Introduction und Variationen

Neue Schreibart – 19^th Century Guitar Music from Austria and Germany

It gives me great pleasure to add another composition to this new series dedicated to 19^th century music for guitar from Austria and Germany. The term “Neue Schreibart” (new style of writing) dates back to Simon Molitor (1766-1848) and the preface to his Sonata Op. 7 (1806), in which he demands this new approach to composition, orthography, and music notation, leading to a “solid” playing style. Molitor, a composer, guitarist, and musicologist from Neckarsulm, wanted to bring the latest developments in harmony and counterpoint to the relatively new idiom of the 6-string guitar.

This series aims to introduce many of the wonderful, but as yet little-known, works for guitar from 19^th century Austria and Germany. Most of the works stem from the collection of the “Gitarristische Vereinigung”, held by libraries in Augsburg and Munich. It will provide a platform to offer critical performance editions to today’s guitarists, and create a new impulse for the extension of today’s repertoire for our instrument.