We get so much sheet music sent to us by various publishers year ’round—literally hundreds of pieces in every setting imaginable (solo guitar, multiple guitars, guitar-flute, guitar-harp, etc.)—but we don’t have the space to write about the great majority of them in our four quarterly issues each year.
So, just as we are now listing new classical guitar CD releases every other Tuesday here, we’re now going use the Tuesdays in between those to announce new print music releases. As with the CDs, these are not reviews (some will be reviewed in the magazine, but frankly most will not), but we think it’s important to at least get the word out about what’s being offered to guitarists out there. Where possible, we’ve linked the titles to the publisher’s website, and stated the degree of difficulty (if provided by the publisher or it’s obvious). —Blair Jackson
Here is a link to our previous listings from October 25, November 8 and November 22.
Joaquín Rodrigo, edited by Frédéric Zigante
The Best of Joaquin Rodrigo: 16 Pieces for [Solo] Guitar
Hal Leonard/MGB, 10 pp.
Comprehensive volume contains Rodrigo’s best-known solo guitar pieces, including Zarabanda lejana, En los trigales, Tres piezas españiolas, Invocación y danza, and others. Oh, and also a 1988 extract from the famous Adagio of the Concierto de Aranjuez, titled Aranjuez, ma pensée. Advanced.
Laurent Méneret
Impressions (solo guitar)
Les Productions D’Oz, 4 pp.
Attractive and varied piece by prolific French composer (b. 1963). Markings include “Energico,” “libre et chantant,” and “lento.” Intermediate. Another recent D’Oz release from Méneret is called Mississippi Blues; it’s for four guitars and is listed as easy.
Here’s a video of Méneret playing this piece:
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Ferdinando Carulli, edited by Fabio Rizza
3 Fantaisies avec Variations Op. 95 (solo guitar)
Ut Orpheus, 44 pp.
There is no accompanying information in this book giving date or context for these three fantasias by groundbreaking Italian composer (and guitar-method creator) Carulli (1770–1841). This work is believed to have been composed around 1811, a year after his first “method” book was published.
Érik Marchelie
À deux, c’est encore mieux! (for two guitars)
Les Productions D’Oz, 16 pp.
The title translates as “For two, it is even better!” Appropriate considering this book contains 11 short “very easy” pieces for two guitars, most just a page long, bearing evocative titles such as “Les cloches du village” (“The bells of the village”), “Toi et moi,” “Danse joyeuse,” etc . Marchelie (b. 1957) is from southwestern France.
Steve Marsh
By Lindisfarne (solo guitar)
Lathkill Music
OK, this isn’t quite so recent, but we wanted to include it because it’s a beautiful, pastoral guitar piece by the always reliable Steve Marsh, and because it feels especially appropriate around Christmastime: As Marsh notes, it “was written for my beautiful wife, Nadia, as a 2015 Christmas present (hence the final section, which I wanted to sound ‘Christmas-like.’)”
Raúl Maldonado
Suite Venezoleando (for four guitars)
Les Productions D’Oz, 36 pp. plus parts
Born in in Argentina in 1937, Maldonado settled in France in 1965. This piece was written in honor of some close Venezuelan friends who helped Maldonado through some rough times in the late 1960s, when he was living in Paris’ Latin Quarter. Intermediate.
Johann Kaspar Mertz
Barden-Klänge for Guitar, Vol. 2
Ut Orpheus, 28 pp.
Edited and fingered by Piero Viti and with an introduction by Angelo Gilardino, this volume collects six of of 30 pieces by Romantic guitar giant Mertz (1806–1856) published as Bardenklänge, all but two between 1847 and 1852. The different pieces all evoke different moods. Two of these, “Gondoliera” and “Tarantelle,” were inspired by a trip to Italy, one by traveling in Germany, and another is described by Gilardino as “based on introspection, both amatory and mystical.” he goes on to note that Mertz was “always in search of a full and passionate revelation of the invisible-inexpressible-unknowable.” Advanced.
Below, German guitarist Juliane Bergemann plays a sparkling version of Mertz’s “Tarantelle”: