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A 19th Century Guitar Music Goldmine

David Allen Coester is a name that should ring bells with long-time WGS members. He was introduced to the classical guitar at Northern Virginia Community College, and after going to the Manhattan School of Music and gathering many other feathers in his hat, came back and played for the WGS in May 1994.

David has a web site with a great batch of public domain, 19th century American guitar publications. Currently available are:

• The Guitar Soloist, by Walter Jacobs, published 1895. Contains very decent arrangements for intermediate to advanced guitarist.

• Instrumental Guitarist, Choice Collection of Melodies for Guitar by Popular Composers.
• Guitar Album, by C.J. Dorn. Fifty Original Compositions and Arrangements for Guitar Solo. Copyright 1897.
• Hayden's Star Collection of Guitar Music, copyright 1872. Vocal and instrumental music arranged expressly for this work.
• Elite Guitar Instructor, by Arling Shaeffer, copyright 1895. Beginning instruction to advanced repertoire.
• Winner's New American School for the Guitar, copyright 1883 by White, Smith & Co.

For an example of the neat little things you can discover in this sort of music, if you're willing to pull your snoot down from out of the stratosphere for a moment, give a play to "From the Opera of Genivieve" - meaning "Genevieve de Brabant", by Jacques Offenbach - on page 59 of "Winner's New American School". Here's the incentive (and also a little experiment to see if any WGS members ever read the newsletter): the first WGS member who can tell me what he hears in that piece will have his membership extended by a year.

Check out page 78 of "Winner's New American School". There's an arrangement of "O Dolce Concento". My claim is that this is the piece Sor worked from when he wrote the Magic Flute variations, Op. 9. The question is not, how did Sor come to change Mozart's "Das klinget so herrlich" melody, but who was the first person who took "Das klinget so herrlich" and cooked up "O Dolce Concento" from it? In any case, I've seen an "O Dolce Concento" for piano by T. Latour that has some variations that make me wonder if Sor wasn't inspired by that particular version. One of the Latour variations even looks like the model for Sor's first variation on "La Folias".

Go to www.meantone.com and click on "Free sheet music downloads."

-Donald Sauter

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