Fantaisie, Op. 54 bis

Published in Paris in about 1833, this Fantaisie op. 54 bis by Sor is a remarkable work in the history of Spanish music and its diffusion throughout Europe. In his early career, Sor composed a number of fine songs in seguidillas boleras form for one to three voices and guitar or piano, which are very much in the popular Spanish style. They are published today in two volumes which I have edited: Sor’s Seguidillas (Tecla Editions, 1976) and More Seguidillas (Tecla Editions, 1999). But when he composed for instruments without voice, for example for guitar solo or guitar duet, he composed always in the normal central European style of his time, and never in the peculiarly Spanish popular style. Thus, all his music for guitar solo and for guitar duet up to this time is in the central European style and none of it is specifically “Spanish” in style (the Bolero a Duo in this edition is a special case). However, in the 1820s and 1830s a growing enthusiasm for things Spanish swept through Europe with the Romantic movement. It was especially important in Paris, where the famous bataille d’Hernani took place in 1830. Sor and Aguado, Spaniards living in Paris, found themselves in the middle of it. Aguado wrote down his Fandango Varié, which is for solo guitar and which appears to recall certain elements of Spanish popular music of thirty years earlier, and Sor composed this present duet, op. 54 bis, with a fine movement “dans le genre espagnol”, the first and only piece for guitar without voice which he is known to have written in the popular Spanish style. (For more about this subject, see the introductions to my editions of Sor’s Seguidillas and More Seguidillas, and of Aguado’s Le Fandango Varié, all published by Tecla.) The original title is Fantaisie pour deux guitares, composée expressément pour Mlle. Houzé. The dedicatee, Mlle Houzé, was also the dedicatee of Sor’s Six valses, opus 39, and of another Fantaisie for guitar solo which survives only in manuscript. Since the work is for two guitars, it is not fanciful to imagine that Mlle Houzé and Sor may have played this work as a duet, on two guitars, and in that case which of them played which part? One of the parts lies generally higher than the other, but both parts have the remarkable syncopated rhythm. The earlier L’Encouragement op. 34 for two guitars, a much simpler work, had specifically marked the upper part for L’Elève and the lower part for Le Maître, and that may have been the case here also, we don’t know. In either case, Sor and his pupil would have been playing a work full of Spanish rhythms, in a Paris which at that moment was enthusiastic about things Spanish. 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