OPUS 54 BIS.  FANTAISIE

Published in about 1833, this is a remarkable work in the history of Spanish music and its diffusion throughout Europe. 

In his early career, Sor composed a number of fine songs in seguidillas boleras form for one to three voices and guitar or piano, which are very much in the popular Spanish style.  They are published today in two volumes which I have edited: Sor’s Seguidillas (Tecla, 1976) and More Seguidillas (Tecla, 1999).  But when he composed for instruments without voice, for example for guitar solo or guitar duet, he composed always in the normal central European style of his time, and never in the peculiarly Spanish popular style.  Thus, all his music for guitar solo and for guitar duet up to this time is in the central European style and none of it is specifically “Spanish” in style (for the special case of the Bolero a Duo, see below).

However, in the 1820s and 1830s a growing enthusiasm for things Spanish swept through Europe with the Romantic movement.  It was especially important in Paris, where the famous bataille d’Hernani took place in 1830.  Sor and Aguado, Spaniards living in Paris, found themselves in the middle of it.  Aguado wrote down his Fandango Varié, which is for solo guitar and which appears to recall certain elements of Spanish popular music of thirty years earlier, and Sor composed this present duet, op. 54 bis, with a fine movement “dans le genre espagnol”, the first and only piece for guitar without voice which he is known to have written in the popular Spanish style.  (For more about this subject, see the introduction to my editions of Sor’s Seguidillas and More Seguidillas, and of Aguado’s Le Fandango Varié, all published by Tecla.)

This piece is dedicated to Mlle Houzé, who was also the dedicatee of the Six valses, opus 39, and of a Fantaisie for guitar solo which survives only in manuscript.  The original title is Fantaisie pour deux guitares, composée expressément pour Mlle. Houzé.

OPUS 55.  THREE EASY AND PROGRESSIVE DUOS

More teaching pieces, simple and charming.  Published in 1833-34 with the title Trois duos faciles et progressifs pour deux guitares composés et soigneusement doigtés par Ferdinand Sor (Three easy and progressive duos for two guitars composed and carefully fingered by Fernando Sor).  The original edition contains a short preface, as follows:

Celui qui désirerait tirer de cet ouvrage tout le profit que j’ai tâché de procurer doit faire une grande attention à ne pas s’écarter du doigté, à tenir constamment la main en place, c’est-à-dire, les doigts devant la manche, et à ne pas donner plus de mouvement que le nécessaire.  Après avoir joué la première partie il doit étudier la seconde, et en la jouant couramment il sera étonné des acquisitions qu’il aura faites sans s’en apercevoir en les faisant.

(“Anyone who would wish to get from this work all the profit which I have tried to make possible by it, should give much attention to not moving away from the fingering, to keeping the hand constantly in its place, that is to say with the fingers opposite to the neck of the guitar, and not making any more movement than is necessary.  After playing the first part he should play the second, and in playing it with some facility he will be astonished at the progress which he will have made without noticing it.”)

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OPUS 61.  TROIS PETITS DIVERTISSEMENTS

Published in 1837.

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OPUS 62.  DIVERTISSEMENT  

Published in about 1838.

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OPUS 63.  SOUVENIR DE RUSSIE

Sor’s last work, and a magnificent one.  Published in 1838-39 with the title Souvenir de Russie, fantaisie pour deux guitares.  The composer takes two very Russian melodies, and shows great understanding of their essential nature in the way in which he intertwines them.  The first, which is the theme on which the variations are based, is “Tchem tebja ja ogortchila” (literally translated: “What have I done to upset you?”).  The second, at the Allegretto, is “Po ulitse mostovoy” (“Along the gravel street”).  Both of these are popular Russian melodies and were first published in N. Lvov and I. Pratch: Sobranie russkikh narodnikh pesen s ikh golosami (Collection of Russian folk songs with their melodies), second edition, St. Petersburg, 1806.  (I am grateful to Dr. Margarita Mazo for the above information).  Sor had spent some three years in Russia, in 1823-26, and it may be supposed that he had heard these melodies at that time.

Souvenir de Russie is dedicated to Napoléon Coste, who studied with Sor and was at this time in his early thirties.

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BOLERO A DUO

Although this piece survives only with parts for two guitars and nothing else and it has been published as a guitar duet, I wish to suggest that in fact it may not be simply a guitar duet but rather an accompaniment, for two guitars, to a bolero for two voices by Sor.  I shall explain below why I believe that this may be so.  If this hypothesis is correct, then it is historically significant because it gives us the only known authentic accom­paniment for two guitars to any of Sor’s songs, and also musically interesting because it works extremely well as an accompaniment for a bolero.  Also, because it has such character, and because it can easily hold its own against the voices, it can provide a model for performers of other songs by Sor who may wish to try their hand at impro­vising accompaniments in the style of the time.  I must emphasize, however, that at this time it is only a hypothesis, and the piece may of course be played as a guitar duet by anyone who wishes to do so.

The Bolero a Duo is found in only one known source, an edition printed in Madrid between 1817 and 1824 entitled Colección selecta de musica ynstrumental para guitarra sola de los mejores autores nacionales y estrangeros.  In that source it is entitled Bolero a Duo con dos guitarras compuesto por D. Fernando Sor.  It is a short but lively piece as befits a bolero, full of zest and colour.  It breathes the rhythmic vitality of other known pieces related to Spanish dance at this time such as Aguado’s fandango for guitar, Soler’s fandango for keyboard, Boccherini’s fandango, or indeed the other boleros of Sor for voice(s) and guitar or piano.1 

There are, however, some questions about what exactly it is.  Is it an original work by Sor? Or perhaps an arrange­ment from something else? Is it for two guitars and nothing else, or is it an accompaniment to a song? And if it is by Sor, then what date is it? We do not have many firm answers, but there are some clues.

The source

Only one copy of the Colección is known, now in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, who kindly provided me with photocopies and whom I thank for permission to reproduce the original in facsimile here, at the end of this present volume.2  The reproduction of the original here may be particularly valuable to scholars in this case because of certain editorial conundrums which presented themselves in the course of establishing the text.

When I visited the Biblioteca Nacional in about 1973, working on my biography of Sor, the library was unfor­tunately not able at that time to make their copy of the Colección available to readers, so that this piece could not be included in my earlier edition of Sor’s Complete Works for Guitar.  And indeed, at that time it would not have been easy to explore any association with Sor’s boleros, because practically none of them had at that time been published (my edition of Sor’s Seguidillas dates from 1976, and More Seguidillas from 1999).  A modern edition of the Bolero a Duo was published in Madrid, as a duet for two guitars, in 1994.3 

The Colección may be dated by bibliographical means.  Its title-page gives the address “en el despacho de la calle del Turco”, an address which was used by the engraver and music publisher Bartolomé Wirmbs between 1817 and 1824.4  The Biblioteca Nacional copy consists of three numbers:

No. 1 (shelf-mark Mp 4203/9) containing Sor’s Andante sentimental y walz para guitarra [= op. 5 nos. 5 (the well-known “Andante largo”) and 6] (the opus numbers given here are for reference only and do not appear in the Colección);     

No. 2 (shelf-mark Mp 4203/8) containing his La Siciliana, sonata para guitarra [= op. 2 no. 6], Minuet [= op. 5 no. 3], Minuet [= op. 5 no. 1], and Wals [= op. 5 no. 2]; and

No. 3 (shelf-mark Mp 4203/10) containing this Bolero a Duo con dos guitarras compuesto por D. Fernando Sor and a minuet by Roldan. 

The wording of the title suggests that the Colección was intended to be part of a series containing music by various composers, but only these three parts are known. 

The source of the source

Where did the compiler of the Colección get the music? The answer is likely to be different for the Bolero a Duo than for the solos.  All the solos could have been taken from copies of editions published in London or Paris which had found their way to Madrid, because opus 5 had been published in Paris in 1814, and opus 2 had been published in London at some time between 1813 and 1819 and in Paris between 1816 and 1822.5  But the Bolero a Duo is of a completely different nature from those pieces and as such does not lie within the same publishing tradition.  Musically, it is not in the central European post-Haydn tradition like those other works but rather in the pure idiom of its native Spain.  No edition published outside Spain is known for it, and there is little probability that it comes from such an edition which is now lost.  Almost certainly its source is not an edition from outside Spain, but rather a native source, which would most probably have been a manuscript rather than a printed edition. 

When the Bolero a Duo was published in Madrid between 1817 and 1824, Sor was not there but in London.  Javier Suárez-Pajares, the editor of the 1994 edition, suggested that the manuscript of the Bolero a Duo may have been entrusted by Sor at that time to his friend Francesco Vaccari to bring from London to Madrid—indeed, at one point of his introduction Mr. Suárez-Pajares appears to present his theory as fact (page 2 of the introduction, although it is probably because of faulty translation in its English version, since it does not appear in the same way in the Spanish). 

However, I think that that theory is unlikely.  One would have to imagine that Sor, living in London at that time prolifically composing such things as ballet music, Italian arietts, and guitar music in a new style, would have selected or newly composed a piece in the old Spanish style which for him by then lay in his distant past, that he would then have sent it to Madrid for publication, and that after so much care had been taken, that it would then have been published there in the kind of omnium gatherum of miscellaneous pieces which is what the Colección really is.  One would also have to suppose that Sor, only too aware of his political exile, and given the opportunity to have some music of his published in Spain, would have chosen to send this scrap of a piece rather than one with more stature.  Nor is it likely that he would have allowed the Bolero a Duo to be published in its present quasi-improvisatory form if he or even a friend of his had had any control over the publication.  There would be no parallel to it anywhere else in his works: his other works are usually tidy, thoroughly correct and finished, not improvisatory.  I think it is unlikely that this piece as we have it today is a finished work by Sor which he knowingly allowed to be published in the form in which we have it: rather, I think it likely that the publisher in Spain took it from a manuscript which was already in Spain, from the time when Sor was living and composing in that country.                 

The form of the piece

The piece is entitled “Bolero”.  To what extent is it in fact a bolero? How far does it fit the bolero form, and if at all, then what kind of bolero in particular?

As is known, the bolero came into existence in Spain in the late eighteenth century, quickly caught on and became very popular by about 1800, and later in altered form swept through Europe.  One of the most important accounts of its history is given to us by Sor himself in his article “Le Boléro”.6   In that article Sor gives us three examples of boleros, one instrumental and two sung, and of course he also composed many other examples of the genre for which he is today justly celebrated. 

Our Bolero a Duo has a first section ending with the word “Fin” and then a second section ending with “D.C.”, that is to say, you play again from the beginning as far as the word “Fin”.  The “Fin” and “D.C.” are clearly printed in both parts.  That does not fall obviously into the classic bolero form as seen, for example, in the songs in the Seguidillas, nor into the variants of it which we find in the examples given in “Le Boléro” such as “Yo no sé lo que tiene” which has a different form.  If we were to assume that the “Fin” and the “D.C.” were mistakes and remove them, and if we were to add repeat marks to the second section, which is what Javier Suárez-Pajares did in his edition, we would then be closer to the standard bolero form, but the piece would still be a loose expression rather than a precise example of it.  Also, the problem with doing that is that not all boleros of the time, by any means, followed precisely the same form.  There were many different possible structures, not just one standard one.  It is therefore possible that the original indications of this piece may give us a valuable insight into ways in which boleros in general, and this one in particular, might have been performed at the time.  This present edition therefore keeps the original form, but anyone who in performance wishes to remove the “Fine” and the “D.C. al Fine” and repeat the second section is at liberty to do so and will then be closer to the form of the bolero of the time as it is found in, for example, Sor’s Seguidillas.

The group of three notes in bar 12 is typical of the beginning of the second part of a bolero. 

Is it a guitar duet? If it is, then no other of its kind is known.  We have no other guitar duets from Sor’s pen before L’Encouragement of 1828—not a single one of any kind.  Nor do we have any instrumental pieces in the Spanish style by him from an early date.  Nor do we have any instrumental works by him in such an improvisatory style—not a single one, at any date, in any instrumentation whatsoever.  Yes, they could have existed but all been lost, but the fact remains that at the present time we have no evidence of any. 

There does exist one guitar duet by Sor in the Spanish style, namely the “Allegro dans le genre espagnol” in his Fantaisie for two guitars op. 54 bis, which dates from about 1833 and is not a bolero but rather a fiery movement in dance style reminiscent of Aguado’s Fandango.  But whereas the Bolero a Duo has every sign of coming straight from a living native tradition of dance, the Fantaisie was written many years later in a foreign land.

The Bolero a Duo as an accompaniment to a bolero for two voices?

Merely as a hypothesis, I would suggest that this Bolero a Duo may be in fact an accompaniment for two guitars to a bolero by Sor for two voices.  The clue lies in the precise wording of the original title.  It says: Bolero a Duo con dos guitarras compuesto por D. Fernando Sor, that is to say a bolero a duo, not para dos guitarras, but con dos guitarras: not for two guitars, but with them.  The word “con” springs to the eye as soon as you realise that the two solo guitar works by Sor in this Colección which have the name of the instrument are both introduced by the word “para”: “La Siciliana, sonata para guitarra”, and “Andante sentimental y walz para guitarra”.  The Bolero a Duo uses a different word, “con”.  The reason could well be that the Bolero a Duo was a piece which was to be performed not by two guitars but with them, in other words something else was once there but is now missing.

Armed with that idea, the obvious place to look for further evidence is—where else?—Sor’s boleros.  I have now published two books of these, his Seguidillas (1976) and More Seguidillas (1999).  A close examination of all the songs has not revealed any exact correspondence.  But there is one song where the parallels with the Bolero a Duo are close: “Sin duda que tus ojos”, a particularly beautiful song for three voices in the More Seguidillas.  Here are the parallels.

“Sin duda que tus ojos” has a chromatic passage at the point where the words describe the poison that lies in the beloved’s eyes; it is found at bars 5-7 and 21-23.  The Bolero a Duo also has just such a chromatic passage, at bars 8 and 20.

“Sin duda que tus ojos” has a striking modulation at bars 12-13—and the Bolero a Duo has a similar modulation at the same place.

“Sin duda que tus ojos” has a series of grace notes, a kind of breathlessness of the lover, at bar 14—and so has the Bolero a Duo at the same place.

When you consider that none of these three features is common in Sor’s seguidillas, then the fact that they are all found in “Sin duda que tus ojos” and also in the Bolero a Duo does suggest a parallel.  What could it be?  I believe a further clue again lies in the very title: Bolero a Duo con dos guitarras: that is to say, translated exactly: a bolero for two voices or two people, with two guitars.  Not a bolero a duo because it is for two guitars, but more probably a bolero a duo because it is for two voices, in this case accompanied by two guitars.  The omission of the voice parts is a phenomenon of notation which will be only too familiar to anyone who has studied such early sources as, for example, the ancient Spanish vihuela books. 

If this hypothesis is correct, then the bolero in question was a bolero for two voices.  The compiler of the Colección will have taken the two guitar parts from a manuscript or manuscripts containing them and which may also have contained the two voice parts.  I don’t think he misunderstood them and thought they were a guitar duet, because if he had, he would have been more likely to have headed the music with a title such as “Bolero para dos guitarras”, or at any rate with some title which included the word “para” (“para dos guitarras”) and not “con”.  Rather, I think he was pub­lishing what he knew to be an accompaniment, and a particularly fine one, something which brings life to a song, and we should be grateful to him for having done so because it casts a great deal of light on how we can now go about performing Sor’s boleros with much, much more insight than was previously possible.  And just as a guess, I think that what we may be looking at is an accompaniment for a bolero for two voices, either for a two-voice version, for which as yet no source is known, of “Sin duda que tus ojos”, or else for some other song, as yet unidentified, of similar character and structure.  Moreover, I don’t think it likely that the accompaniment in the form in which we have it was composed by Sor; rather, it may be one or two generations away from the original, perhaps even an arrangement by someone unknown from an accompaniment for solo guitar or piano which he had heard Sor or someone else play, or which he had seen in a manuscript.  From a performer’s point of view it is extremely interesting, because until now the guitar accompaniments in More Seguidillas are not strong enough to provide a balanced accompaniment to the voices, but this Bolero a Duo is.

A possible performance of “Sin duda que tus ojos”with the Bolero a Duo as an accompaniment

Working on the hypothesis which I have suggested, there are two ways in which one might today perform “Sin duda que tus ojos” with the Bolero a Duo as an accompaniment.  One is to take the existing three-voice “Sin duda que tus ojos” and adapt the Bolero a Duo to it, and the other is first to adapt the existing three-voice version of “Sin duda que tus ojos” to make a hypothetical version of it for two voices, and then to adapt the Bolero a Duo to it.  In either case the vocal parts would need to be transposed from D to A.  Either of these could be done reasonably easily, and I eagerly await the time when a performer will carry it out, and when we may be able to place the reconstruction on the Hebe website.  Or perhaps one day another bolero by Sor for two voices may be found, to which the Bolero a Duo does fit exactly.

* * * * *

In editing this piece, I have silently corrected obvious errors and added rests, etc., where necessary.  I have not considered it necessary to give chapter and verse for these editorial details because anyone who is interested in them can easily consult the original which is reproduced here.  Here, however, are a few notes.

Bar 3, guitar 1, etc.: slurs added on the analogy of bars 1-2.

Bar 11, guitar 1, slurs are editorial, on the analogy of bar 16.

Bar 14, guitar 1, should the Bs in the second and third beats in the bar be flat or natural? In the original no natural is given to cancel the flat on the B of the first beat, and so one would assume that all the Bs in this bar are flat.  Mr. Suárez-Pajares in his edition has added a natural to the Bs in the second and third beats in the bar, no doubt by analogy with bar 7.  However, bar 7 is quite a different situation.  Here in bar 14 I prefer to respect the notation of the original (also it fits better with “Sin duda que tus ojos”, if this were to be considered as in any way an accompaniment to that song). 

An examination of the notation of the Bolero a Duo in its original edition shows that it has the character of a performer’s aide-mémoire.  In it, legibility is a priority but exactness of notation is not.  For example, at bar 16 in the guitar 1 part the three notes in the bass are obviously three quavers (eighth notes) but in the original are written without tails, which makes them appear as though they were crotchets (quarter notes), and also the scribe or engraver has not bothered to insert the necessary rest at the beginning of the bar.

Performers’ note for the Bolero a Duo: if preferred, the “Fine” and “D.C. al Fine” can be removed and the second part of the piece can be repeated (see above for discussion of this).

*****

 1 For Sor’s boleros, see my editions of his Seguidillas and More Seguidillas (both Tecla, 1976 and 1999).  For an extended discussion of Aguado’s Variations on the Fandango, op. 16, see my edition of that work (Tecla, 1982).

 2 Another copy was in the collection of Domingo Prat, who referred to it in his Diccionario de Guitarristas (Buenos Aires, 1934), p. 302.  The present whereabouts of that copy is unknown.

3 Bolero a Dúo, edited by Javier Suárez-Pajares (Madrid, Opera Tres, 1994).  In this 1994 edition the “Fin” and “D.C.” indications were removed and repeats added to the second half.  While these changes are quite defensible for a performance (see above), the editorial notes of the 1994 edition did not say what changes had been made from the original, so that it was not possible to know from the 1994 edition what the original form was, and the absence of a complete facsimile made it impossible to see for oneself. 

4 C.J. Gosálvez Lara, La Edición Musical Española hasta 1936 (Madrid, 1995), p. 192.

5 See my book Fernando Sor, Composer and Guitarist (second edition, Tecla, 1994), bibliography.

6 Sor’s article “Le Boléro” is published in full in my edition of his Seguidillas.

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