In my case, the decision to devote myself to early music came about quite naturally and did not involve any clear-cut break with my career as a guitarist. I was still living in Boston and finishing my musicology studies at Harvard when I decided to give up the guitar. I was getting more and more engagements as a lutenist and finding the work very interesting. At that time I didn’t own a Baroque lute, and besides, there were no courses specifically devoted to the instrument. That was when I decided to come to Europe. I enrolled at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (that was in 1973), cut my nails short and set about looking for my voice in early instruments. It was a risky decision. Originally, I intended to stay just one year and, thinking I would be going back, I kept up all my activities in the United States.

Have you never thought of going back at any time over the past 30 years?

The main thrust of early music is still in Europe, where music is much more a part of everyday life. Culture is more than a museum or a library - it is people, and to my mind cultural life is richer in Europe than in the United States.

How important was the guitarist Emilio Pujol to your career?

Pujol is the only person I would single out as a true master. The four occasions that I took part in the month-long summer schools that he taught in the province of Lleida were a life-changing experience for me. I was still very young, barely twenty years old, and his extraordinary personality fascinated and made a deep impression on me. It was the first time that anybody had talked to me about art and the development of the artistic personality. Pujol brought together the musical training of the late nineteenth century and the technical approach of the twentieth century. He was a staunch humanist, and as an instrumentalist he had exceptional technical prowess. When I say he was a humanist I am referring to his spiritual outlook and the importance he attached to sincerity in the performer. I try to follow the master’s ideals. I am also still in touch with his widow, María Adelaida, who lives in Barcelona. She is an exceptional person.

Were the Lleida courses in guitar only?

No, there were also lute and early music courses. At that time I was particularly interested in the six-string guitar. Pujol had a very modern approach to the technical development of the guitar and to phrasing within the instrument’s range.

Apart from Pujol, which other musicians had an influence on your musical training?

I was particularly influenced by my lute teacher, Eugen Dombois, and the English countertenor, Alfred Deller. Thanks to Deller, I understood the significance of sound linked to poetic impact, something I have only rarely found in the field of early music. In his classes, Deller emphasised the importance of how the sound was produced and how the words of a composition were conveyed, each word being felt deeply by the artist and the audience.

In the case of music which has an accompanying text, the message is understandable and the meaning is therefore readily perceived, but how does that apply to the abstract language of the lute?

I spent many years searching for my sound on the lute, just as Deller did with his voice. My aim was to sing with the instrument, and above all to speak. In the context of producing sound with the tips of the fingers of my right hand, I have tried to achieve the narrative element you find in a song, not necessarily with any concrete image, but by means of a conceptual coherence in the piece performed.

How do you go about solving technical problems in your classes?

I always try to solve technical problems by working with the pupil’s own ear and musicality. Of course, it is important to have a thorough knowledge of the technical elements, but the more a student is able to overcome a difficulty with the help of a suggestion or an image and achieves a good result by his or her own means, the better. I am convinced that the aim of teaching should be for the pupil to learn to hear as the teacher hears, and then to achieve an independent approach to the music. As well as developing musicality, the pupil must find a way of allowing his or her musical intuition to culminate in the instrument, in what you might call a kind of guided self-teaching process. It may seem an overly simple concept, but I think it is a vitally important one.

It sounds rather like the psychoanalysis dictum “help others to help themselves” and bringing about in the patient - in this case, the pupil - the means to overcome and solve his problems by himself.

Exactly. For me, that is what the learning process is all about.

Can you imagine a career as a performer without your teaching activity?

I think the student always gains from the teacher’s life as a concert performer and one’s constant dynamic interaction with the instrument. Being active, discovering repertories, finding solutions and having new ideas about interpretation is of fundamental importance in teaching.