Musicology Commons^™

French Music By An Italian Count: A Survey Of Selected Recordings Of Ludovico Roncalli, Ellwood Colahan

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No abstract provided.

Guitar Etudes In The Lisztian Vein: Zanon Plays Mignone’S Twelve Etudes, Diogo Alvarez

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Diogo Alvarez reviews Fabio Zanon's recording of Mignone's 12 Etudes and other works, with commentary on the music and the composer.

Narciso Yepes And The Composers Of His Time, Belén Pérez Castillo

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At his peak, Narciso Yepes was one of the most celebrated figures in the guitar world, as evidenced by the quantity and reach of his recordings. While he is well known as a proponent of the ten-string guitar with an innovative chromatic tuning, less attention has been focused on his activity as a commissioner of new works (many of them for the six-string guitar). Yet in this domain, Yepes was extremely productive, premiering works by such composers as Ascencio, Bacarisse, Balada, Maderna, Marco, Montsalvatge, Ohana, Palau, and Ruiz-Pipò, to name a few. Yepes's role as a collaborator varied from one …

Rodrigo’S Concierto De Aranjuez Through The Writings Of Regino Sainz De La Maza, Leopoldo Neri

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Regino Sainz de la Maza was the guitarist who premiered Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona in 1940. Although musicologists have studied this musical phenomenon from different approaches, this study approaches the subject from the perspective of the performer and his musical writings, affording us new historical, aesthetic and technical data on Rodrigo's work.

Rudolph Süss’S Lyrische Suite No. 1, Op. 23, Matanya Ophee

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This article reproduces the Lyrische Suite [no. 1], op. 23, by the Austrian composer Rudolph Süss, with a short introductory commentary. First published in Vienna around 1921, this suite is a fine example of the enthusiasm for the guitar in early twentieth-century Austria and Germany, which resulted in much music that has been overlooked, overshadowed as it was by the emerging Spanish repertoire.

Note

This article is one of a series of seven celebrating the work of Matanya Ophee (1932–2017) on the ninetieth anniversary of his birth. Written between 1982 and 1991, these articles first appeared in early issues of …

Andrés Segovia And Federico Moreno Torroba’S Danza Castellana, Julio Gimeno

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The guitar’s early twentieth-century repertoire is of unique importance, containing as it does the first guitar pieces by non-guitarist composers known for their symphonic, operatic and chamber music. Many of these composers wrote for the pioneering Andalusian guitarist Andrés Segovia, and among the most prolific of them was Federico Moreno Torroba. In various memoirs and interviews, Segovia identified Torroba’s miniature Danza castellana as not only the first piece written for him by a non-guitarist composer but even the first such piece by anyone, predating, in Segovia’s telling, Falla’s 1920 Homenaje. This article challenges Segovia’s claim by recounting the details …

Joaquín Rodrigo And Julian Bream: Aspects Of A Relationship, Javier Suárez-Pajares

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In light of the complex diplomatic relations between Spain and the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the deteriorating relationship between the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo and the English guitarist Julian Bream describes a telling arc—from 1951, when Bream gave the British premiere of the Concierto de Aranjuez, to 1959, when he emphatically rejected the Sonata giocosa that Rodrigo had written for him. To explore Bream's negative reaction, this study considers both Rodrigo’s relation to England and Bream’s ambivalent attitude toward the Spanish guitar tradition. An epilogue examines the recordings that the guitarist subsequently made of the Concierto de Aranjuez …

Soundboard Scholar No. 8: Cover

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Cover image: Ex Libris bookplate for Jane Patterson by Robert Anning Bell. Line illustration from 1893 that appeared in The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art. Private Collection.

Editor's Letter, Jonathan Leathwood

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An introduction to the contents of Soundboard Scholar, no. 8.

Carlo Barone (1955–2022), Adrian Walter

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Carlo Barone (1955–2022) was a pioneering performer, researcher, and educator in the nineteenth-century performing practice of the guitar. In this tribute, his friend and collaborator Adrian Walter describes Barone's career.

Issues In Transcribing German Lute Tablature, Kurt Dorfmüller

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Kurt Dorfmüller's essay is from Le luth et sa musique, a volume of proceedings from the 1957 research symposium of the same name that gathered a number of eminent scholars at the beginning of the modern era of lute scholarship and performance revival. In it, he inquires into the unique nature of German lute tablature, its mostly latent capacity for expressing polyphony, and the types of music for which it is more or less suited. He ends by proposing a set of guidelines for establishing a "mainstream practice" for transcription not only from German tablature but also from tablature …

Le Donne E La Chitarra, James Akers, Romantic Guitar, Ellwood Colahan

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No abstract provided.

Athénaïs Paulian’S Airs And Variations, Op. 1, Matanya Ophee

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This article reproduces Airs et Variations, op. 1, by Athénaïs Paulian (Bonn: Simrock, c. 1829), with a brief historical commentary and notes on performance. The commentary includes notes on Paulian's role in the Parisian guitar scene of Sor, Aguado, de Fossa, and others; the Italian soprano Angelia Catalani; and the popularity of the aria "Das klinget so herrlich," from Mozart's Singspiel Die Zauberflöte.

Elsa Just’S Ständchen For Guitar Trio, Matanya Ophee

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This article reproduces a serenade from an early twentieth-century German guitar magazine. It is for guitar trio and of moderate difficulty. The introductory commentary attributes the piece to Elsa Just (1894–1919) and includes a translation of the entry on Just from Zuth's 1926 Handbuch der Laute und Gitarre.

Rudolph Süss’S Lyrische Suite No. 2, Op. 24, Matanya Ophee

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This article reproduces the Lyrische Suite no. 2, op. 24, by the Austrian composer Rudolph Süss, with a short introductory commentary. First published in Vienna around 1921, this suite is a fine example of the enthusiasm for the guitar in early twentieth-century Austria and Germany, which resulted in much music that has been overlooked, overshadowed as it was by the emerging Spanish repertoire.

J.N. Bobrowicz’S Grand Polonaise, Op. 24, Matanya Ophee

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This article presents an edited version of a Grand Polonaise by the Polish guitarist-composer Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz (1805–81), preceded by a short commentary and notes for performance. The commentary includes a translation of the biographical entry for Bobrowicz in Sowiński’s Les musiciens polonais et slaves (Paris, 1857).

Carlos Pedrell’S Al Atardecer En Los Jardines De Arlaja, Matanya Ophee

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This article reproduces Al atardecer en los jardines de Arlaja by the Uruguayan composer Carlos Pedrell, preceded by a commentary. Together with Pedrell's other guitar works, this piece enriches our picture of Latin American guitar repertoire in the early twentieth century. In the case of Pedrell, we have a work written by a composer who studied in Paris and who wrote for three of the major guitarists of his time—Segovia, Pujol, and Llobet.

New Information On Sor And Gil Blas, Erik Stenstadvold

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A contemporary London newspaper report clarifies the extent of Fernando Sor's contribution to the operatic drama Gil Blas.

This letter is an addendum to Erik Stenstadvold, "Fernando Sor on the Move in the Early 1820s" Soundboard Scholar, no. 1 (2015), https://doi.org/10.56902/SBS.2015.1.7.

A Rondo Allegro By François Molino, Matanya Ophee

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This article presents an edited version of a Rondo-Allegro from Molino's Grande méthode complette (Paris, c. 1833). The rondo theme bears some resemblance to the famous melody "Das klinget so herrlich" from Mozart's Singspiel Die Zauberflöte. Ophee discusses the many versions of this theme to be found in the guitar's nineteenth-century repertoire, by composers such as Sor, Giuliani, and Paulian, drawing attention to composers' use of both the sung melody and the instrumental introduction.

Luigi Legnani's Missing Opus 9, Robert Coldwell

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The guitar composer Luigi Legnani (1790–1877) published some 250 works with opus number, most of them for solo guitar. His catalog, however, contains many gaps. This article explores the particular circumstances of the discovery of Legnani's opus 9, focusing on Legnani’s possible contact with the French guitarist Luigi [Louis] Sagrini (1809–74).

Matanya Ophee’S Contributions To Soundboard Magazine: A Retrospective, Stanley Yates

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The guitar historian Matanya Ophee's writings in Soundboard span almost his entire career as a researcher. In this restrospective, Stanley Yates surveys Ophee's work in general before offering a bibliography and commentary on his contributions to Soundboard: articles, reviews, and columns.

English And Russian Guitars In Poland: A Summary Of Sources Using Open-G Tuning, From The Nineteenth Century To The Present Day, Wojciech Gurgul

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Polish sources related to the guitar in open-G tuning are a little-explored area of guitar scholarship — one, however, well worthy of introduction. We can distinguish two groups of such sources, according to the period and the type of guitar intended: the first group consists of publications and manuscripts for the English guitar from the first two decades of the nineteenth century; the second consists of publications for the Russian seven-string guitar from the first four decades of the twentieth century. These two instruments were cultivated in Poland contemporaneously with the Spanish guitar. The Spanish guitar, however, garnered a significantly …

“An Attractive And Varied Repertoire”: Full-Data List, Christopher Page

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This document presents the complete set of data analyzed in Christopher Page, “‘An Attractive and Varied Repertoire’: The Guitar Revival of 1860–1900 and Victorian Song,” Soundboard Scholar, no. 8 (2022), https://digitalcommons.du.edu/sbs/vol8/iss1/3.

“An Attractive And Varied Repertoire”: The Guitar Revival Of 1860–1900 And Victorian Song, Christopher Page

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Most modern histories of the classical guitar are devoted to solo playing. They therefore forego a different kind of history based upon the guitar used as an accompaniment for a singer. This article explores how that alternative history might be framed with reference to England during the long reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). This is the ideal laboratory for such an experiment, not least because the compositions of Catharina Pratten (1824–1895), the most influential guitar player of the day, are often thought to reveal a late-Victorian public with little interest in the guitar as a solo resource. Yet the newspaper …

Thank You, Richard — And Yes, She Did!, Brian Jeffery

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New documentary evidence shows that Sor's pupil Natalie Houzé performed with him in public on February 29, 1832.

On The Need For A Scholarly Edition Of Tárrega’S Complete Works, David J. Buch

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In this guest editorial, the author provides evidence of the unreliable nature of the majority of Tárrega’s first editions, and the substandard quality of most modern editions. The author argues that in light of the recent availability of formerly inaccessible primary sources, the time is right for a scholarly edition of Tárrega’s complete works with state-of-art editorial methods.

Of Self And Circumstance: Music And Representation In The Works Of Rodrigo, Walter Aaron Clark

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Though Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-99) is renowned for his guitar works, especially the Concierto de Aranjuez, less well known is the fact that his compositions embrace a wide variety of genres, styles, and media, from piano solos to art songs and from orchestral tone poems to film scores. This article proposes a novel way of organizing and comprehending the roughly 200 works in his catalogue. Rather than the standard method of organization by chronology or medium, it surveys his oeuvre through multiple lenses, including literary, folkloric, virtuosic, sacred, historical, theatrical and descriptive. Each of these categories represents the salient dimension …

How I Got Into This: Toward A Social History Of The Guitar In America, Peter Danner

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An introduction to a series of five articles by Peter Danner on the history of the guitar in the United States from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Written between 1977 and 1994, these articles first appeared in early issues of the GFA’s magazine Soundboard. They are reprinted here in tribute to Danner’s pioneering contribution to guitar research and to bring them to the attention of a new generation of scholars. The author has generously provided this newly written introduction to the series.

Notes On Some Early-American Guitar Concerts, Peter Danner

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No abstract provided.

A Noteworthy Early-American Guitar Treatise: James Ballard’S Elements Of 1838, Peter Danner

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No abstract provided.