Six Petites Pièces, op. 32

These Six petites pièces op. 32 were first published in Paris in 1828 with the title Six petites pièces faciles et doigtées avec soin (Six short and easy pieces, carefully fingered). As with earlier sets of six short pieces—notably his opp. 1 and 2—it is clear that Sor took care to arrange the pieces in contrasting order of tempo and of key. It would make good sense to perform the six pieces as a set. The set is dedicated to a young English lady, Miss Wainwright, about whom, and about this op. 32, Sor had this to say in his method: Loin de prétendre affecter une modestie qui pourrait paraître suspecte, j’avouerai que l’expérience vient de me prouver que celui qui me dirait qu’il y a des choses qui, toutes justes qu’elles puissent paraître en théorie, ne le sont point de même lorsqu s’agit de l’exécution, trouverait que cette observation est détruite par mademoiselle Wainwright, jeune demoiselle anglaise dont le raisonnement juste, la perspicacité d’esprit, la conviction que mes préceptes étaient les seuls qui pourraient lui faire obtenir de la guitare ce qu’elle désirait, et le peu d’application que ses autres études et les devoirs de la société lui permettaient, produisirent un résultat si flatteur pour moi, qu’en vingt-cinq leçons elle jouait bien les six petites pièces que je lui dédiai [op. 32], et qu’elle déchiffrait toutes mes vingt-quatre leçons [op. 31] au point de n’avoir plus besoin de personne pour trouver le meilleur doigté de toutes les positions imaginables: son corps et ses mains sont placés à servir de modèle. Il est vrai qu’elle aime à se rendre compte de tout ce qu’elle fait, et que je n’ai jamais eu d’écolière qui eût une si bonne manière d’étudier ni un esprit aussi analytique. (‘Far from pretending to affect a modesty which might appear liable to suspicion, I confess having been recently convinced by experience that he who should tell me that there are some things which how just soever they may appear in theory, are not so by any means in practice would find this observation disproved by Miss Wainwright, a young English lady, whose accurate reasoning, readiness of apprehension, the conviction that my precepts were the only ones that could enable her to obtain from the guitar the desired effects, and the little application that her other studies and the claims of society allowed her, produced a result so flattering to me, that in twenty-five lessons she played perfectly the six little pieces that I have dedicated to her, and understood all my twenty-four lessons so well as no longer to require any person to enable her to discover the best fingering of all imaginable positions: her figure and her hands are so placed as to serve as a model. It is true that she likes to find reasons for everything she does, and that I have never had a pupil possessing so good a way of studying nor so analytical a mind.’) (Originally in French in Sor’s Méthode pour la Guitare, Paris, 1830, pp. 4-5. English translation by Arnold Merrick published as Method for the Spanish Guitar in London in 1832, available in reprint form from Tecla.) This edition comes from the new 2019 second edition of Sor’s New Complete Works for Guitar edited by Brian Jeffery. The Introduction and Index to the entire series are here in nkoda. This new edition is copyright © by Brian Jeffery 2019. Your cooperation is requested in not making illegal copies for other people. Brian Jeffery