Gregg has created a tasteful new arrangement of the popular W.H. Squire Tarantella Op. 23 for guitar and string quartet.  It is fortunate for guitarists who love playing with other musicians to have another opportunity to do so with this arrangement.  It is helpful that this is available in a Clear Note Music Plus One audio download edition that allows the guitarist to play along. The edition includes the guitar score as well as practice and performance recordings.  There is also a Music Plus One Performance Edition of this Squire work which has the audio download, a concert-sized score and a full set of parts.

William Henry Squire (1871-1963) was a British cellist, composer and music professor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He studied cello at the Royal College of Music, and became professor of cello at the Royal College and Guildhall schools of music. He was principal cello in several major London orchestras and helped to popularize the cello as a solo instrument in the early years of the 20th century by giving public concerts throughout the British Isles and making recordings.

By the late 1890s, when Squire was employed by the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, he was already busy publishing a great deal of cello and piano music. He preferred to write small scale works for one or two performers, most likely written for cello students or for his own performances at London concert halls. His pieces for cello and piano can almost entirely be characterized as light, short “character pieces”. Several of his pieces were premiered at London’s Henry Wood Promenade Concerts with Squire himself often performing the solo cello part.

The Tarantella, Op. 23 (1896), has been the most popular Associated Board Musical Examination selection of W. H. Squire since first chosen in 1928.

For this publication Gregg Nestor has arranged it for guitar and string quartet.

Four Selected Songs for Cello and Guitar by Brahms arranged by Gregg Nestor has once again enriched the cello and guitar repertoire with excellent music, this time from the Romantic Era.

The Romantic Era and German Lieder

The nineteenth century in Europe was a time when the Romantic spirit took hold of all the arts: the creators of literature, poetry, music and aesthetic philosophy initiated explorations that transformed the world. In music, the works of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms best embody that spirit.

With the publication of a treasury of German lieder, arranged for voice and guitar by Gregg Nestor and published in several volumes by Clear Note Editions, vocalists and guitarists have the opportunity to study and perform from a widest collection of these exquisite Romantic masterpieces to date.

The Selected Brahms Lieder

• Dein blaues Auge Op. 59 No. 8
• Wie Melodien zieht es mir Op. 105 No. 1
• Schön war, das ich dir weihte Op. 95 No. 7
• Das Mädchen Op. 95 No. 1

In selecting these four lieder for adaptation for cello and guitar, care was taken to find contrasting works whose beautiful melodic and accompanimental qualities allowed them to stand as purely instrumental pieces on their own merits. The poetic texts that are tied to each of these compositions are also included as a reference.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Duo Vitare, Agnieszka Kotulska-Rahunen (cellist) and Kimmo Rahunen (guitarist) who contributed to refinements of this edition.

Possibly his most famous work, Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra) was composed in 1896 in Granada by Spanish composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega. It uses the classical guitar tremolo technique of rapidly repeating melody notes in counterpoint to a slow bass line and accompanying arpeggio in the middle voice to create a three part work for solo guitar that is unparalleled in expressive texture and charm.

This edition of Recuerdos de la Alhambra includes an MPO recording. Clear Note MPO recordings bring audio support to professionals, amateurs, and students for educational, rehearsal, practice, personal enjoyment, live concerts, and casual performance settings.

Recuerdos de la Alhambra as a guitar and orchestra fantasia was adapted by Gregg Nestor, with synth/orchestration by award winning film multimedia composer Dominik Hauser. The guitar part is played by Stephen Robinson.

This time Gregg has created a delightful arrangement for two guitars of the well-known Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy. 

Claude Debussy (1862-1918), one of the greatest French composers, studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1872, beginning to compose in earnest in his twenties. In the early 1880s he visited Moscow and Vienna and in 1884 won the Prix de Rome for his cantata L’enfant prodigue. The first version of his opera, Pelléas et Mélisande was written in 1895. In 1908 Debussy made his conducting debut in Paris with the symphonic sketches, La Mer. His prolific compositions include incidental music for the theater, a quantity of orchestral and chamber works, large scale vocal pieces with orchestra, dozens of songs, and some of the finest twentieth century pianoforte masterpieces.

The Children’s Corner consists of the following:

• Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum
• Berceuse des Éléphants
• Sérénade a la Poupée
• La Neige Danse
• Le Petit Berger
• Golliwog’s Cakewalk

On the score of CHILDREN’S CORNER, here arranged for duo guitars by Gregg Nestor, Debussy wrote a dedication for his daughter, Claude-Emma, five years old at the time of composition: To my dear little Chou chou, with her father’s affectionate apologies for what follows. Most of the Suite was written in 1908, with the exception of Serenade of the Doll which was published two years before. The titles of CHILDREN’S CORNER, perhaps in deference to his daughter’s English governess, are in Debussy’s somewhat idiosyncratic English.

In addition to his recent publication of W.H. Squire’s Tarantella, arranged for Guitar and Orchestra, Gregg has also put out two entertaining arrangements of Four Dances by W.H. Squire for violin and guitar and cello and guitar.  These pieces include the aforementioned Tarantella.  Here are the links where they are available: Four Dances for Violin and Guitar and Four Dances for Cello and Guitar. These are the dances:

• Danse Rustique Op. 20, No. 5 (1895)
• Bourrée Op. 24 (1902)
• Sérénade Op. 15 (1892)
• Tarantella Op. 23 (1896)

William Henry Squire (1871-1963) was a British cellist, composer and music professor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He studied cello at the Royal College of Music, and became professor of cello at the Royal College and Guildhall schools of music. He was principal cello in several major London orchestras and helped to popularize the cello as a solo instrument in the early years of the 20th century by giving public concerts throughout the British Isles and making recordings.

By the late 1890s, when Squire was employed by the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, he was already busy publishing a great deal of cello and piano music. He preferred to write small-scale works for one or two performers most likely written for cello students or for his own performances at London concert halls. His pieces for cello and piano can almost entirely be characterized as light, short “character pieces”. Several of his pieces were premiered at London’s Henry Wood Promenade Concerts with Squire himself often performing the solo cello part.

For this publication, arranger Gregg Nestor has chosen four youthful and contrasting dances by the composer that were composed for cello between 1892 – 1902, and arranged them for violin and guitar and cello and guitar.

The Danse rustique, Op. 20, No. 5 (1895) has been the second most popular Associated Board Musical Examination selection since it was first listed in the 1920 syllabus.

Bourrée, Op. 24 (1902) was first performed by the composer that same year at Bechstein Hall in London, as well as the gentle British vaudeville music-hall feel of the Sérénade, Op. 15 (1892) as additional items in a predominately vocal recital. Gregg Nestor has added the marking “Tempo de Sicilienne”, as a tip-of-the-hat to the French composer Gabriel Fauré, who was a great admirer of Squire’s warm and expressive playing, and who dedicated his popular Sicilienne to him.

Finally the Tarantella, Op. 23, (1896), has been the most popular Associated Board Musical Examination selection of W.H. Squire since first chosen in 1928.

These four pieces can be performed separately or together as a suite for concert purposes.

Gregg has made some delightful arrangements of British composer W.H.Squire’s Tarantella, Op. 23 for guitar and orchestra and guitar and piano.  The piece is available in several versions: the Basic Edition includes the guitar part and MPO audio download (full score optional); the Performance Edition has the guitar part, MPO, full score and orchestral parts; the Piano Edition comprises piano and guitar parts plus MPO.

William Henry Squire (1871-1963) was a British cellist, composer and music professor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He studied cello at the Royal College of Music, and became professor of cello at the Royal College and Guildhall schools of music. He was principal cello in several major London orchestras and helped to popularize the cello as a solo instrument in the early years of the 20th century by giving public concerts throughout the British Isles and making recordings.

By the late 1890s, when Squire was employed by the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, he was already busy publishing a great deal of cello and piano music. He preferred to write small scale works for one or two performers, most likely written for cello students or for his own performances at London concert halls. His pieces for cello and piano can almost entirely be characterized as light, short “character pieces”. Several of his pieces were premiered at London’s Henry Wood Promenade Concerts with Squire himself often performing the solo cello part.

The Tarantella, Op. 23, (1896), has been the most popular Associated Board Musical Examination selection of W. H. Squire since first chosen in 1928.

Giulio Tampalini plays Gregg’s lively arrangement for guitar and chamber orchestra of the lighthearted folksong Aire de Joropo in Brescia, Italy.

Clear Note has published Gregg’s Music Plus One arrangement of Aire de Joropo for guitar and chamber orchestra that comes with a play-along CD. Joropo is a musical style resembling the fandango, and an accompanying dance. It has African, Native South American and European influences and originated in parts of what is now Venezuela. It is a fundamental genre of música criolla (creole music) and is a very popular folk rhythm making use of polyrhythmic patterns, especially of hemiola, and alternation of 3/4 and 6/8 tempos.

Aire de joropo has been a popular folk song played by classical guitarists for a number of years. This guitar and orchestra fantasy was arranged by Gregg Nestor as an encore piece for a London concert in 1980.