I play a modern classical guitar, but used to also have a beautiful 8-string Stauffer-style guitar by Scott Tremblay of Roseberry Guitars.
I like to improvise preludes to any piece I’m performing, and would like to encourage others to explore improv, and hopefully revitalise a forgotten part of the classical-guitar performance practice.
La Rose by Giuliani, with improvised prelude and cadence at the two-minute mark:
Le Romarin by Giuliani, with short improvised prelude:
Two studies by Napoleon Coste:
Valse by Napoleon Coste, with improvised prelude:
Legnani Caprice No.22 in Cm, with improvised prelude. Sorry the 8ves at the beginning are slightly out of tune!
IMPROV
NB Skype Lessons Available: http://robmackillop.net/tuition/
An Introduction to 19thC improv
Preludes, Cadences and Composition for Guitar in 19th-Century Teaching Practice – sadly the sound files for this essay have been lost – so make up your own 🙂
Here is a file linked to in the above essay: horetskycadences.pdf
First of three videos teaching improvisation, 19th-century style:
Second of three videos teaching improvisation, 19th-century style. I’m playing a Lacote copy loaned to me by Michael Nalysnyk:
Third of three videos teaching improvisation, 19th-century style:
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HARP-LUTE
The Harp-Lute was invented in 1798 by Edward Light of London. It flourished until c.1840, changing it’s shape over the years. It is not an instrument I had a great interest in until one fell on my lap, so to speak, through the generous offer of a loan of an instrument from Ian Grant. Ian hoped that I could “Do something with it”.
I have done no original research in this area, so happily recommend the following links for images and more information:
Harp-Lutes – by Gregg Miner
Sarah Deere-Jones – performer
Ian sent me not only the instrument by Edward Light, but also Light’s publication, Introduction to the Art of Playing On the Harp-Lute & Apollo-Lyre with suitable Lessons &.c Composed and Adapted BY Edward Light, Inventer.
This volume gives some instruction and twenty seven or so pieces of increasing difficulty. I recorded three pieces from pages 10 and 12, ‘Dance’, ‘Haunted Tower’ and ‘Scotch Air’. I offer them here as an introduction to the instrument and its repertoire. I’m told that it was immensely popular in its day, and that there are many hundreds of pieces for it.
The tuning, from bass to treble is, G CDEFGA Bcegc’ – the last five notes lying on the fingerboard. Three of the basses have semitone levers, or an early version of such, and therefore keys other than C Major can be played. The tuning is not too far from the so-called English Guitar, or ‘guittar’ of the second half of the 18th-century, and much of the repertoire is similar – Scotch Airs, popular songs, a little bit of Haydn…etc.
FERNANDO SOR
I’m delighted to announce my new album:
FERNANDO SOR: THE ART OF THE 19TH-CENTURY GUITAR, VOLUME 1
This recording is devoted to 32 of my favourite studies by this towering genius of the early 19th-century classical guitar. It is a download-only album, available from iTunes, Amazon and CD Baby:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/robmackillop3 – where you can hear excerpts.
I use a modern copy of the type of guitar favoured by Sor, a Lacote by Michael Nalysnyk of http://www.historicalguitars.co.uk, using gut and silk strings by Aquila-Corde, specially formulated for the early 19th-century repertoire.
I have also tried to get as close as possible to the technique outlined by Sor in his Method. All scores published in facsimile by Tecla.
Not familiar with Fernando Sor? Think Mozart and Schubert, with a Spanish-French influence…
The album is set at a low price, and once downloaded can be played on your computer, iPad, phone, or burned to a CD. The CD Baby page includes Programme Notes.
Please Like, Share, and Tweet about!
OTHER SOR-Related Pages:
Fernando Sor’s Guitar Technique – an overview
Videos of Fernando Sor’s Music:
The Georgina Gregory MS
Georgina Gregory was a teenage student of the great performer, Felix Horetsky, while he lived in Edinburgh in the 1840s. Horetsky taught guitar in Edinburgh (Scotland Street, and later, Clarence Street) for some twenty years.
The Georgina Gregory manuscript provides a good insight into pedagogic practice during the Golden Age of the guitar in the 19th Century, the time of Sor and Giuliani.
The manuscript contains pieces written or arranged by Horetski, as well as a few pieces by other composers such as Giuliani. Of great interest are the arrangements of Scottish and Polish airs, which seem quite unique to this manuscript.
A Lost Manuscript
As a student of the guitar, I used to visit the Edinburgh University Collection of Historical Musical Instruments most Saturday mornings, and was often greeted by the now late Anne Macaulay, who would always have a story or two about the instruments and the players. When Anne was dying, she asked me to play some Scottish lute music at her funeral – a very moving occasion.
But Anne also told me about a guitar manuscript she had a photocopy of, bearing the name, Georgina Gregory. She had given it to the Scottish music historian, David Johnson. After Anne’s passing, David handed the copy to me. Unfortunately, Anne had neglected to inform David where the original manuscript was housed. I made enquiries to a number of libraries in Edinburgh and Aberdeen (where all papers pertaining to the Gregory family have been housed), but no avail.
There is no library mark on the copy, only an accompanying note in Mrs MacAulay’s hand regarding its whereabouts , including ‘Forbes-Leith Collection, 24’. I have tried various libraries in Scotland, both in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, but to no avail. The Forbes-Leith Collection does exist, but this manuscript is not – and never has been – part of it. There are also papers belonging to the Gregory family, but no mention of this manuscript. Thankfully it carries the name of Georgina ‘Gregory, Ainslie Place’ on the cover, and, indeed, there was a Georgina Gregory living in Ainslie Place, Edinburgh in the 1840s.
Georgina Gregory seems to have been a pupil of Felix Horetski – once Giuliani’s duet partner – who had settled in Scotland Street, Edinburgh, after one of his exhaustive long tours of Europe. He seems to have remained in the city for twenty years, at one point teaching the young Schepanowski, who succeeded him as guitar teacher after his death.
The manuscript
So I have decided to share the manuscript with the world. Here it is:
Miss Georgina Gregory manuscript
…and here are the sound files I made using an original Panormo from the Collection at Edinburgh University. Unfortunately the recording quality is not the best, so I might do them again soon if I can get the time.
Georgina Gregory
Anne Macaulay donated to the Edinburgh Collection a painting she thought to be of Georgina Gregory:
I do not know the painter, and admit there is much research to be done with many aspects of the manuscript. If not Georgina Gregory herself, it is certainly a portrait of someone of her age group. The hands look those of a player, and the footstool adds a degree of authenticity.
Felix Horetsky
…or Felix Horecki…was one of the leading virtuosi in Europe of the 1830s to 50s. He was born in Poland in 1796, and died in Edinburgh in 1870. He studied guitar in Vienna with the great Mauro Giuliani.
rmclassicalguitar 