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FERNANDO SOR Two themes with variations, and twelve minuets Opus 11 Minuets 1-6 for solo guitar from the New Complete Works for Guitar of Sor, edited by Brian Jeffery
Hebe’s Web A10213
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OPUS 11. DEUX THÈMES VARIÉS ET DOUZE MENUETS. This is something of a miscellaneous collection and first appeared in Paris in 1822 or shortly before. Parts of it (and perhaps all) are certainly old, but the organization of so many separate pieces into a single publication is a product of the 1820s. The theme of the first set of variations is almost the same as that of a “Thème Varié” which Meissonnier published separately with a different arrangement of variations and to which he gave the numbering op. 15(c). Minuet no. 12 was also published as op. 13, no. 4. The twelve minuets are in an unusual style, with their abrupt changes of register, their sudden running passages, and their scordaturas. They are among the finest of Sor’s miniatures and have deservedly kept their popularity over many years. Some are certainly from Sor ’s Spanish period, and it is quite possible that they all are: see Chapter 1 of my book Fernando Sor, Composer and Guitarist . Minuet no. 6 was certainly composed in Spain, having been published earlier by Salvador Castro de Gistau in his Journal de Musique Etrangère (Paris, about 1810 or slightly earlier). It is reproduced in facsimile in Volume 2 of the Tecla nine-volume facsimile edition. Minuet no. 5 is found in a manuscript in the collection of Robert Spencer, London. Early versions of Minuets no. 3 (without attribution) and no. 11 are in MS 722-24[x] of the Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid (see Luis Briso de Montiano, Un fondo desconocido de música para guitarra , Madrid, 1995, p. 163). It seems likely, but not yet conclusively established, that all the minuets, and perhaps all of op. 11, are in fact music which was originally composed by Sor in Spain. The early versions of minuets nos. 3, 5, 6 and 11 offer particular points of interest and particular problems and deserve a special study which is not pursued in the present edition. In some of these minuets the harmonies sometimes seem strange. But because of their special historical position, in the interests of historical accuracy they have not been changed here. An example is Minuet no. 8, bars 14 and 18, where the first G sharp in each case might be expected to be an A but has not been altered here. Sometimes the harmonies are particularly rich, for example in Minuet no. 12, bar 9. Performers may follow their own judgement about the performance of specific cases. This edition comes from the New Complete Works for Guitar of Sor, Volume 1, which I published in 1997 with Tecla Editions. For details of the various early editions of this work, please see the bibliography in my book Fernando Sor, Composer and Guitarist published by Tecla (www.tecla.com). For more details about this new edition, and more on Sor, see the Hebe’s Web site (www.hebesweb.com). In the first Thème Varié, Variation 6, last bar, the last two notes are marked “armonici”. The C must be an artificial harmonic. The E can optionally also be played as an artificial harmonic. Minuet no. 3, bars 27, 32 and 33: the naturals are editorial on the analogy of bar 28 where a natural is present in the original. Minuet no. 11, bar 5: the original edition has a superfluous chord which has been deleted. In bar 21, first chord, the fingering 4 is 1 in the original. In the last theme and variations, bar 59, the fourth note in the bass is F in the original. I would like to thank Darren O’Neill for making detailed comments on the proofs of this edition at an early stage. BRIAN JEFFERY
