts but didn’t have the great success he had four years earlier. In 1938 he was in Havana, Cuba, where he wrote the Preludio Saudade which he added to La Catedral.

After leaving Cuba, economic problems began. Barrios ran out of work and money. They departed to Costa Rica, where a good friend offered them the use of a home for about a year. He had reduced concert activity during this period, probably due to health problems.

In July of 1939 he departed to El Salvador, where he arranged several concerts. Later he headed to Guatemala and Mexico. In Mexico City he suffered a heart attack. Barrios was debilitated and didn’t have the same strength of youth.

He returned in 1940 to El Salvador. The President of El Salvador, Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, a great admirer of Barrios appointed him Professor of Guitar at the National Conservatory, presenting him with a check for 5000 colones. This was almost an order, not an offer, from the President.

Barrios finally settled down, not in his homeland, but at least in a place where he was loved and admired. He played some concerts in towns of El Salvador, but he was mostly dedicated to teaching. He later played concerts with his pupils.

Barrios in his later years

The Last Years

In March of 1944 Segovia visited San Salvador to play a concert. The two masters met and spent several hours chatting in Segovia’s hotel room. Not even a note was played, as Barrios was in bad physical shape and Segovia felt a certain amount of pity for his “foe”, as he was forgotten and poor in a relatively isolated country and Segovia knew the fame and recognition that his talent merited.

Fifteen years later Segovia would declare that “Barrios was a man who tried to destroy himself, but couldn’t because he was such a genius”.

They had a polite and cordial meeting, where Segovia left Barrios a set of gut strings as a gift.

In these later years the love Barrios had for the guitar didn’t cease, as he practiced four hours a day. In 1944 he was ill and knew the end was near. He called for a priest and uttered his last words: “I do not fear the past, but I do not know if I can overcome the mystery of the night”.

One of the last pictures of Barrios

Surrounded by his friends and his wife, Barrios dies in August 7, 1944. The priest who attended him proclaimed: “This is the first time I have witnessed the death of a Saint”.