Considering that Ponce wrote Sonata Mexicana back in 1925 and there is, to date, not even a single book about his five guitar sonatas in English language music scholarship is mind-boggling. Ponce's five sonatas for solo guitar may have intermittently been in danger of being played to death and being reduced to what Matanya Ophee used to call "lollipop" repertoire but the sonatas themselves are wonderful music that will reward your time and attention.
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Gerard Drozd: Sonata Fantasia Op. 118 for guitar (performed by Gerard Abiton)
0:21 I. Allegretto - Andante - Allegretto
Drozd has a cycle of preludes and fugues for solo guitar that I know "of" but have not had a chance to hear, and he's got a cycle of preludes and fugues for guitar duo. Since I'm in Seattle, Washington in the United States and not in Poland I can't hear more than is available at the composer's Youtube channel, but he posts regularly and recently posted a Sonata Fantasia I wanted to share here. I'm fond of the first two movements, particularly the jazzy broad harmonies around 2:30 within movement I, and you'll hear the pizzicato clearly enough in II if you follow the link and give this Sonata Fantasia a listen.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
links for the weekend: Ethan Hein on Swiftian songcraft and I get vitriolic about four-chord soul bro trash as a contrast; going through Philip Ewell's new book; and a thematic catalog of religious publications and scholars (with Enlightenment specialists, too) reckoning with the racism of movement giants of the past
For the probable handful of you who read the giant analytical post on Wenzel Thomas Matiegka's Op. 17 Sonate progressive, you can appreciate why after writing all that I took a break from blogging. If you dumped all of that into a word processor document you'd get 31 pages. It was basically a chapter in a book. Well, that was weeks ago and it seemed time to get back to writing something, even if it's a "links for the weekend" post and is a bit diffuse.
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