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TECLA EDITIONS |
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Fernando Ferandiere: Arte de tocar la guitarra
española por música The complete introduction by Brian Jeffery (1976, with an additional note 2006) Fernando Ferandiere’s Arte de tocar la guitarra española por música (Madrid, 1799) is a fascinating historical document as well as a source for some charming and elegant music. This was an important time in the history of the guitar, when the instrument was playing a full part in a luxuriant flowering of native art and music in late baroque Spain. Sor and Boccherini were both in Madrid composing music for it, Sor at the beginning of his career and Boccherini nearing the end of his. In the year 1799 no less than three books on the guitar were published in Spain: Federico Moretti’s Principios para tocar la guitarra de seis órdenes, Antonio Abreu and Victor Prieto’s Escuela para tocar con perfección la guitarra de cinco y seis órdenes, and Ferandiere’s book. Ferandiere, according to his title-page, was professor or teacher of music in Madrid. He tells us in the course of his book that he had studied at the college of Zamora, in the town of Zamora some seventy miles north of Salamanca, and that he had previously published with some success a book on playing the violin called the Prontuario Músico. A copy of this book (Málaga, 1771) survives in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. At the end of his Arte de tocar la guitarra española por música is a catalogue of guitar music which he had composed, including a great deal of chamber music with guitar and a set of six concertos for full orchestra. This may be the first known reference to guitar concertos. They are not known to survive. A number of tonadillas by Ferandiere, however, survive in the Biblioteca Municipal, Madrid; on these see J. Subirá, La tonadilla escénica, 3 volumes (Madrid, 1928-30) and Tonadillas teatrales inéditas (Madrid, 1932). Also, according to Subirá in his El Teatro del Real Palacio (Madrid, 1950), p. 109, three duets by Ferandiere for violin and guitar are in the library of the Royal Palace in Madrid; while according to F. Pedrell in his Diccionario biográfico y bibliográfico, I (Barcelona, 1897), p. 669, three “Villancicos de Concepción” by him are in the archive of Málaga Cathedral. The Arte de tocar la guitarra española por música teaches the guitar and the rudiments of music at the same time. The phrase “por música” in the title of this work means from musical notes, as opposed to cyphers or tablature, which had been the norm for guitar music throughout the eighteenth century. Ferandiere’s reason was that the guitar should be accepted as one of the fraternity of instruments, that it should take its place along with the best of them, as he says in the last sentence of his book. At the end of the book, as well as examples of musical notation, are seven pieces for solo guitar and one song with guitar accompaniment. They are imaginative pieces, well worth performing, and the song in particular has a delightfully Spanish air. In this edition a transcription into modern notation is given as well as the facsimile. Two of the solos were published, but with modern additions, in Isaias Savio’s Antología de obras para guitarra (Buenos Aires, no date), pp. 14-15; and six of them were published by Ernst Hülsen in about 1929 (Schott, Gitarre-Archiv no. 71). The present edition is a photographic facsimile of one of two copies in the collection of Robert Spencer, by Mr. Spencer’s kind permission. Six other copies are listed in the RISM volume Ecrits imprimés concernant la musique, ed. F. Lesure, 1971, p. 313, and another is in the library of the Orfeò Catalá, Barcelona. Mr. Spencer’s two copies both give the same place, date, and name of publisher, but they are not identical. In one of them the text (though not the music) has been completely reset. A detailed examination shows which of the two probably came first, for errors in one are corrected in the other. Here is a list of differences: Copy I Copy II Page 5, line 15 Clabe Clave Page 8, lines 7-9 Initial letters lower case Initial letters upper case Page 23, line 18 Maydem (!) Hayden Page 24, line 12 antusiasmo entusiasmo Plate 16 Andate Andante Plate 17, fourth system, first bar, guitar part [MUSIC CHANGES] Plate 17, fourth system, third bar, guitar part, first note B not A (On page 19, line 11, an error is uncorrected: this should read “décima de la tercera”.) It seems clear from these differences that I is the earlier of the two copies. Furthermore, in I the music is clear, while in II some plates are smudged. Largely for this reason, in order to obtain better reproduction, copy I has been used for this edition, and so readers may like to take note of the errors in it which are listed above. The reason for the resetting of copy II may have been that the book sold out, more copies were needed, and by then the type had been distributed so that it had to be set up anew. The music, on the other hand, was printed not from type but from plates, which doubtless were kept, so that they did not need to be newly engraved. Notice that the year “1799” on the title-pages need not necessarily mean that either of these actual copies was in fact printed in that year; for in that period, when new copies were made of an old book, perhaps years later, the year on the title-page was sometimes not changed. As stated above, seven other copies are known which bear the date 1799. They have not been examined to determine which printing they belong to. In 1816 the widow of the printer, Pantaleón Aznar, issued a second edition of the work, a copy of which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. In that copy, the type has once more been newly composed, but the plates are the same (with the corrections on plates 16 and 17 noted above). The catalogue of Ferandiere’s works, and the list of subscribers, are omitted and replaced by a list of other (non-musical) books for sale. Another copy of this 1816 edition was in the British Museum, London, but it appears that that copy was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. Three other copies in various libraries of the U.S.A. are listed in the National Union Catalog, and another is in the library of the Orfeò Catalá, Barcelona. Here are some points to be noticed about the music: Plate 14 Sixth stave: there should be no repeat mark after the double bar. Seventh stave, second bar, fourth note: the original has C sharp but should probably read A. Plate 16 “Andante” probably means a faster tempo than it would generally mean today. First stave, first bar: the ornament is on G but should probably be on A. Similarly at third stave, first bar, and seventh stave, first and last bars; but not at first stave, last bar, where A is given. Plate 17 This song is called “Voleras”, which stands for “Seguidillas Boleras” or “Bolero”. For the exact meaning of these terms, see my edition of Fernando Sor’s Seguidillas (Tecla Editions, 1976). The estribillo (second set of words) has been underlaid exactly in the transcription given in this edition, but is a little uneasy; singers may like to experiment with other ways of underlaying it. In the original edition, the plates of the music section were printed on one side of the paper only (recto); in the present edition, for practical reasons, both sides of the paper have been used. I am grateful to Jack Sage, of King’s College, London, for his help and suggestions in the preparation of this edition. Brian Jeffery London, 1976
Additional note (2006) A book about Ferandiere has recently been published: Alfredo Vicent López, Fernando Ferandiere (ca. 1740 - ca. 1816), un perfil paradigmático de un músico de su tiempo en España (Madrid, 2002). The author was able to find many documents in archives about the composer’s life, and he gives the text of those documents in full in his book. It appears that Ferandiere was probably born in the town of Toro not far from Zamora. (In the 12th-13th century Colegiata church of Toro, by the way, can still be seen today a fine portal with musical instruments.) Then he was a choirboy in Zamora Cathedral, then a violinist in Málaga Cathedral in about 1769-1774, then in Cadiz, and in about 1797 he moved to Madrid where he was active in music for the theatre. The book contains a bibliography including a listing of all his known works.
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