Cap'n's Cabaret #37: Montevideo Thrills with Classic Guitar

Buenas Noches, mis amigos, and welcome again to the Cabaret!  Our lazy exile continues, this time on the shores of the lovely Rio de la Plata in South America.  After a few lazy weeks in Spain we managed to catch berths on a freighter out of Barcelona and have made it to beautiful Montevideo, Uruguay, where we await a break in the U-Boot picketts and Royal Navy patrols before we make our return stateside.  But oh what a place to relax!

It's a beautiful old seaside city and home to some lovely sights and sounds -- and ringside seats to the destruction of the Graf Spee pocket battleship.  Needless to say, although we're in a neutral shipping hub travel by sea in the Atlantic is a little dicey for the moment.  So in the mean time, there's always a place for music and libations. 

And for that music, we are going Classical.  We have with us tonight a living legend, a man who has taken a parlour instrument, the guitar, and transformed it into something sublime, Andres Segovia*.  Sheltering here in Montevideo from the chaos that is overtaking Europe, Master Segovia is a rare treat to say the least.  Tonight he leaves us spellbound with a haunting rendition of Isaac Albéniz's "Asturias", aka "Leyenda":

Modern recording, obviously.  Older recordings are available (if very rare; he hated being recorded), but hearing Segovia requires good sound quality.  This also lets us see his effortless virtuoso playing in action.

I'll give you all a few moments for that to pass though you...

. . .

So now, to accompany such a maestro performance would be nigh impossible, but hopefully a glass of the Clericó Cocktail, a white wine cocktail popular here and across the river in Argentina, will do nicely:

Clericó Cocktail:

 - One bottle (750 ml) dry white wine
 - 2 teaspoons sugar
 - One orange, peeled, seeded and sliced
 - One peach, peeled, pit removed, and cut into wedges
 - One banana, peeled and sliced
 - Several strawberries, stems off and sliced
 - One apple, peeled, cored and cut into wedges
 - ½ cup red or green grapes, seeded and sliced
 - Juice of one lemon
 - 12 ounces of club soda

 Dissolve sugar into wine. Add rest of ingredients, stir well, and chill until cold. [link]

* This is no exaggeration.  The man actually made the guitar into a respected instrument of virtuosos, not just a cheap instrument for bars and brothels (though it remains a mainstay in those original venues, of course!).  George Harrison called Segovia "the father of us all" for a reason.