Víctor Monge SERRANITO
(Profile)
And Víctor
Serranito is a thorough artist. We would be unfair if we called him flamenco guitarist, because in all these years he has demonstrated a much wider and multiple musical dimension.
Critics, audience and profession partners regard him as one of the best guitarist in History, in spite of the fact that his career has been affected by unfavourable circumstances.
During many years it has been impossible to find this master´s recordings because his record company was closed down, and curiously enough, there has not been a clear interest in praising one of the most brilliant guitarists of the 20th century. It is even difficult to find information about Serranito without associating him with the line that Master Montoya started one day, which is really the beginning of the contemporary guitar, not identifiable with a specific school, and therefore spiritual father of all the forthcoming guitarists.
Serranito´s playing has always been characterised by his virtuosity. It seems that so much virtuosity does not let us see the harmonic richness of his compositions, the musical elegance and his artistic development on the stage. His expression is within the flamenco aesthetics, but his discourse is universal, perhaps because it is delicate, perhaps for its beauty, perhaps for its tension, perhaps because he has chosen the best of each place; there are good and bad things everywhere ...
His compromise as a leading guitarist has always been subject to the internal debate between creation and improvisation, between the work of art and the rule, between the search for the absolute and the expression of feeling. The achievement of his own equilibrium has caused in Victor the renunciation of some stereotyped ways of the typical flamenco artist. This is the true element which makes the difference and the strength of this Master, who considers himself more a musician than a flamenco, and above all, a human being.
A conversation with Victor, with the person, is like a trip in a boat on a calm and clear water, in which you can see the bottom with a neat clarity, with the strange feeling that you will never overturn, because the storms and the bad weather are far away. It is like a promising and inviting window that faces a balanced and austere landscape, where you know by intuition that you will never fall over and that it will always be there, unchanged, because it is like that and it will never be any different.