Thursday, August 9, 2012

Sor: Grand Sonata, Op. 22 (Oyanguren)

Julio Martinez Oyanguren
Born and trained in Uruguay, Julio Martinez Oyanguren (1901-1973) seems to have been the only classical guitarist besides the great Andrés Segovia whose recordings were sold at premium prices in the USA.  (A mere handful of Segovia's HMV recordings were released here on Victor Red Seal.)  During 1936-37 Oyanguren made a number of recordings for Columbia in New York: 22 sides were released in the Masterworks line, all of which were deleted during the Second World War.  All of them were of short pieces except this one set:

Sor: Grand Sonata in C Major, Op. 22
Julio Martinez Oyanguren, guitar
Recorded July 29 and 30, 1937
Columbia Masterworks set X-84, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 39.58 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 21.23 MB)

The work itself, a charming one, is the third of four sonatas by the Catalan guitarist and composer Fernando Sor (1778-1839), and the first of two "grand sonatas" - the adjective apparently being used to denote a multi-movement work, as the two earlier sonatas are single-movement ones.  It was published in Paris in the mid-1820s, though possibly dates from earlier.

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