On this page, we’ll post materials that we’ve found useful in our performing and teaching, especially materials that supplement discussions in the book.
In several chapters, we refer to two other volumes in the Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides series: Cello, by William Pleeth, and Piano, by Louis Kentner. We highly recommend reading these books in full, along with other volumes in the series. To learn more, see the series page on Kahn & Averill’s website or search on your preferred online bookshop.
Contents (click to go to item)
- Scores (Solo)
- Mendelssohn, Canzonetta from String Quartet no.1, op.12
- Schumann, Clara, Larghetto from Quatre Pièces fugitives, op. 15
- Scores (Chamber)
- Bertoli, Sonata I (1645) for bassoon and guitar
- Schubert, Arpeggione Sonata, D.821, for cello and guitar
- Resources for Chapter 10, ‘Unstable Texts’
- Mertz/Schubert, Ständchen, with Liszt’s markings for dynamics and expression
Scores (Chamber)
Giobanni Antonio Bertoli, Sonata I (1645) for bassoon and guitar
The original version in Bertoli’s Compositioni musicali (1645) has a bassoon part with a very lightly figured bass accompaniment. My duo partner gave me the Bärenreiter edition, which has a keyboard realisation of the bass that I transcribed freely for guitar (here’s our performance). The figures given by Bertoli lack accidentals, and looking at this version now, I’d be tempted to add more (e.g. C♯ in bar 11, beat 4; F♯ in bar 14). I hope you will treat this version as freely as I would and consult all the available sources. – JL
Franz Schubert, Arpeggione Sonata, D.821, for cello and guitar
Schubert and his relationship to the guitar crop up in several places in the book, not least in the long discussion of Mertz and Ständchen. The Arpeggione Sonata is mentioned in the introduction. There are published guitar transcriptions of the piano part, but Richard and I have each made our own. Here’s mine. When I made it, I was very interested in non-literal transcription: trying to find imaginative guitaristic equivalents to idiomatic figuration on the piano. See, for example, the first movement, bar 41 and similar places, where the guitar doesn’t literally imitate the motive introduced by the arpeggione. I thought the sacrifice was worth it for the gain in fluency. The same motive causes problems in bar 112, where you must either move it up an octave or adapt it to stay in the lowest bass register. I felt that the dramatic effect of going to the bottom of the guitar’s range was more important than the exact notes. I would urge you to compare with the piano original and experiment with the possibilities.
Many editions and recordings reproduce an error that was made in the first edition of the piece (published in 1871, long after Schubert’s death), in the very first bar of the Adagio (beat 3). Luckily, Schubert’s manuscript is on IMSLP. – JL
Resources for Chapter 10, ‘Unstable Texts’
Mertz/Schubert, Ständchen
Here is Mertz’s score overlaid with Listz’s markings for expression and dynamics. See chapter 10, ‘Unstable Texts’, p. 269, where we discuss how Mertz seems to have drawn most of his expression markings directly from Liszt. The edition of Liszt from which we worked is here. – JL
Guitar (Menuhin Guides) 