(Continue from Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten – #3)

Chapter 3 of the book provded details to a few concerts Madame Pratten played after the passing of her husband. One of them describes her playing Giuliani’s third concert for terz guitar, with the piano accompaniment by Giuliani’s niece:

As mentioned in my previous post, it doesn’t seem like Madame Pratten composed any pieces for guitar and flute. I wonder what this piece was? Did she compose a guiar/flute duet for this occasion? If not, whose piece did they play? Did she have some unpublished virtuosic guitar/flute duet that she used to play with Robert Sidney Pratten? Just for kicks, I looked up Olut Svensden, and found one piece of news:

Seems like the guitar/flute duet being performed was not an amateur piece. What about “Patten’s Concertstuck movements from Macfarren’s Concerto and Doppler’s Channt d’Amour?” – which Pratten are we talking about…?

Looking up Cowen and The Corsair complicated matters quickly. Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935) was a forgotten British composer who composed many vocal works. Born in Jamaica, he followed his family to England at 4, showed high aptitude in music, and had his first piece published at the age of 6:

(The Jstor link that contains the short biography of Cowen from 1898 wrote completely in the lens of the imperial England…)

For better or worse, Cowen was called the “English Schubert”. Although not the most reliable source, Cowen’s name appeared in Philip Bone’s The Guitar and Mandolin: Biographies of Celebrated Players and Composers, in Moritz Hauptmann’s entry :

This excerpt reflected a few interesting things:

1) I have come across Hauptmann before, but mainly as a music theorist. I didn’t know he actually played and composed for the guitar. And there is indeed a piece of his for guitar and violin on IMSLP.

2) Although Cowen is largely forgotten today, it is great to see him being listed amongst celebrities such as von Bulow, Sullivan, and Joachim.

3) I have come across Joseph Joachim in my 19th century performance practice class. His Bach recordings were amongst the earliest recordings ever made, and gave us a glimpse into how to play in a 19th century manner. I love his Romance in C. And there is nothing more romantic about the F-A-E Sonata and its relationship with Brahm’s 3rd Symphony – all a big-in-circle game between Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms, Joachim, and Albert Dietrich. I have never known Joachim played the guitar before switching to the violin though. All I could find was “Joseph’s interest in music was stimulated by hearing his older sister, who studied voice and accompanied herself on the guitar. He became fixated on the violin when his father brought him a toy violin from a fair.”

Thanks to the internet, one can find the reduction to The Consair on IMSLP. The Consair is a cantata for four soloists, chorus, orchestra, and the guitar. Since there’s only a reduction, the specific instrumentation is unclear. The reduction is divided into 5 PDF files, and a few guitar entrances marked, on p. 19 – 21 of segment 1, and p.19, 20, and 26 of segment 5 – a bit of symmetry there?

I only listed the above two excerpts, because that’s basically what the sections marked “guitar” do – chordal accompaniment and arpeggios. I assume the guitar would be playing during the recitatives and tremolo (with continuous strumming, not the Recuerdos de la Alhambra-type).

Cowen’s autobiography, My Art and My Friends, is also available on IMSLP. I only quickly glanced through it, and although The Corsair was mentioned a few times, there was not any references made to the guitar part or Madame Sidney Pratten. Why did Cowen incorporate the guitar in a work where it would be so difficult to hear? I am not aware of any 19th century large choral work that employs the guitar with an orchestra and/or a chorus (maybe Mahler’s 7th Symphony from 1904-5 is one, if we extend the 19th century to the 19th century style), so The Corsair is quite a special work. Why did Cowen not mentioned it at all? Because of the guitar’s bad reputation? Because it’s not worth mentioning? Or maybe Cowen deliberately left it out in his autobiography? Perhaps the commissioner of the piece asked for a guitar part?

(continue to Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten #5)

(Continuing from Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten – #2)

Robert Sidney Pratten was a talented flautist and a perfect match for Mademe Pratten. Unfortenately, he died quite young – at the age of 44, after 14 years of marriage with Mademe Sidney Pratten.

Would they have played (or even performed) as a flute/guitar duo? If they did, it would have been quite special – at least by today’s standards, since I can’t think of a contemporary guitar/flute duo that has a female guitarist and a male flautist. Why are flutes and guitars assigned to specific genders?

My teacher once said that he would organize a tango dance lesson between the guitar and the flute studios. I could not tell if he was serious or joking but I am always serious. I am still waiting for that dance session to happen.

One can find a few compositions and method book by Madame Sidney Pratten on IMSLP. These compositions bear sentimental titles: Forgotten, Sadness, A Lost Love, A Lament, Sehnsucht – are these all composed for Robert? A few letters mentioned about these compositions:

This website showed a list of Madame Pratten’s compositions. I wonder where can one find all her other compositions, and the Instruction for the Guitar tuned in E-major? It also doesn’t look like there are any compositions for flute and guitar.

Of the few scores that are available on IMSLP, the set Sadness, Lost Love, A Lament bears a dedication: “To her friend and pupil Dr. John Lindsay Leckie. This reminded me of a recent purchase I made: Dr Walter Leckie & Don Francisco Tárrega: The unlikely tale of an English Gentleman and a Spanish Guitarist, a fascinating book that details the relationship between Tárrega and Dr. Walter Leckie, an English physician and amateur guitarist. Leckie was a memeber of high society, and he took lessons from Madame Pratten before meeting Tárrega, and therefore this book also included a biography of her. It is from this book that I found out John Lindsay Leckie was Walter Leckie’s older brother. Another thing I found out from this book answered a question I had from my previous post: how did Madame Pratten notate her compositions in open E tuning? Did she notate the music at pitch? Or did she notate the music as if the guitar is tuned in standard tuning?

Hungarian March, a piece dedicated to Walter Leckie, in the open-E tuning, provides the answer:

So Madame Sidney Pratten’s students who learn both open E and standard tunings would have to learn the notes of the freboard on two different tunings!

A female music virtuoso whose husband was Robert – it’s hard for me to not think about Clara and Robert Schumann. Not much was said in Reminiscenes of Madame Sidney Pratten regarding the love story before the Prattens, but Robert and Clara Schumann’s engagement was strongly opposed by Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, who was their piano teacher. Allowed by the court, Robert and Clara got married the night before she turned 21.

Madame Pratten remained devoted to her husband throughout his life.

The story between the Schumanns seemed to be more complicated, but the truth would never be known. Relationhips… always complicated. Let’s just watch something simple here? This clip of Widmung, taken from the movie, A Poet’s Love, is a clip I always show in my music theory class. Clara heard Robert’s song for the first time, and she immediately joined him in playing the melody on the piano. That’s the level of aural skills we should all strive for.

(Continue to Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten – #4)

(Continuing from Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten – #1)

Many people teach, but not many begins teaching at the age of 17, and even less would have their apartment being paid for!

There is a detailed wikipedia page on the life of Lord Fotzroy Somerset, who was the commander of the British troops in Crimean War (1853-1856). At first glance, I thought the “Lord Raglan’s March” might be a composition to celebrate Lord Somerset’s victory in the Crimean War, but Somerset actually died in June 1855 before the Siege of Sevastopol was concluded in September of the same year. So the Lord Raglan’s March might actually be composed to celebrate Somerset’s promotion to Baron Raglan of Raglan on October 1852. It was just my fantasy that the Lord Raglan’s March was composed for the Crimean War. I wanted the fantasy to be true though, as that would make the Siege of Sevastopol the inspiration of two guitar pieces – the other being “Sebastopol: A descriptive fantaisie for the guitar” by Henry Worrall.

According to Old Time Party, Henry Worrall was born in 1825 (one year later than Madame Pratten), and moved to the States in 1835. He was a guitar performer, teacher, and composer, and he was responsible for filing copyrights to two open tuning songs: his arrangement of Spanish Fandango (in open G), and Sebastopol (in open D). Sebastopol was a march inspired by the Siege of Sevastopol. Both of these tunes were influential in the development of the country blues:

“During the latter 1800s, the Lyon & Healy company in Chicago pioneered the mass production of acoustic guitars. By the turn of the century, their many models were sold under various names in catalogs issued by companies such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward. Many of these catalog-bought guitars arrived with a tutorial pamphlet featuring tuning instructions and music for rudimentary instrumentals. Two of the most common of these instructive instrumentals, “Spanish Fandango” and “The Siege of Sebastopol,” predated the Civil War. The music for “Spanish Fandango” required that the guitar’s strings be tuned to an open-G chord (the strings tuned DGDGBD, from low to high), while “The Siege of Sebastopol” was in open D (DADF#AD). “Spanish Fandango” in particular served as a starting point for countless rural players.”

– an excerpt from Talking Guitar, by Jas Obrecht, found on WBUR.

Spanish Fandango and Sebastopol might be easy to play, but they prompted a lot of thoughts. For one, the way they were notated is interesting: they are notated as if the guitar is in standard tuning. If one plays the music as notated, the outcome would not make sense.

Madame Sidney Pratten apparently had quite an output for music tuned to an open E chord. Was the Lord Raglan’s March in open E? She even had a method book for Open E – Instructions For the Guitar tuned in E major (see the picture below, taken from the last page of one of her pieces. Did Madame Sidney Pratten also notate her open-E music as if the guitar is tuned in standard tuning? (More on this on the next post)

The idea of using openings as a pedagogical tool is growing on me: what about a beginning guitar class that only studies songs in open D and open G tuning? Students can get chords with just one or two left hand fingers (no need to worry about chord shapes and transitions), and maybe it would be easier to teach harmonic functions (I, IV, and V share the same shape, so position alone would indicate harmonic functions)? Moreover, open tuning songs lend itself to a lot of discussions related to history, society, and culture: music and life in 19th century, country blues, folk music, rock and roll, etc.

I have always wondered why are opening tunings not more popular. Because it is associated with music of “simple harmonies” (folk, blues)? Because the music is not serious enough, since it only takes one finger sliding up and down the to play different chords? But what’s wrong with things being simple? Moreover, guitar music in opening tunings can actually be quite sophisticated. Or maybe open tuning is too difficult: learning notes on a standard-tuning fretboard is difficult enough, let alone learning notes on a fretboard of non-standard tunings?

(Continue to Reminiscenes of Madame Sidney Pratten #3 )

From Wikipedia,

“Catharina Josepha Pratten (15 November 1824* – 1895) was a German guitar virtuoso, composer and teacher, also known as Madame Sidney Pratten.  She was born Catharina Josepha Pelzer in Mülheim on the 15 November 1824, the daughter of the German guitarist and music teacher Ferdinand Pelzer.  On 24 September 1854, she married the flautist Robert Sidney Pratten.”

* many other sources said Pratten’s birth year was 1821

The internet is so great because there are new resources being made available every day. One such resources are old books that are digitized. I am referring to my friend Daniel Nistico again, as I learned about this short and sweet book from 1899 – Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten by Frank Mott Harrison – from his website. Daniel has provided highlights of the book on his site. I would like to do the same, and hopefully I am not repeat too much of what he has already mentioned. Of course, the best way to learn about Madame Sidney Pratten is to read this book yourself.

I have always wondered what kind of a childhood did famous music prodigies have – Mozart, Clara Schumann, Edward and Leonard Leonard Schulz, Giulio Regondi, and of course, Madame Sidney Pratten (coincidentally, Leonard Schulz, Regondi and Pratten were all based in London?!). I can’t speak for sure if all of these musicians had a rough childhood, but Clara had “an unyielding father“, Friedrich Wieck (who was teacher of Clara’s future husband Robert Schumann), and Regondi’s self-proclaomed father treated him harshly after learning about the kid’s musical talent. Pratten had probably received rigorous training as well. But she had a strong mind:

What can be more adorable than the image of two “little” virtuosi, with angelic look (Regondi) and locks (Pratten), playing guitar duets on a table (some say a piano top, could that be a different concert?)?

It made a lot of sense that Pratten played a terz guitar – a 19th century guitar with shorter scale and tuned to G, and mostly featured in chamber music. Today (or even back in the 19th century), one can put a capo on the third fret of the guitar to mimic a terz guitar (see details of terz guitar at earlyromanticguitar.com and Tecla).

Many questions here:

• terz guitar was used a lot in guitar duets – the terz guitar usually plays the first part, and the standard guitar the second. Did Regondi played a standard guitar while Pratten played a terz guitar? I have never heard any accounts of Regondi performing on a terz guitar. And from the picture below, Regondi’s guitar didn’t seem to be too big?

• Perhaps both Pratten and Regondi were playing terz guitars? If so, the guitars would be in the same tuning, and that would open up a lot more options for their repertoire (although they probably could learn music very fast…)
• Unrelated to Pratten – from the Regondi picture – was he reading music that is placed on the floor?! It might be seen as unprofessional today, but that’s acceptable (perhaps, cute) for a child, especially for a prodigy? Moreover, using a music stand might just completely block the audience’s view.
• (there are a lot more questions about Regondi I would like to discuss. See here)
• To echo an earlier point – many guitar duets were written for terz/standard guitars – it makes perfect sense then that Pratten and Regondi played the terz guitar, as they both played duets with their fathers.
• It was mentioned that Pratten performed Giuliani’s Third Concerto – a concerto for terz guitar. So lucky that the great Giuliani wrote a terz guitar concerto, and it happened that your daughter could play it? I have flipped through issues of the Giulianiad in the Special Collections of the Sibley Music Library, and faintly remember there were much praise on Giuliani’s third concerto. Is it trying to perpetuate Giuliani’s legacy and prasing the concerto? Or was it really trying to praise the little Pratten? And the editors of the Giulianiad were believed to be… Ferdinand Pelzer (Pratten’s dad), Leonard Schulz (who also performed Giuliani’s third concerto), and Felix Horetzky (a student of Giuliani). I should go re-read the Giulianiad to find more clues…

And now, a few questions regarding Madame Pratten’s harmony lessons:

• Often times, I find students (music majors) uninterested in learning figured bass (maybe I sensed it wrong and they actually loved it?). Is it because it doesn’t matter to most of them, since they do not play a chordal instrument?
• “matter-of-fact’ solutions” – was the instruction not good? There are multiple ways to realize the same figures and a complete bass line, no?
• Was figured bass included in Pratten’s training, because that was part of a “complete” music education for a “music major”? Or did she learn it because she was a guitarist?
• Has the curriculum and students’ attitude toward the curriculum not changed since 1830s?

Concluding chapter 1 of the book, the author wrote:

It’s a pity the author decided more detail s of Madame Pratten’s childhood would be boring… I want to know more! Perhaps that’s why this book is so great, short and concise. Just like the guitar solo of Little Wing?

(Continue to Reminiscences of Madame Sidney Pratten – #2)

Came across this not-so-nice concert review from the New York Times, Wednesday May 24, 1944…

(Picture: Harpo-lyre (ca.1830), André Augustin Chevrier, The Met, NYC)

The following entry of Jean Francois Salomon is taken from François-Joseph Fétis’s Biographie universelle des musiciens (see the original on p.387 of the this PDF). This is translated with the help of the trusty Google Translate, so… please pardon my French. I have also attached Salomon’s entry in Philip J. Bone’s The guitar and mandolin: biographies of celebrated players and composers for these instruments. It looks like Bone translated Fétis’s entry, with slightly more information.

I wish I had a chance to play a harpolyre, and read Salomon’s method book. Where can I find them?

The harpolyre was introduced to London in the Harmonicon in December 1829. The article borne the subtitle that indicated Salomon as a “Professor of singing and of the Guitar”.

This led me to think – it’s obvious that the guitar (or many pluck string instruments throughout history) is a popular instrument because of its power to accompany singing. Wouldn’t it be nice if I can teach guitar and singing at the same time? Start advertising my lessons to be guitar lessons, plus guitar and singing combined lessons?

Many guitarists had a close connection with singer:

• Sor was a choir boy, and later taught singing in London (Fernando Sor – Composer and Guitarist, Brian Jeffery, p.14);
• Mauro Giuliani’s son Michele Giuliani was “the guitarist, composer, and singing teacher at the Paris Conservatory (see here);
• Matteo Bevilacqua “moved to Vienna where he established himself as a singer, flautist, guitarist, and composer”, and he “he was a tenor at the Esterházy chapel” (Soundboard, Volume XXXVIII, No. 4, 2012, p.102 and 116)
• Legnani’s debut as an operatic tenor was in Ravenna in 1807 at the age of 17, and had a singing career that spanned 17 years (see here);
• Carulli published L’Harmonie appliquée à la Guitare (Harmony applied to the Guitar) and Solfèges avec accompagnement de guitare, Op.195 – two treatises that provided concepts and exercises to educate singers and guitarists about harmonies, accompaniment, and arrangement; Carulli also taught his son Gustavo guitar playing and singing, and his son went on to be a successful vocal teacher;
• Ferdinand Pelzer, apart from teaching his daughters Catharina (better known as Madame Sidney Pratten) and Giulia Pelzer the guitar, published Music for the People, based on his Universal System of Instruction in Music and revolutionized the national system of singing and music in England (see theguitar-blog.com).

I have benefited from singing in a choir as a kid for four years myself, as it allows me to sing backup vocals in my bands with ease. My guitar teacher, Dr. Nicholas Goluses would often times ask me to sing the melody of the pieces I was working on, to explore interpretive possibilities.

From his Rules & Maxims for Young Musicians, Robert Schumman said,

“Love your instrument, but do not vainly suppose it the highest and only one. Remember that there are others equally fine. Remember also, that there are singers; and that the highest expression possible to music, is reached by chorus and orchestra.ac”

“A great deal is to be learned from singers and songstresses. But do not believe everything they tell you.”

“Sing in choruses industriously, especially the middle voices. This will make you a good reader, and intelligent as a musician.”

From François-Joseph Fétis’s Biographie universelle des musiciens:

Salomon (M.), guitar teacher, born in Besançon, in 1786, died in the same city, on February 19, 1831, became known, in 1828, by the invention of a three-neck guitar called Harpolyre , this instrument was mounted with twenty-one strings; six of these strings were placed on the center of the middle, called the ordinary neck, and tuned as on the common guitar. The left neck, intended for the basses, was mounted by seven strings tuned in semitones, from the low E to the bass of the double bass; finally the right handle, called the diatonic handle, was mounted with strings sounding C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Sound oppositions of good effect were noted between the middle and right necks, and the strings on the left neck provided vigorous bass notes. The conception of the harpolyre seemed destined to save the guitar from the entire abandonment with which it is threatened, by the varied resources which it offered to the performers; however, this invention was not successful, no artist having wished to devote himself to the study of the difficulties of the use of the three necks, although Solomon had had a method engraved for the harpolyre, and that Sor was composed studies and exercises for this instrument.

We owe Solomon the invention of an ingenious machine to which he gave the name of tuner. It consists of a mechanism made up of sonorous metallic blades, tuned to the degrees of the chromatic scale, and of a toothed cylinder, moved by a clockwork movement, which makes each blade resonate at will, giving a determined intonation. This intonation is repeated for as long as necessary to tune in unison a note of the piano, harp, or any other fixed-sounding instrument which is to be partitioned. In spite of the advantages which the tuner presented for the practice of the tuning of the instruments, it does not succeed only with the harpolyre. After having had an unnecessary long stay in Paris to have his inventions adopted there, Salomon returned to Besançon, where the fatigue of his efforts, and the sorrow of having dissipated in trials the fruit of his labors and his savings, the led to the tomb at the age of forty-five. One engraved of its composition: 1 Twelve divertissementsfor the guitar, op. 1; Paris, Launer. 2 Waltzes for the Guitar, Op. 2; ibid. 3 Contredanses and waltzes idem; Paris, Aulagnier. 4 Air varie (Charmant ruisseau) for the harp; Paris, Janet.

From The guitar and mandolin : biographies of celebrated players and composers for these instruments, p.261, by Philip J. Bone: