1778–1839 · Spain · Classical
Fernando Sor (1778–1839) was a Spanish guitarist and composer at the turn of Classicism and Romanticism, one of the leading masters of the classical guitar in his century. He wrote more than sixty guitar works and produced a highly popular guitar method, 'Méthode pour la Guitare' (1830). Players today value him chiefly for studies and pieces at different levels.
Fernando Sor was born in Barcelona in February 1778. His family had a long military tradition, but his father drew the boy toward Italian opera and the guitar, and Sor gave up on a military future, falling in love with music instead. From an early age he learned to play the guitar, the violin and the cello. Not yet eleven years old, he wrote songs to Latin words to impress his parents.
At eleven or twelve his talent was noticed at Barcelona Cathedral, and the boy was enrolled in the school there. His father died in 1789, leaving his mother without the means to continue paying for his education. Then the abbot of Montserrat monastery, Joseph Arredondo, having heard of the boy's gift, offered him a funded place at the monastery's choir school. The teachers there, among them Padre Viola, thought little of the guitar, so Sor taught himself to play it — both before Montserrat and after. Later his mother grew concerned that her son was straying ever further from a military or administrative career, and, heeding her friends' advice, she pulled him out of Montserrat and sent him to a military school for four years, where he still found time to make music.
In 1795 Sor returned to Barcelona and began military service as a second lieutenant in the Villafranca army under General Juan Miguel de Vives y Feliu. The post allowed him to give his first piano and guitar concerts and to compose. At thirteen he wrote a large sacred work, a Solemn Mass with parts for soloists, choir and organ, and in his youth an opera, 'Telémaco', staged at Barcelona's Teatro de Santa Cruz.
Sor then tried to enter Madrid court circles, but was not well received there; the thirteenth Duchess of Alba took him under her protection, but she died, and the Duke of Medinaceli then gave him a post managing his estates in Barcelona. In these years he wrote symphonies and string quartets, composed works for voice accompanied by guitar or piano, and wrote solo pieces for guitar.
When French forces invaded Spain in 1808, Sor began writing patriotic songs for the guitar and joined military bands that performed in the streets. He was made a captain in Córdoba and possibly fought in clashes with the French. Once Spain's army was defeated, he took an administrative post under the occupying government, serving as police prefect in Málaga; in 1810 he was forced into this position under French protection.
In 1813 the French were driven out of Spain, and along with many other Spaniards who had collaborated with the occupying authorities, Sor left his homeland for fear of reprisals. He went to Paris — and never returned to Spain again.
In Paris Sor took up performing and teaching, and became known as a virtuoso guitarist. Opera brought him less luck: French audiences did not warm to his work, and his Op. 7 — written across three clefs — proved too hard: no guitarist of that era could perform it. Finding no support in France, Sor decided to try his luck elsewhere.
In 1815 he moved to London, where he again became known as a guitarist, giving lessons in guitar and singing; eleven collections of his Italian ariettas for voice and piano were published there, along with works for piano and guitar. In London ballet was more popular than opera, and Sor tried his hand at the genre: between 1821 and 1824 four of his ballets were staged there, the most successful being 'Cinderella' — performed in Paris more than a hundred times.
In 1823 Sor moved to Moscow with his wife, the ballerina Félicité Hullin-Sor. There his ballet 'Hercules and Omphale' was staged. The following year, 1824, 'Cinderella' was shown in Moscow at the Theatre on Mokhovaya Street: the production, based on choreography by François Albert, was staged by Hullin-Sor herself, who danced the lead role, together with the Moscow ballet dancer Ivan Lobanov. In January 1825 'Cinderella' opened the Bolshoi Theatre, rebuilt after a fire.
Around 1827, partly because of his age, Sor decided to settle in Paris for the rest of his life — by then he had separated from his wife. In these years he wrote most of his works for guitar, but had to reckon with public taste: most amateur guitarists, for whom the sheet music was published, wanted pieces that were technically simple and pleasant to the ear. Among the new publications of those years was 'Souvenir de Russie', using Russian folk melodies.
In Paris Sor grew close to the guitarist Dionisio Aguado, with whom he often performed as a duo: for a time they even lived under one roof, at the Hôtel Favart. Sor wrote a duet for the two of them, Op. 41, 'Les Deux Amis' ('The Two Friends'): in the score one part is marked with his name, the other with Aguado's.
Sor's final years were darkened by the loss of his daughter Carolina, a harpist and painter: she passed away on 8 June 1837. He dedicated his last work, a mass, to her memory. Overwhelmed by this loss, the already unwell Sor fell into deep depression. He died in Paris on 10 July 1839 of cancer; he was buried at Montmartre Cemetery.
The guitar was Sor's principal instrument: his contemporaries considered him the best guitarist in the world, and his reputation as a virtuoso matched that of Mauro Giuliani, Matteo Carcassi and Ferdinando Carulli. He wrote more than sixty works for guitar that entered the repertoire of leading performers, as well as songs and romances marked by vivid melody. He treated the guitar as a serious instrument with rich polyphonic possibilities; his style was shaped by the Viennese classics, above all Haydn and Mozart.
In his works Sor drew on a range of forms — divertimentos, theme-and-variation sets, sonatas, fantasias, minuets, duets and vocal music. Their guitar writing was fairly advanced for its time, even though Sor himself is classed as a purely Classical composer; the pieces themselves are clear and, in their own way, simple, which makes them easy for a listener to take in.
His guitar method, Méthode pour la Guitare, came out in Paris in 1830 and was hugely popular; A. Merrick's English version, titled 'Method for the Spanish Guitar', followed in 1832. Among Sor's pupils were several guitarists, including Napoléon Coste, who after his teacher's death edited and brought out many of his works.
A substantial part of Sor's legacy consists of instructional pieces of varying difficulty — studies and exercises, among them Opp. 6, 29, 31, 35, 44 and 60. Some of them, such as Opp. 6, 29, 31 and 35, have been performed and regularly reprinted for two hundred years. Alongside them are concert pieces for stronger players, such as his Introduction and Variations, Op. 9, on a theme by Mozart, built on the melody of the aria 'Das klinget so herrlich' from The Magic Flute.
The site brings together 63 editions of Sor's works — all for solo guitar, ranging from elementary to upper intermediate level. Among them are studies from Op. 6 and Op. 35, the '25 Progressive Studies' / '25 Leçons Progressives' cycle from Op. 60, pieces from the 'Six Petites Pièces' cycle, Op. 45, the 'Divertissements', Op. 1, and individual pieces such as the Andante Largo, Op. 5 No. 5.