What books, internet and CD-covers tells us...
Alonso Mudarra (1510-1580) Gallarda
The gaillard was a Renaissance dance form that was very popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is an athletic dance, characterised by leaps, jumps and hops. The Gaillard was generally paired with the slow processional dance Pavan (the slow dance first). Mudarra's Gaillard was meant to be played after the "Pavana de Alexandre", a piece we will learn in D06.
At the age of 36 years Mudarra became a priest and was installed as canon of the cathedral of Sevilla.
Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710) Pavanas Por La D, Con Partidas Al Aire Español
Our second composer of this lesson, Sanz, was also a priest. Born to a wealthy family, he was baptized as Francisco Bartolome Sanz y Celma, but later adopted the first name "Gaspar". He studied music, theology and philosophy at the University of Salamanca, where he was later appointed Professor of Music.
This "Pavane with variations in the Spanish manner" is from the second volume of his three part master work for baroque guitar "Instruccion de musica sobre la guitarra espanola".
In the lesson book, there's seems to be something wrong in measure 32. I guess that it must be just like m.16. First we play a whole note, the second time around it's a dotted half note, followed by the upbeat of the next variation.
The barline after a-A is confusing. The a-A under number 2 must be considered as the first beat of m.33, which has only three quarter notes.
[However, in the video the structure A-A-B-B-C from the score has turned into A-B-C-B. In m.16 the bar with the whole note (under number 1) is skipped. Professor Delcamp just plays the dotted half note immediately followed by the quarter note. In m. 32 he also plays straight on and skips the dotted note in the bar under number 1. And then at the end of the piece (m.49) he plays a dotted note instead of a whole note and then starts a repeat beginning with the quarter note of m.16 and ending with m.32 (this time a whole note). Maybe this is what's meant by variations in a Spanish manner )]
Napoléon Coste (1805-1883) Etude I opus 38
One of the great 19th century guitar composers that didn't live abroad! Most of Coste's work was forgotten after he died, but his Op.38 became well known and widely appreciated. Study no. 1 is dedicated to mister E. Petetin, pupil of Coste and later his son in law. In his recent PhD-dissertation about Coste, Van Vliet says Petetin must have been a very mediocrate player, because the low difficulty-grade of this study. Ay, that hurts for us poor D05-students! Maybe it's easy when you use the simple and elegant fingering of Coste, but you must be a pretty good player to make the weird fingering in the lesson book sound nice. http://imslp.org/wiki/25_Etudes_for_Gui ... l%C3%A9on)
All these studies were composed by Coste for seven-string guitar. The first bass notes of m.7 and m.37 were originally an octave lower, so the descending bass line now makes a strange jump at the end. The tempo indication of the original is bpm=112, which IMO does fit much better to the character of the piece.
The demonstration video has a lot of rubato and a lazy, romantic atmosphere. But with a bit more pepper and a good sense of rhythm Coste's etudes suddenly sound surprisingly modern. Sometimes I hear a few bars that could have been played by Ry Cooder, Tommy Emmanuel, Harry Sacksioni or Leo Kottke (best example: Etude nr. 2 on p.78-79 of the lesson book, from bar 9 on!). If you really want to get a good impression of the superb quality of Coste's Op.38, I advise to listen to Jeffrey McFadden's rendition (Coste: Guitar Works Vol.4, Naxos; also on Spotify).
Francisco Tàrrega (1852-1909) Làgrima
This famous piece was written by Tarrega when he was abroad, on one of his tours, in London. As many pieces, it was not published during his lifetime. He used it in manuscript form as student material. First it was just named "Preludio", but after hearing it his student Walter Leckie immediately came up with the name Lagrima (Teardrop).
When Tarrega died, the manuscript was not in his legacy. But then Pujol discovered a unknown manuscript of Tarrega, owned by an amateur guitarist in Reus (Spain). He handed it over to the Tarrega family, who had it printed in 1914 (Buenos Aires) and later in Madrid. This version had two parts and it would became the standard version.
But although Lagrima sounds so familiar to us nowadays, it seems that we are playing an incomplete version. In 1911 Leckie gave the Lagrima manuscript he got from Tarrega to Domingo Pratt during the latter's visit to Marseille. This was a THREE part manuscript! The section that had been "lost" is actually the second part. The structure of the Pratt-version is AA-BB-A-CC-A (A being the E major-part; B being the "new" part; C being the e minor part). Pratt published it in 1924 in Buenos Aires. You can listen to the Pratt version, performed by our forum member Jürgen Schenk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR4z74y8XJg
For more details about the history of Lagrima: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8343&p=76896&hilit= ... art#p76896
Julio Sagreras (1879-1942) Lecciones III n°6
In his method Sagreras writes: "This study in the form of a ranchera (a few years ago it would have been called a mazurka, for in reality that is exactly what it is) is composed of slurred triplets. In these I recommend that the first note of the triplet is held very firmly, since that is the one which has to withstand the descending part of the ligado. I recommend yet again that in the second section, which is in thirds and sixths, the fingers of the left hand should slide in all those places where slides are indicated. The accents marked should be strictly observed."