Paris Spanish guitarist Agustin Maruri presents a new cd dedicated to the music of Fernando Sor. In this new recording, a large selection of the Minuets are featured, from opus number 2 to 36. This is the only available recording using an original historical instrument ; a Rene Lacote guitar dated Paris 1840.

The booklet notes are by the Fernando Sor  authority Brian Jeffery who  was also responsible for the complete facsimil edition of Sor’s compositions as well as the composer’s  biography.

What's on the CD

FERNANDO SOR, (1778-1839)

"Minuettos"/"Minuets" ,35 selected "Minuets" including

Minuets opus 5

Minuets opus 8

Minuets opus 11

Minuets opus 13

Minuets opus 24

Minuets opus 36

Review:

Fernando Sor - Minuets - Agustín Maruri It is an interesting and effective concept to feature on one disk all of Sor's Minuets (complete except for one theme & variation work which isn't really a strict minuet, and some duplicated opus #'s). These pieces are charming miniatures, 35 pieces in all, between 1 and 3 minutes in length. Some of the minuets are gems indeed and familiar to most classical guitarists. It is also interesting to note that many of the minuets date to Sor's early period in Spain in the classical period and style. The instrument used for this recording is especially noteworthy: a Lacote 1840 guitar, in pristine condition and restored by Ignacio Rozas. The instrument sounds clear, sweet, and robust - but different from today's classical guitars - more like the instruments used in Sor's day - and indeed typical of the guitar Sor played later in his career. Maruri took great care in assuring the note value corrections were done properly, researching the material, and is adept on this CD at bringing out the top voice over the harmony - especially important on Sor with 2-4 part writing. 

Notes from the CD written by Fernando Sor authority Mr Brian Jeffery

The minuets of Fernando Sor have a very special place in his work, especially the remarkable and unusual ones which are to be found in his op. 11 Deux thèmes variés et douze menuets and in one or two other sources which show every sign of being early, from before he left Spain in 1813. They are quite unlike most of his other compositions, and they form a part of Spanish musical history. Let’s have a look at these early ones first.

To understand them, it helps to know that Sor’s major work the Sonata Prima (later known as Grand Solo op. 14) was composed in Spain, because it was published (by Salvador Castro de Gistau in Paris) in about 1804, before Sor had left that country. It is a grand work, long and modulating into remote keys, reminding us of Soler and Scarlatti. Sor was obviously aware of other composers of his time. The op. 11 minuets remind us of the Sonata Prima in their rich harmonic idiom, while one of them, op. 11 no. 5, seems to allude directly to it in its opening bars. They surely belong to that same period in his creative output, to his time in Spain.

How do we know that the op. 11 minuets are early? Well, op. 11 no. 6 is definitely early, having also been published in Paris in about 1804, while nos. 3, 5 and 11 are found in other sources, and while it is a complex task to prove the early date, all the bibliographical evidence points to it (for details, please see my biography of Sor, Fernando Sor Composer and Guitarist, Tecla Editions).

Let’s have a look at them as music. Op. 11 nos. 1 to 3 all have an unusual scordatura, 5 = G and 6 = D, something rare indeed at a later date. The type of bass arpeggios in nos. 2 and 3 is also rare at a later date. In no. 4, three-note chords have semiquaver slides, not an idiom of a later date. No. 5 in its opening notes alludes to Sonata Prima. No. 6 has rippling arpeggios, while no. 7 has them in the middle voice and a special use of the right hand thumb. Nos. 8 and 9 are more “normal”. No. 10 is full of special effects including the fine old technique of campanelas. No. 11 again has three-note chords sliding, and no. 12 is again more normal but has some unexpected notes.

In fact, op. 11 is an unparalleled series of miniatures, worthy of great attention. They were published as op. 11 only much later, about 1822, and without that publication we would know nothing of eight of them. One wonders how many other fine early ones have perished.

As well as op. 11, there are also some other minuets which are, or appear to be, early. For example, a minuet in op. 23 was published by Castro again in about 1804, a fine work. Also another group called Four minuets, again published by Castro. And op. 24 contains six minuets, all fine, and all of which on stylistic grounds appear to be early.

The characteristics of the minuets in op. 11, and the other early ones, are that they use a great variety of effects on the guitar within a very short space. Several use scordaturas which are unusual at a later date. And, hard to analyse, their musicality is superb.

I have compared them to miniatures. And not by coincidence, it happens that Sor’s principal other form of composition from this Spanish period is in miniature form: his seguidillas for voice and guitar or piano, in seguidillas boleras form. Those seguidillas of Sor succeed brilliantly in making their musical effect briefly, by using their very brevity to good effect. In only a few bars we hear the meaning of the short text. The musical form, in the same way as in these minuets, uses a series of brief and pungent phrases to get its effect across. And not only that, but both minuets and seguidillas boleras, as well as being instrumental and/or vocal pieces, are also dances. In the case of Sor’s seguidillas we know for a fact that they were actually danced while Sor sang and played; in the case of the minuets, that isn’t yet established as far as I know. So we can see the seguidillas, and the minuets, as similar and very fine products of Sor’s creative output from his Spanish period.

But of course the minuet was a form which maintained continuous and unbroken popularity in Europe, and after Sor left Spain in 1813 and went to Paris, London and Russia, he continued to compose in that form.

For example, the two minuets in his op. 2, which despite its low opus number dates from about 1816, are appealing in their simplicity. (Sor’s opus numbers up to about op. 25 are not in order of composition but only of publication, and even that only roughly. From about op. 26 on, they are chronological.). Were these two minuets perhaps composed for his friend Emanuel Palacio Fajardo, the Venezuelan revolutionary to whom op. 2 was dedicated, who perhaps may have been better at political activity than at guitar technique? We don’t know, but it’s clear that the epoch of astonishing and uncompromising use of all the resources of the guitar which we saw in the early minuets, is over.

But don’t let us suppose that the later ones are no good. Indeed they are good in their way, but they are all simpler, and all lie within the normal mainstream of composition, not in the fiendishly individual style of earlier.

Take the minuet which is the third movement of the sonata op. 22, for example. This sonata as a whole in some form or other must date from before Sor left Spain, for it is dedicated to Manuel Godoy, who fell from favour in 1808; but this minuet, although it is a good piece, is not in the style of the minuets of op. 11 and the other early sources.

The minuet which begins the Trois Pièces de Société op. 36 takes us to another place again. This is no longer in the early style. Nor, again, is it a simple and charming piece like those in op. 2 and later. Instead, it is an advanced and developed piece, in which Sor evidently has decided to compose something advanced, but this time in the minuet form.

I congratulate Agustín Maruri on giving special attention to Sor’s minuets, for they are remarkable works (especially the early ones) which certainly deserve it.

Sources: CD and Booklet content - www.emecdiscos.com , www.agustinmaruri.com

Review - www.earlyromanticguitar.com