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Collection of Works by Fernando Sor

Fernando Sor was an important musician of the early 19th century. He left us an impressive selection of music. Much of it is cheerful, and many may have some fond memories of challenging sessions with compositions for Sor's classical guitar.

Fernando Sor was born in Barcelona in 1778. In his twenties he sympathized with Napolean and his conquest of Catalunia, and when that failed and Catalunia returned to Spain, he was unceremoniously put outside of his own country, a place to where he never returned. He began a long residence outside of Spain, mostly in France, with some time in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, as well as some time spent in London. He died in 1839.

His work is good, varied and very distinctive. He was influential in promoting the development of the lute into a stronger sounding guitar, but he never heard the highly resonant acoustic guitars that we know nowadays.

He used primarily a smaller type of guitar, and from what we can hear and reconstruct, those guitars sounded quite unequal in tone, quality and acoustic volume. But Sor had obviously a much deeper understanding of music, and he worked within a rich musical environment. He shows a musical range from the highest possible to the lowest possible notes, and he fully exploits these ranges in his music.

Although we present his music two centuries later, we do not appear to have solved all our questions in the construction of classical guitars. I attempted to create a good simulation of a classical guitar with our current tools, but I was not able to create an instrument that could capture Sor's expression adequately, in its full expression and in its finer delicacy. With the magnificent piano that I use in this selection however, that was much easier.

You can read yet much more by studying Fernando Sor's extensive collection of edited manuscripts, established by Brian Jeffery at https://tecla.com/fernando-sor/. I am very grateful to Mr. Jeffery for permitting me to use many of his musical scores to create parts of this collection. Please note the important contribution of authors who verify and edit original manuscripts, as Mr. Jeffery has done. This is an exceedingly tedious task, as I can verify from my own 9 years in this field. In the collection below, all scores contributed graciously by Mr. Jeffery and Tecla are marked with a "T". The other parts originated in free scores found on IMSLP.

Complete collection 1: Grand Works

Musical Scores

1. Andante Largo (T), Six Petites Pieces, Opus 5, D Major

4. Variations on Mozart, Opus 9, transposed to G Major

5. Folies d'Espagne (T), Opus 15(a), E minor

6. Sonata Seconda (T), Opus 15(a), C Major

7. Grand Solo, Opus 14, F Major for segment 1, D Major for the rest

8. 3 Duos Faciles, Opus 55
a. 1st Duo, 1 Allegro, A Major

b. 1st Duo 2, Allegretto, A minor

c. 2nd Duo 1, Andante, E minor

d. 2nd Duo 2, Allegretto, transposed to G Major

e. 3rd Duo 1, Andante, C Major

9. Various pieces
a. Lesson 3, Opus 31 No 3 (T), D Major

b. Mazurka, Opus 32 No 4 (T), D Major

c. Galop, Opus 32 No 6 (T), E minor

d. Waltz, Opus 39 No 2 (T), G Major

e. Waltz, Opus 43 No 6 (T), D Major (initially)

f. Cantabile and March, Opus 44 No17-18 (T), Cantabile D minor, March D Major

All were produced with virtual instruments for MP3.
Public Domain