I will present here two different sets of publications of music by Fernando Sor published in the United States in the 19th century. While there may be other editions published in the US in the 19th century, I will focus on these two sets because it appears there is little to no information written about them before now.
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I recently came into possession of a number of programs and articles from 1926 and one article from 1927 regarding Segovia’s concerts in Russia. In Matanya Ophee’s 2017 article “Segovia and the Russians” he included some of these items. I’m sure the book by Vaisbord includes the details from the programs and articles but I don’t have a copy of the book to compare. Hopefully this information will be of interest to others so I make them available here.
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This French guitar journal began as simply Guitare in 1955, changed to Guitare et Musique in 1957, changed to Guitare et Musique Chansons Poesie in 1967, then finally to Guitare & Musique Chansons Poesie in 1972. The last issue appeared in 1978.
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Wednesday, May 19 through Sunday, May 23. Held this year as a virtual event. All concerts and lectures can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/Timofeyev63.
An exciting new book from Erik Pierre Hofmann and Stefan Hackl currently in pre-order status. Visit the Les Éditions des Robins website of Erik Hofmann for more details.
On the question of the actual name of Mertz, around the turn of the 20th century guitar writers made assumptions about the initials “J. K.” While in the 1980’s Astrid Stempnik discovered the birth name of Mertz to be “Caspar Joseph,” the earlier writers used either “Joseph Kaspar” or “Johann Kaspar.” Somehow “Johann” became the definitive reading of his initial “J.” and has been repeated over the past 100 years. Repetition does not always make information correct. Mertz never used his full first or second name in promoting himself either in concerts or publications. In fact, even after he died his widow posted advertisements to sell his instruments by using his performing name “J. K. Mertz.”
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Dedicated to Mr. Jiro Nakano (1902-2000) and Mr. Hiroshi Kawai (1904-1987)
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A few years ago I found 14 pages of lined paper with articles pasted on them in a folder titled “Clippings Justin Holland 1887” in the Bickford Collection at California State University Northridge. The articles were titled “The Guitar” and included interesting topics on Sor, Carulli, Carcassi, Molino and answers to reader letters. A typescript also in this folder contains transcriptions of some of these articles and articles from other guitar journals. Based on these two items I was able to track down these articles to Brainard’s Musical World January – December 1888.
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Federica Artuso has just released a 2 CD recording of the complete works of Emilia Giuliani on Tactus Records.
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The following list is the current state of my research into the works of J. A. (Johann Abraham) Nüske (1796-1865).
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