CD: Sor Seguidillas and Ariette italiane. Margarita Lladó and Xavier Coll. A CD from Barcelona.

CD: Sor: Seguidillas, and Ariette italiane.

Margarita Lladó and Xavier Coll. A CD from Barcelona.

Ferran Sor: Ariette Italiane/Seguidillas, with Margarita Lladó (soprano) and Xavier Coll (guitar) (La Mà de Guido, LMG 2054, recorded in 2002)

This CD contains all twelve of the seguidillas in the Tecla edition of the Seguidillas of Sor, and nine ariette from the Tecla edition of Sor's Complete Italian Arietts etc., as follows:

Seguidillas:

Cesa de atormentarme
De amor en las prisiones
Acuérdate, bien mío (hear the beginning of this as mp3)
Prepárame la tumba
Cómo ha de resolverse
Muchacha, y la vergüenza
Si dices que mis ojos
Los canónigos, madre
El que quisiera amando
Si a otro cuando me quieres
Las mujeres y cuerdas (hear the beginning of this as mp3)
Mis descuidados ojos

Ariette:

Dormia sul margine
Viso gentile e placido
Filen, riprendi l’arco
Fra un dolce deliro
Ti ricordi che giurasti
Io mentitor! no cara (hear the beginning of this as mp3)
Lagrime mie d’affanno
Povero cor t’inganni (hear the beginning of this as mp3)
Lagrime mie (another version)

This CD came out in 2003. It is very correctly sung and will give you a good idea of what these songs sound like. And congratulations to the performers and to La Mà de Guido for putting out a CD of this seldom recorded music. But me, I would have liked a bit more fun, perhaps something more like the Barcelona jollification at which Sor sang seguidillas in about 1799. The performances here are much the same as each other, it is very hard to tell one song from another in terms of interpretation. For example, "Filen riprende l'arco" should be a fun song, where the poet begs Cupid to go away and use his bow for something else, but here it comes across just like the other more or less melancholy songs. La Mà de Guido kindly invited me to write the sleeve notes which I did, but I wasn't allowed to hear the performance until it came out. I would have made a few suggestions if I had been at the rehearsal! But still, I emphasize that the performances are very good and very correct.

On this CD, all the songs are accompanied on the guitar. In the case of the seguidillas that's fine because the guitar was indeed the original accompanying instrument for most of them in the manuscripts from which they come. However, in the case of the ariette, we should remember that all the ariette come from early editions in which the accompaniment is the pianoforte, not the guitar. We know that Sor sometimes accompanied some of them himself on the guitar, so there is a good precedent for using the guitar as on this CD. I just would like to hear, one day, a big performance of some of these powerful songs and duets, some of which need the size of the piano. Perhaps La Mà de Guido will put out another CD one day, with the ariette and duets with piano?

WR0005: 18.00 euros or 12.00 UK pounds or 22.00 US dollars.

To order this CD:

if you are in the UK or the European Union click here (because we have to add VAT).

if you are in any other country of the world click here (price will be free of VAT).

I am grateful to Roland Stearns for help with the mp3s, and to La Mà de Guido for permission to put the mp3s here on this site.

Tecla main page.