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he article informs about the works and life of Fernando Sor's guitar music has long been available to modern players, in large part to the pioneering work of Brian Jeffery. Topics include the facsimile editions were prepared at a time when reproduction techniques; and manuscript publications had a genuine autograph by the composer as source.

This article reconstructs the biography of a musician of Spanish-French background whose name and existence have hitherto been unknown, the guitarist and singer Mariano Castro de Gistau (c. 1800–1856). He arrived in Britain around 1829, during the relatively brief period when the guitar was widely fashionable there. The article discusses the factors that created this fashion as well as some of the principal forces that would soon challenge the instrument's position and complicate the life of musicians like Castro (such as the rise of a canonical repertoire performed in concert halls built ever larger). Castro remained in the British Isles until his death in 1856, with a career unfolding mainly in provincial centres like Edinburgh, Dublin, Aberdeen and Cheltenham. Contemporary reviews show that he was a highly respected musician who appeared in concerts both as a guitarist and singer, often accentuating his Spanish background in the choice of repertoire. In addition to giving singing and guitar lessons, he was teaching the French language (increasingly so in later years when the guitar had lost much of its status) and after 1845 he was also engaged as a teacher in various private schools and academies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interpretation of appoggiaturas or grace-notes in Classical and early Romantic music is much discussed and contested. This article concerns the appoggiatura in the music of Fernando Sor (1778-1839), a guitarist whose career unfolded in several countries, above all in France, where almost all his known guitar music was published. Although none of this music survives in autograph manuscripts, there are ample autographs of Sor's compositions for voice, piano or orchestra to examine his musical handwriting in general and the notation of appoggiaturas specifically. Notwithstanding inaccuracies and inconsistencies, the notation indicates that the written length of the appoggiatura is often a useful pointer to its approximate duration in performance. It also shows that Sor seems to have envisaged long appoggiaturas in far more situations than commonly considered today. This practice is supported by descriptions in a great number of method books, both for the guitar and other instruments, published in France during the early decades of the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on clarifying Fernando Sor's contribution to the operatic drama Gil Blas and debunking the possibility of his involvement beyond two songs. Topics include the author's previous speculation on Sor's role, the discovery of a review in "The Sun" newspaper confirming Sor's limited contribution, and the significance of this new information in understanding Sor's involvement in the production.

The article profiles Spanish guitar musician Fernando Sor. Topics discussed include a brief personal background information of Sor including his early musical career in France and Russia, and the various musical compositions of Sor such as "Arietts" for voice and piano, his ballet composition entitled "Cendrillon" and the opera "Gil Blas." The romantic relationship between Sor and ballerina Félicité Hullin is also presented.

During the early 19th century the guitar knew a degree of popularity that has prompted the belief that this was one of the most successful periods in its history. However, despite the apparent success of some individual players, the position of the guitar was uniquely controversial and conflicted. This article examines the guitar’s reception in the specialist music press in Germany, France and England during that period, and the motives behind the frequently negative assessments. Two dominating musical and ideological forces appear to have been particularly influential: the notion of gender-specific instruments and the rise of musical idealism.In 1783 the theorist of bourgeois decorum, Carl Ludwig Junker, described in detail which instruments befitted the respectable bourgeois woman. Such gendering of instruments had massive influence all over Europe, and it placed the guitar in the role of a domestic amateur instrument, first and foremost for women. Being contrary to the demands of the new musical idealism, this was detrimental to the prospect of the guitar finding a permanent place in professional musical life. Thus critics, almost unanimously and irrespectively of national background, took a negative, often outright hostile, stand towards the guitar, in particular when it assumed the role of a concert instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]