OPUS 26.  INTRODUCTION AND VARIATIONS ON “QUE NE SUIS-JE LA FOUGÈRE”

Published in 1827, shortly after Sor’s return from Russia.  A fine miniature work, with rippling light tracery.

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OPUS 27.  INTRODUCTION AND VARIATIONS ON “GENTIL HOUSARD”

Published in 1827, shortly after Sor’s return from Russia. 

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OPUS 28.  INTRODUCTION AND VARIATIONS ON “MALBROUG”

Published in 1827, shortly after Sor’s return from Russia. 

The repeat marks in the original edition are not con­sistent.  Variation 1 has none, variation 2 has repeat marks for both parts, variation 3 has repeat marks for the second part only, and variation 4 has repeat marks for both parts.  In this edition I have added repeat marks to variations 1 and 3 where they were missing.  In variation 5 the second repeat marks appear to have been put at the wrong place (in the original, at the end of bar 119 which would give only 11 bars for the second part instead of 12) and I have moved them to the end of bar 120 and tidied up the other repeat marks so that they make musical sense.

The indication fr occurs here in variation 3 (it is also found in op. 36 on the last page, and in op. 37 in each of the two allegrettos).  This could perhaps stand for French friser or frisé, friser here meaning to brush, so it could be a brushing movement with the right hand fingers, like a stroke of rasgueado.  That would fit in all places in opp. 36 and 37.  In op. 28, however, although that interpretation is also possible, it would be puzzling that it was used there in only one place and not in other places in op. 28 where it could have been used but was not.

OPUS 29.  TWELVE STUDIES

Sor’s first set of twelve studies, op. 6, had been published in London in about 1815-17, and was doubtless composed there.  It had been of moderate difficulty, and had combined concentration on technical problems of the instrument, with a melodiousness which has meant their survival in popularity to the present day.  Now, in 1827, some ten years later, Sor published the Douze Études op. 29, which consist of twelve more studies with the same technical aims, the same charm, and the same level of difficulty, to the extent that the title-page proclaims that they follow on from the first set and are indeed numbered 13-24.  Thereafter Sor regarded them as a single set of twenty-four studies, and referred to them as such, for example in the introduction to his Méthode published in 1830. 

As with op. 6, a reading of Sor’s Méthode pour la Guitare will cast light on the technical aims of these studies.  For example, in Study no.16, from bar 4 onwards, the E’s with their tails down are certainly to be played with the right hand thumb, then m i.

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Study 15, bar 32, last chord, the original edition has E not C sharp.  C sharp is given here (cf. bar 40).

In Study 20, on the question of where on the string the vibrations will last longest, see Sor’s method (pages 15-18 in the English version available from Tecla).  In this study, the fingering at bars 25-26 is the only fingering which Sor gave in the studies opp. 6 and 29, and by it he indicated the old Spanish technique of campanelas, in which an open string sounds repeatedly through moving chords.  The top A is on the second string.

Sor’s Complete Studies, Lessons, and Exercises  (opp. 6, 29, 31, 35, and 60, together with op. 44) are also published by Tecla in a modern re-engraved edition in one book (Tecla 101).

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OPUS 30.  FANTASIA  

A work consisting of two sets of variations, played by Sor in a concert of his (see my book Fernando Sor, Composer and Guitarist, chapter 5), and dedicated to Dionisio Aguado.  It was first published in Paris in 1828 with the title 7e. Fantaisie et Variations Brillantes sur deux Airs Favoris connus (Seventh Fantasia and brilliant variations on two well-known airs).  The theme of the first set has been identified by Mijndert Jape (Opera Omnia of Sor, vol. 5, pp. XVI-XVIII) as the French folksong “La mère Michel”. 

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OPUS 31.  24 PROGRESSIVE LESSONS

A mere year after the publication of his studies op. 29, in 1828, Sor radically changed his approach to the writing of instructional music for the guitar.  Whereas in his op. 6 and op. 29 he had assumed that the basic level of playing had already been attained, and had devoted himself to writing pieces at a moderately advanced level whose aim was to improve certain technical aspects of guitar-playing, now in this op. 31 he is writing specifically, to quote the title-page, for “les Elèves Commençants” (beginning pupils).  To emphasize the difference, he calls the pieces of op. 31 “Leçons” rather than “Etudes”, a distinction which he repeats in the text of his Méthode pour la Guitare of 1830.  From being primarily a virtuoso performer, he has become a teacher.  His method is a thoughtful work, and his instructional music from now on is among the finest and most melodious of all easy music ever written for the guitar. 

The full title of the original edition is Vingt quatre leçons progressives pour la guitare, doigtées avec soin, dédiées aux élèves commençants (24 progressive lessons, carefully fingered, dedicated to beginning pupils).

The fingering is of great interest and should be studied by anyone interested in early nineteenth century technique.  Thus, in op. 31, Lesson 19 demonstrates the technique of rapidly alternating the thumb and first finger of the right hand, even on the highest string.  Sor specifically referred to this piece in his method: “This observation determined me to execute passages of that kind with the thumb and first finger, and with that view I made my nineteenth lesson…”

Sor makes a most interesting comment in his method regarding his twenty-four lessons (op. 31).  He writes: “My twenty-four exercises [op. 35] are the easiest which it is possible to write in this genre.  I admit that in my twenty-four lessons [op. 31] I did not have enough patience, and that the difference from one to another is too striking; I should have devoted to the pupil the attention which I gave to the music; but even so, after learning the exercises, the lessons become easier.” (Méthode pour la Guitare, Paris, 1830, my translation; the translation by A. Merrick of 1832 is incorrect at this point).  It is obvious from the phrase “the difference from one to another” that the sequence of pieces within a given set was important to Sor.

Sor’s Complete Studies, Lessons, and Exercises  (opp. 6, 29, 31, 35, and 60, together with op. 44) are also published by Tecla in a modern re-engraved edition in one book (Tecla 101).

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OPUS 32.  SIX PETITES PIÈCES

As with earlier sets of six short pieces—notably his opp. 1 and 2—it is clear that Sor took care to arrange the pieces in contrasting order of tempo and of key.  It would make good sense to perform the six pieces as a set. 

First published in Paris in 1828 with the title Six petites pièces faciles et doigtées avec soin (Six short and easy pieces, carefully fingered).

The set is dedicated to a young English lady, Miss Wainwright, about whom, and about op. 32, Sor had this to say in his method:

Loin de prétendre affecter une modestie qui pourrait paraître suspecte, j’avouerai que l’expérience vient de me prouver que celui qui me dirait qu’il y a des choses qui, toutes justes qu’elles puissent paraître en théorie, ne le sont point de même lorsqu’il s’agit de l’exécution, trouverait que cette observation est détruite par mademoiselle Wainwright, jeune demoiselle anglaise dont le raisonnement juste, la perspicacité d’esprit, la conviction que mes préceptes étaient les seuls qui pourraient lui faire obtenir de la guitare ce qu’elle désirait, et le peu d’application que ses autres études et les devoirs de la société lui permettaient, produisirent un résultat si flatteur pour moi, qu’en vingt-cinq leçons elle jouait bien les six petites pièces que je lui dédiai [op. 32], et qu’elle déchiffrait toutes mes vingt-quatre leçons [op. 31] au point de n’avoir plus besoin de personne pour trouver le meilleur doigté de toutes les positions imaginables: son corps et ses mains sont places à servir de modèle.  Il est vrai qu’elle aime à se rendre compte de tout ce qu’elle fait, et que je n’ai jamais eu d’écolière qui eût une si bonne manière d’étudier ni un esprit aussi analytique.

(“Far from pretending to affect a modesty which might appear liable to suspicion, I confess having been recently convinced by experience that he who should tell me that there are some things which how just soever they may appear in theory, are not so by any means in practice would find this observation disproved by Miss Wainwright, a young English Lady, whose accurate reasoning, readiness of apprehension, the conviction that my precepts were the only ones that could enable her to obtain from the guitar the desired effects, and the little application that her other studies and the claims of society allowed her, produced a result so flattering to me, that in twenty-five lessons she played perfectly the six little pieces that I have dedicated to her, and understood all my twenty-four lessons so well as no longer to require any person to enable her to discover the best fingering of all imaginable positions: her  figure and her hands are so placed as to serve as a model.  It is true that she likes to find reasons for everything she does, and that I have never had a pupil possessing so good a way of studying nor so analytical a mind.”)

(Originally in French in Sor’s Méthode pour la Guitare, Paris, 1830, pp. 4-5.  English translation by Arnold Merrick published as Method for the Spanish Guitar in London in 1832, available in reprint form from Tecla.)  

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Volume 4

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