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Wolf Moser
FERNANDO SOR
The Unwritten Autobiography
Including his Reflexions on the Guitar
New enlarged Edition, thoroughly revised.
English Translation: Isabelle Dolezalek and James Hughes
Copyright of the English Edition:
© Wolf Moser 2014
Title of the German Edition ICH, FERNANDO SOR - Versuch einer Autobiographie und
gitarristische Schriften. Neuauflage, erweitert und völlig überarbeitet.
Copyright of the Original Edition:
© Wolf Moser 2005. Edition Saint - Georges. Lyon.
All rights reserved.
I.S.B.N.: 978-84-15928-45-4
Legal deposit: V-2284-2014
Design: Carolina Vallejo Martínez
Printed by: PILES, Editorial de Música, S. A.
Archena, 33 - 46014 VALENCIA (Spain)
Tel. 96 370 40 27 - Fax: 96 370 49 64
www.pilesmusic.com
Contents
Page
Preface7
Introduction11
PART ONE: IN SPAIN (1778 ─ 1813)
Birth and Childhood
School at Montserrat
Starting a Military Career and first Reflections on the Guitar
The first Opera, Meeting Aguado, “The Bolero”, Sor’s Emigration
PART TWO: LIFE AS AN EMIGRANT (1813 ─ 1839)
The Guitar in France
Composer and Singing Teacher in London
Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow and St. Petersburg
The Last Years in Paris
17
19
23
37
55
73
75
83
93
101
PART THREE: THE GUITAR, AND HOW TO PLAY IT
139
The Instrument
141
Notation144
Right Hand
145
Left Hand
155
Summary: Twelve basic Rules for Practising and Playing
163
Timeline167
Catalogue of music composed by Fernando Sor
181
Notes201
Index of written sources
203
Illustrations205
Select bibliography
207
Index213
PREFACE
Most of what we know about Fernando Sor’s life and ideas has been handed down to us by
Sor himself. All accounts of his life rely on this simple fact, which, nevertheless, no author has
expressly acknowledged. Its truth is confirmed, however, by all hitherto published biographies,
as every one of them is, in essence, based on such self-testimonies. Hence, the founding thought
of this book: for Sor to tell of his own life, to allow him to present his ideas in his own words.
Instead of adopting this method, earlier works have keenly obscured the autobiographical
contribution. In Fernando Sor (1778-1839), Ensayo biográfico, published in 1957, Manuel
Rocamora summarizes what was known at that point in time: the entries that Sor wrote for the
Encyclopédie pittoresque, Sor and Le Bolero, which Rocamora paraphrased and passed off as
his own, have since been merely repeated. In addition to this, there is Sor’s baptism certificate
from Barcelona cathedral and some articles taken out of Spanish newspapers regarding his first
opera in Barcelona and his last days in Paris. The final touch is given to this biographical essay
by the texts of some of Sor’s songs and a few passages lauding the composer, by the Spanish
musicologists Emilio Pujol and Alfredo Romea
The thesis entitled The guitar works of Fernando Sor, that William Sasser presented at the
University of North Carolina in 1960, reproduces, in its section on Biography, what Rocamora
had copied from the Encyclopédie pittoresque and transformed into a type of research paper.
Sasser does not seem to have recognised the fact that his predecessor had chiefly been quoting
from this work and thus using Sor’s own words. He is, nevertheless, the first to refer to Sor’s
complete œuvre. Although the analysis of his guitar works forms the main body of Sasser’s
thesis, Fernando Sor is also honoured as a composer of operas and ballets, Lieder and piano
music. In its appendix, the thesis reproduces a long extract of Sor’s guitar method in its English
translation from 1896 and a comprehensive and accurate bibliography.
Both of these are missing from Brian Jeffery’s monograph Fernando Sor, Composer and
Guitarist, published in 1977. Already, the title lays the emphasis on Sor as a composer, which
corresponds entirely to his own ideas. Indeed, until his death, Sor considered his guitaristic
impact as secondary.
Jeffery’s book suffers from the fact that the author does not seem content with his actual
achievement, the compilation of a Catalogue. This “catalogue” is at the heart of the work: it
contains a list of Sor’s compositions, with the details of the location of their earliest editions. In
the accompanying text, even Jeffery can only draw upon the above-mentioned sources, with few
exceptions, and thus ultimately Sor’s own writing. He attributes Sor’s entries in the Encyclopédie
pittoresque to the editor Ledhuy, despite the fact that he also suspected Sor as the author. The
autobiographical content is merely documented by one of the footnotes, in which the literature
Jeffery used also appears somewhat concealed. As already mentioned, both the bibliography
and earlier research results are missing, so that Jeffery can variously present long published
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information as newly discovered. What is more vexing are the accumulations of secondary facts
and the ubiquitous speculations. The secondary material, brought together out of lack of primary
sources or new findings, is so voluminous, that it entirely buries Sor as a person. The protagonist
becomes a victim of his biographer, who unwantingly deprives his reader of an insight into the
personality and versatility of this “reluctant guitarist”, instead of revealing it.
All three works have been taken into account in the following autobiographical essay. As a
consequence of calamitous developments, especially in the libraries of Paris, Madrid and
Barcelona, Sor’s original writings have become irretrievable. Therefore, I have been obliged
to employ off-prints from earlier publications. However, the most important source-material
regarding Sor had been made available long before the publication of the above-mentioned
works, largely through Felipe Pedrell, Hans Tempel, José Subira, Domingo Prat and Hans Radke.
Given that previous descriptions of Sor’s life had already brought to light the musician and
composer behind the guitarist, only Sor the writer still remains to be discovered. The first edition
of my book, in 1984, was an autobiographical account of Sor’s life and ideas, assembled from
texts such as his letters and other available writings, and completed by notions on the principles
of the Guitar. The new edition has remained faithful to this approach. Again, elements of Sor’s
considerations have been blended into the account of his life; the rest appears classified according
to themes in the third chapter.
There will surely be readers who believe it improbable that Sor could have composed as
many coherent texts as are reproduced in these pages. For this reason, an appendix of primary
sources documents all cuttings and isolated sentences, alterations and transitions. The latter
are sentences that have been added so as to avoid stark contrasts. In order to keep the narration
in the first person singular, as Sor preferred it, I have transcribed the preface and conclusion
of the article Sor in the Encyclopédie pittoresque from the third person. Insertions have been
highlighted through vignettes and the script. With these exceptions, the continuous text in all
three parts is Sor’s own.
The structure of the book has been dictated by the documented existence and the content of the selftestimonies of Sor, into which have been inserted articles and statements by his contemporaries.
In this edition, more emphasis shall be laid on Dionisio Aguado than in the first; also, the slightly
modified structure shall accentuate the collaboration of the two friends. Nevertheless, the lack of
self-testimonies of Aguado means that the two guitarists cannot be treated equally in these pages,
as had been the case in Sor’s first edition of Les deux amis, op. 41.
In the new edition, I have reviewed both textual material and indexes. In copying, I also verified
the wording and the order of texts with reference to their coherence. There are two reasons for
these modifications in the translations from French or Spanish: firstly, my prolonged exposure to
both languages has led me to new ways of understanding; and secondly, I am now able to better
assess Sor’s limitations in his mastery of the French language.
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Recent discoveries further expand the book by corroborating both dates and the existence of
hitherto lost works. The most outstanding publication in this field is without doubt the work
of Luis Gasser, who, as the editor of Estudios sobre Fernando Sor- Sor Studies, encouraged
and published thirty essays, studies, overviews and catalogues. My changes and additions to
the Timeline and Catalogue of Works are largely based on these writings. Nevertheless, many
gaps remain, even in this comprehensive volume. On the one hand, publications in German –
following a barely comprehensible tradition – have only been taken into account in a very few
exceptional cases, so that, even now, only the 2nd edition of Sor’s didactic piano work op. 22, and
not the original, has been included. On the other hand, some biographical finds shed light on Sor’s
Spanish career, from which works have now been documented that were previously considered
of dubious authorship, if not lost. Of course, even in new discoveries, there are disappointments.
For example that, out of three “symphonies”, the two mentioned by Sor consist only of one
movement each. Or, that the name »Sor« on the title-page of a Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
in G-major, is the only evidence of a supposed involvement. Further proof of his authorship
is lacking as much in the work itself, the character of the music and the handwriting, as in the
sources. Nonetheless, with the volume, Sor Studies, the account of Sor’s early creative years
gains in precision and the impression of an exceptional variety of his œuvre further emerges.
Following this must be mentioned the detailed studies, evidenced by a series of theses on the
subject of guitar music or the technique of the instrument before or after 1800.
A third group is composed of smaller contributions within specialist periodicals, in which
the dialogue between authors sometimes unexpectedly elucidates intricacies. A good example of
this is Andrés Segovia’s edition of twenty selected studies by Sor, which, for decades after 1945,
appreciably contributed to shaping the composer’s image within the world of the guitar. Three
years after Brian Jeffery had drawn attention to the many mistakes and inconsistencies of this
publication in 1981, Erik Stenstadtvold demonstrated that they were not based on Sor’s musical
notations but, indeed, on those of Napoléon Coste’s adaptation of Sor’s method, which was still
available to buy in 1980. An addendum to this conclusion has unwantingly been provided by
one of Reginald Smith Brindle’s articles. Smith Brindle, although sceptical, was still inclined to
believe in 1989 what Segovia had claimed in his presence, forty years earlier at a summer school
in Siena, namely, that he had written this colourful miscellany of studies entirely from memory,
because his sheet music had been lost during the chaos of the Spanish civil war! These articles
are listed in the bibliography, together with all other mentioned publications.
The rest of the structure follows that of the first edition. The chapter headings structuring the
text remain, as do the mottos at the beginning of all three sections, and the majority of the
pictures, all captions, newspaper articles or official documents. Explanatory pictures regarding
playing technique and musical examples have mostly been taken from Sor’s works. To these
have been added small vignettes in the margins, of Sor or Aguado, in order to better specify the
author within the alternation of their texts. Vignettes of a guitar or of a few bars in Sor’s own
handwriting have been provided as further aids. The small guitar denotes that the following text
regards concerts, instrumental issues or playing technique; the miniature musical script indicates
reviews of compositions and musical themes.
9
The images try to convey the impression of being illustrations, as the writer himself might
have added them. This same aim is also pursued by the short image captions, but they are equally
intended to give the reader additional knowledge, that they – as opposed to Sor – need in order
to set the scene within a context. Criticisms and other specifications have been collected in the
notes. A comprehensive timeline by date and keyword provides an introduction to Sor’s life and
can help to orient oneself in his narrations. The bibliography and catalogue have been expanded
and indexes as to the text, names and subjects complete the overview of Sor’s life and work.
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