La Música de Gaspar Sanz

John Paulson has freely arranged selected melodies from the Gaspar Sanz 1674 guitar method book, Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española, into a charming multi-movement suite for band. Each movement has a decidedly different character: stately, solemn, joyful, festive. Paulson uses the many colors and textures of the band to project these characters while retaining the distinctive Late-Renaissance Spanish flavor of the originals for solo guitar.

Genre: Band | # of Players: Standard
Level: 4 | Duration: 11:00

Instrumentation
Piccolo
Flute 1/2
Oboe 1/2
Bassoon 1/2
E-flat Clarinet
B-flat Clarinet 1/2
B-flat Bass Clarinet
Alto Saxophone 1/2
Tenor Saxophone
Baritone Saxophone

B-flat Trumpet 1/2
B-flat Trumpet 3/4
Horn in F 1–4
Trombone 1/2
Bass Trombone
Baritone
Baritone T.C.
Tuba

Xylophone
Marimba
Percussion 1 (Tambourine)
Percussion 2/3 (Snare Drum, Bass Drum)


Program Notes
Gaspar Sanz (1640–1710) was born in Aragon, Spain, and studied theology at the University of Salamanca, becoming a priest. He studied music in Italy and became the organist of the Spanish Viceroy at Naples. He then studied guitar and was appointed instructor of guitar to Don Juan. A picture of Don Juan appears on the cover of Sanz’s famous treatise on how to play the Spanish guitar, Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española, which was published in 1674. This remarkable three-volume set features over ninety melodies and dances. Some of the music was so irresistible that it became the basis of the Fantasía Para un Gentilhombre, the beloved 1954 concerto for guitar and orchestra by the celebrated composer Joaquín Rodrigo. In his suite, La Música de Gaspar Sanz, John Paulson has selected four melodies for unaccompanied guitar and reimagined them for symphonic band.