Pasionate career

 «She was a amazing woman, with a fascinating personality and a very sophisticated interpretation.»

María Luisa Anido
Barcelona, December 1980

Since he was seven years old, guided by Beatriz Leone, he had clear who could guide his fingers ad help him finding his own way of performing the key pieces of the Spanish music. It was María Luisa Anido (1907-1996), one of the most important guitarists of music's history. Student and teacher lived a misunderstanding. The tours, the journeys and the commitments moved them away when it seems they were about to meet. At the age of 19, Rolando didn't want to wait no more. Paradoxaly, although the two were argentinians, the meeting took place in Barcelona. María Luisa Anido left his country in 1976, sicken because of the military coup. In 1978 she settled in Barcelona. Two years later, in 1980, Rolando crossed the ocean looking for his teacher. "She was just brilliant, that's the word that describes her the best". She was an incredible woman, not easy to treat, but with a fascinating personality", Saad says.

The teacher and guitarist was a student of Miguel Llobet, of Josefina Robledo, of Domingo Prat, that means, she was formed with the best students of Francisco Tarrega and had in his career successful tours all over the world. Rolando Saad was about making his dream come true and receiving the knowledge of all the people that, just like him, loved the Spanish guitar and made an art of this love.

Anido was not one of those teachers that imposes her criterion. One of her favorites sentences was: "very good, but, what if we try it in another way?". "Indeed this was her way of saying that it was wrong, but she didn't attack you, she changed everything just in order to restart from the beginning", the guitarist explains.

She gave him sentences and memories that remained in his memory forever. She told him that the secret of the natural manner of her interpretation was in that she didn't think in the technique but in the music.

This great teacher met his pupil three times a week, in six hours long sessions. Rolando, eager for of knowledge, internalized her advices, her words, her way of understanding the music. And it was with her he learned that the importance lays in the modesty.

Several years later, the student and the teacher met again. She was 90 years old and was shriveling in an old people's home. Rolando took her out and a month later had to say goodbye forever.