Collected Works
Ernesto García de León
Little survives its time and place but art. Often the few names we recall of an historical time or place are only those of artists—composers, writers, painters, and so forth—some who were relatively famous in their day, others who were of low station and little renown. We are hard put to name the elite of European society in the last years of the eighteen century—the kings and queens, the aristocracy, the generals, the financiers, the wealthy bourgeoisie—but we always remember the names of two men who captured that time and place in music, Mozart and Haydn.
The music of Ernesto García de León may or may not be of the calibre of a Mozart or a Haydn, but his pungent evocations of his land and times promise to make his name remembered with affection, especially by those who love the guitar, long after the names of Mexico’s present rich and powerful are forgotten. The present series’ aim is to give guitarist greater knowledge of and access to Ernesto García de León’s music.
- Volume One: Five Sketches, El Viejo, Don’t even Think It, and The Bells
- Volume Two: 20 Studies
- Volume Three: 3 Sonatas
- Volume Four: 24 Preludes
- Volume Five: 17 Works
- Volume Six: 4 Guitar Duos
Volume 1, (Five Sketches, El Viejo, Don’t even Think It, and The Bells)
In this first collection three important strains are represented: music for didactic purposes (Cinco Bosquejos—“Five Sketches”), improvisational, folkloric and/or pop–influenced pieces (Ni Lo Pienses—“Don’t Even Think It" and El Viejo—“The Old Man”), and works of larger scope with roots in Classical European forms and development (Las Campanas—“The Bells”/Sonata N° 1).
Cinco Bosquejos is a colorful, poetic, unified, Mexican-sounding suite with precisely delineated didactic purposes, extremely useful for developing a guitarist’s technique. Its musical beauty puts it on the concert programs of both intermediate and seasoned players. The composer dedicates each movement to one of his cousins, and derives its theme from the first name of its dedicatee. Each name is spelled out according to the ascending pitch alphabets with which the Italian composer Mario Castelnovo Tedesco wrote the Tonadilla on the Name of Andrés Segovia and other name-based pieces. Buy Sheet Music Vol. 1»
Volume 2, (20 Studies)
This second collection contains “20 Studies”—(20 Estudios), Op. 50. 20 Studies is an ingenious collection that addresses fundamental questions about how to develop and maintain guitar technique. It is designed to serve guitar teachers and students as well as performers and concert audiences. Since it explores not just the technique of the instrument, but its musical and expressive aspects as well, it makes daily technical work enjoyable, not tedious—even for someone only beginning to study the guitar.
For guitar teachers and students, 20 Studies can serve as a basic curriculum or it can complement other methods or other sets of studies. For performers, it provides a complete overview and tune–up of the guitar technique in one graded set of daily studies that can be played in less than half an hour. This warm-up then provides the player delicious concert repertoire—as the complete set, or in smaller groups, or in combinations with other music by Ernesto García de León. Buy Sheet Music Vol. 2»
Volume 3, (3 Sonatas)
This third volume of Ernesto García de León’s guitar music presents three of his most well–known, most–performed and most–recorded works, the three Sonatas, Opuses 21, 31, and 34. García de León’s first sonata The Bells (Las Campanas) appears in the first volume of the present series. Now, all four of the sonatas that García de León has completed to date are in publication: Evocación Tropical (Tropical Evocation)—Sonata N° 2; Viejos y Mojigangas (“Viejos” y “Mojigangas”)—Sonata N° 3; and Lejanías (Distant Places, Distant Times)—Sonata N° 4. Each sonata is about fifteen minutes in length, perfect for guitar recitals, and each is based in Mexican music in general and the music of the composer’s coastal and jungle beginnings in particular. In each sonata, the rumba and the son—typical music both sung and danced in the composers’s native state of Veracruz—are cast in classical European forms (sonatas and rondos). Typically, the first movement is a rumba, the last movement a son, and the middle movement is lyrical and improvisatory, a contrast to the lively rhythms of the beginning and ending movements. Within these parameters, each sonata has its own distinct character and characteristics. Buy Sheet Music Vol. 3»
Volume 4, (24 Preludes)
The 24 Preludes, Op. 37 is a collection of imaginative and wonderful concert pieces that perhaps more than any other opus in Ernesto García de León’s catalogue casts light upon and reflects the aura of his entire body of work. Like the 20 Studies, Op. 50, 24 Preludes is a set of musical exercises. But if Op. 50 is for undergraduates, the complementary challenges of Op. 37 are for graduates, and the accent is more on “musical” than on “exercises.” The Janus–faced Op. 37 occurs about two thirds of the way through Ernesto García de León’s present catalogue. Eleven of the Preludes (numbers 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 15, 18, 20, 21 and 24) look backwards towards earlier works that contain similar passages. The purpose here—as in Mauro Guliani’s 24 Etudes, Op. 48—is to help you conquer problems that appear in earlier pieces. Eight of the Preludes in Op. 37 (numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 14 and 24) look forward towards and have provided material for subsequent works. For the composer, Op. 37 has been and continues to be an arsenal, a notebook of motives, themes, and textures to use in future pieces. Buy Sheet Music Vol. 4»
Volume 5, (17 Works)
This fifth volume of Ernesto García de León’s collected works gives the widest overview of his work over time. It is a panorama of seventeen guitar solos composed over a twenty–eight year period, starting with his first Opus, and going all the way through some of his latest works. Included are a four–movement suite (Op. 1), short, etude–like pieces (Ops. 6, 8, and Preludio para Adriana, Op 26), a set of variations (Op. 4), concert pieces of short duration (Ops. 2, 22, 24, 25, and 58), a pair of nocturnes (Ops. 40 and 57), two fantasies (Op. 20 and 27), and three pieces concerned with death, of which two are homages to friends who died (Ops. 54 and 56), and one is a meditation on the composer’s near–death experience (Op. 60).
While a wide variety of musical techniques and forms are represented by these seventeen compositions, all the music is based on Mexican music in general, and places special emphasis on the composer’s native music—his childhood experiences of the dances and songs of Veracruz (especially the son and rumba) and the climate and atmosphere of the region’s coast and jungle. Buy Sheet Music Vol. 5»
Volume 6, (4 Guitar Duos)
Ernesto García de León’s four guitar duos are perhaps his most often performed compositions: Preludio y Son N° 1, Op.7; Preludio y Son N° 2, Op. 30; Preludio y Son N° 3, Op. 32; and Suite, Op.35. Written on commission for three different ensembles in the twelve years between 1980 and 1992, each work is based on Mexican music in general, the music of Veracruz in particular. As in many of García de León’s guitar solos, improvisation plays a greater or lesser role. Each duo also explores what the composer considers the special resource of the guitar duo as opposed to the guitar solo—the potential for each guitar to play something different than the other guitar. And in all four duos moments occur when textures are suddenly very thick and dissonant and create singular moods and feelings and provocative sonorities.
Within these parameters, each duo is unique in its expression and the way it handles the ensemble. The first three duos are in same form—Prelude and Dance—in which the Dance is the traditional Veracruz son (son jarocho). While the first duo is free and abstract—capitalizing on coloristic effects idiomatic to the guitar—the second features lyric melodies and savory harmonies accented by the colors of natural harmonics. By contrast, the third duo is polyrhythmic and minimalistic. Finally the Suite has four movements which draw on many elements of the preceding duos. Buy Sheet Music Vol. 6»
***************
Editor's Note: Article and images taken from Ernesto García de León, Collected Works, Volumes 1–6 by Michael Lorimer, ed. Used by permission © 2009 by Adela Publishing (ASCAP).