Guitar Foundation of America
SOUNDBOARD
V
ol. XXXVIII No.4, 2012
The Journal of the Guitar Foundation of America • Volume XXXVIII, No. 4, 2012
Special Guitar History Issue: Essays from the Cambridge Conference on the Nineteenth-Century Guitars
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News and Personalities
3
Reverberations, by Connie Sheu6
In Memoriam Colin Cooper, by Charles Postlewate My First American, by Colin Cooper
Feature Articles
9
Erik Stenstadvold: “The Worst Drunkard inLondon:” The Life and Career of the Guitar Virtuoso Leonard Schulz
18
Thomas Heck:The Vogue of the Chitarra francese in Italy: How French? How Italian? How Neapolitan?
26
Richard Savino:The Enigmatic Miguel García, or, Padre Basilio Part II: Newly Discovered Works and a Dilemma for the Modern Transcriber
36
Paul Sparks: “A Considerable Attraction For BothEyes and Ears:” Ladies’ Guitar and Mandolin Bands in Late Victorian London
45
James Westbrook:General Thompson’s Enharmonic Guitar
53
Christopher Page:An Essay of 1824 on the Guitar
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Panagiotis Poulopoulos: The Influence of Germanson the Development of “This Favourite Instrument the Guittar” in England
The Journal of the Guitar Foundation of America • Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
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Commentary
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Matanya Ophee, More About Sor and the RussiansMusic
77
Renaissance Lute Music for Guitar: Nicolas Vallet: Gaillarde du comte Essex, transc. by Richard M. Long81
The Transcriber’s Art: Frank Lawes: Cute an’ Catchy &Got A Happy Feelin’ , transc. by Richard Yates
88
Return With Us Now/Featured Facsimile:Andreas Schulz: Sept variations, Op. 2
introduced by by Robert Coldwell
95
GFA Contemporary Music Series: Matthew Dunne: Two Miniatures102
The Guitarist’s AlbumMatteo Bevilacqua: Folies d’Espagne, Op. 48
for two guitars, ed. by Richard M. Long
INTERVIEWs
111
Clarice Assad, interviewed by Patrick DurekEVENTS
114
The 2012 JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition, Buffalo, New YorkREVIEWS & Recent Studies
117
Books, ed. by David Grimes118
Publications, ed. by David Grimes119
Publications Received, ed. by David Grimes120
Recordings, ed. by Albert Kunze125
Recordings Received, ed. by Albert Kunze2
The Journal of the Guitar Foundation of America
SoundboarD
Editorial StaffEditor-in-chief: Richard M. Long 10905 Ridgedale Rd. Temple Terrace, FL 33617 [email protected] Associate Editors:
Kerry Alt: [email protected] Peter Danner: [email protected] Jim Forrest: [email protected] Contributing Editor:
Thomas Heck: [email protected] Reviews Editor (publications): David Grimes
8701 Bellmead Drive Huntington Beach, CA 92646 [email protected]
Reviews Editor (recordings): Albert Kunze 769 NE 72 Terrace
Miami, FL 33138 [email protected] Pedagogy Editor: Frank Koonce [email protected]
GFA Membership
Annual dues include a subscription to Soundboard and are $50 ($30 for students); first class delivery is available for an additional $12 ($14 to Canada, $25 overseas). Single issues may be purchased for $12, and back issues for $7.90. Membership inquiries and questions regarding lost or missing issues should be directed to:
GFA Membership Chairman
P. O. Box 171269, Austin, TX, 78717
Soundboard is published quarterly by the Guitar Foundation of Amer-ica (GFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational and literary organization, devoted to furthering knowledge of and interest in the guitar and its music. All gifts are deductible for income tax purposes. The opinions expressed in the pages of Soundboard are those of the authors and do not neces-sarily reflect the opinions of the Editors, the Board of Directors, or the GFA Advisory Board. Soundboard invites contributions. Please contact the editor for submission requirements. Contributors are requested not to submit to other publications without advanced warning. Unsolicited contributions must be accompanied by return postage, and while every reasonable care will be given such contributions, Soundboard and the GFA are not responsible for loss or damage.
ISSN 0145-6237. Copyright ©2012 by the Guitar Foundation of America, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Galen Wixson, Executive Director [email protected]
Connie Sheu, Director of Communications [email protected]
Martha Masters, Artistic Director, ICAC
Risa Carlson, Director of GFA Youth Competitions [email protected]
Lynn McGrath, Competition Tour Director [email protected]
Matt Denman, Director of Education [email protected]
Robert Lane, Legal Counsel
GFA Web Site: www.guitarfoundation.org Advertising Manager: Kim Horlick Kanoy [email protected]
Stephen Aron, Archives Director Lisa Lazar, GFA Archivist
Bierce Library, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325 GFA Archive Web Site: www.uakron.edu/gfaa
Soundboard Back Issues online or by post:
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P. O. Box 171269, Austin, TX, 78717 Phone (877) 570-1651
Executive Committee Officers
Brian Head, Artistic Director Martha Masters, President Jeff Cogan, Vice President
Robert Lane, Vice President/Secretary Pam Gerken, Vice President/Treasurer
GFA Board of Trustees
Brian Head (Chair) Mary Akerman Michael Andriaccio William Bay Jeff Cogan Nicholas Goluses Matthew Hinsley Bruce Holzman Doug James Tom Johnson William Kanengiser Pamela Kimmel Robert Lane Kate Lewis Jeffrey McFadden Tony Morris Gregory Newton Jack Sanders Jason Vieaux Andrew Zohn
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
GFA News
GFA Regional Symposium in San Francisco Scott Cmiel and the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School for the Arts hosted the GFA Regional Symposium on Sunday, No-vember 4, 2012. David Tanenbaum directed the Symposium Guitar Orchestra in a performance of a newly commissioned piece by Brendon Myers. The day began with juried recitals in which top players from each age division were selected to perform on the evening concert. Other highlights of the day included guitar technique workshops and the College Ensemble Showcase, which featured students from different university guitar programs around the state.
The Competition Circuit Sierra Competition Winners
The Sierra Nevada Guitar Competition and Festival took place from July 11-15, 2012, and was co-hosted by Larry Aynesmith and Samantha Wells. All concerts were held in the beautiful Squaw Valley Chapel. Festival artists included Marc Teicholz, Celso Machado, Mesut Özgen, Connie Sheu, Matanya Ophee, René Izquierdo, and Thakur Singh.
The winners of the 2012 Sierra Nevada Guitar Competi-tion, Adult Division, were (from first to fourth place): Mat-thew Fish, John Britton, Max Zuckerman, and Jesse Freedman. Youth Division I winners were (from first to fourth place): Sean Keegan, Miguel Pulido, Luke Toshimitsu, and Manuel Ayala. Youth Division II winers (in the same order): Kairey Wang, Austin Keller, Haley Farber, and Elizabeth Cirivello. In Youth Division III, the winners were Sedona Farber (First Prize) and Yian Wang (Second Prize).
GFA Archives to Relocate
After nearly forty years at the University of Akron, the GFA Archives will be transferred to California State University, Northridge. The GFA Archives were established in 1973 by Dr. Thomas Heck, one of the founders of GFA. We thank Stephen Aron and the University of Akron for their many years of care in maintaining the archives, and look forward to
REvERBERATIOnS
Soundboard’s News & personalities column
fostering the growth of the collection with the staff at CSU Northridge. CSU Northridge also houses the International Guitar Research Archive (IGRA), one of the world’s largest collections of guitar sheet music. This collection includes rare works for solo guitar, as well as chamber music for guitar and other instruments.
Guitar News Around the World Jeffery McFadden Receives Award
On May 14, 2012, Dr. Jeffrey McFadden was honored with a City of Hamilton Arts Award in the Established Artist cat-egory for his outstanding contribution to the classical guitar and music education. McFadden received a $2,500 award
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4and a medal designed by well-known Canadian artist Dora de Pedery-Hunt.
Over the past twenty years, Jeffrey McFadden has estab-lished a place among the finest guitarists of his generation. His concert engagements have taken him throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. McFadden is a member (with Dr. Andrew Zohn) of the internationally renowned Duo Spiritoso, and currently holds the position of Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Music, at University of Toronto. McFadden’s debut recording was the first in the Laureate Series on the Naxos label. He has recorded nine CDs, featuring the works of Fernando Sor, Napoléon Coste, Agustín Barrios, J. S. Bach, and others. He serves as the Artistic Director of the Guitar Society of Toronto.
David Grimes Joins Vanguard U. Guitar Faculty David Grimes has been appointed Visiting Lecturer in Guitar at Vanguard University beginning Fall, 2012. As part of his appointment Mr. Grimes will teach a selected number of students and give a master class every semester. Currently, the guitar department is headed by Dr. Greg Glancey (coor-dinator) and Michael Anthony Nigro (instructor). Vanguard University, located in Costa Mesa, California, offers guitar ensemble, fretboard skills, class guitar, and private instruction. For audition information contact [email protected] or [email protected].
João Luiz Joins the Guitar Faculty at New Jersey City University
Performing artist, arranger, and composer João Luiz, a mem-ber (with Douglas Lora) of the acclaimed Brazil Guitar Duo, will join the faculty of the Guitar Program at the Department of Music, Dance, and Theater of New Jersey City University, in Fall, 2012. The virtuosity of his performances as a soloist and in chamber ensembles, and his duo’s win in New York’s prestigious Concert Artists Guild Competition, resulted in a full global touring schedule. Prolific as recording artist, João Luiz has to his credit more than ten CDs, playing solo, in duo, in trio, and in quartet, all of which have featured his arrange-ments of classical or Brazilian works. He is currently prepar-ing Brazilian and Cuban music for the duo’s collaboration with clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera. Luiz’s own compositions have been performed by the Newman and Oltman Guitar Duo, among other international artists. An active advocate for contemporary music, João Luiz, has premiered works by Leo Brouwer, Paulo Bellinati, Marco Pereira, Frederic Hand, Egberto Gismonti, and Marlos Nobre. His passionate
dedi-Above, David Grimes; below: João Luiz.
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
cation to his craft extends to his role as a teacher. João Luiz has written guitar methods for beginners, designed a guitar curriculum, and trained instructors for an important music education initiative for underprivileged children in São Paulo. At NJCU, Luiz will be teaching upper class students in the Bachelor of Music program and candidates for the Master of Music in Performance. For more information, please contact Ana María Rosado, Coordinator of Guitar Studies, at [email protected] and visit http://www.njcu.edu/mdt/. Martha Masters Joins the Guitar Faculty at California State University Fullerton
Internationally renowned guitarist Martha Masters has joined the faculty at Cal State Fullerton, coaching chamber music and teaching private lessons. The comprehensive program at CSU Fullerton offers both B.M. and M.M. degrees in guitar performance. Classes in guitar history and guitar literature complement the student’s individual instruction. In addition, the guitar performance workshop and the guitar chamber ensembles provide frequent opportunities for performance, both solo and with groups of various sizes. State-funded les-sons are available, as is scholarship assistance in various forms. Martha Masters won first prize in the Guitar Foundation of America International Solo Competition, including a record-ing contract with Naxos, a concert video with Mel Bay, and an extensive North American concert tour. In November of 2000, she also won the Andrés Segovia International Guitar Competition in Linares, Spain, and was a finalist in the Alexandre Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities in Łódź, Poland. Prior to 2000, Martha was a prizewinner or finalist in numerous other international competitions, including the 1999 International Guitar
Com-On the Cover
T
he painting on the cover of this issue is ThePic-Nic (1848) by the British-born American painter
Thomas Cole (1801-1848), celebrated as the founder of the Hudson River school. Cole came to America with his family at the age of seventeen and, captivated by what he saw of the vast and unspoiled continent, earned renown painting realistic American landscapes, sometimes with Turneresque atmospheric effects or sunsets that recall those of Claude Lorraine. Cole’s subjects ranged from the Hudson River valley to Niagara Falls to the rolling hills of New England, but also included Mount Etna,
Martha Masters
petition “Paco Santiago Marín” in Granada, Spain; the 1998 Tokyo International Guitar Competition; and the 1997 GFA International Solo Competition.
In addition to leading the guitar program and the LMU Guitar Festival at Loyola Marymount University in Los Ange-les, Martha teaches annually at the National Guitar Workshop Classical Summit in Connecticut, and on WorkshopLive. com. Masters is also the President of the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA), dedicated to supporting the instrument, its players, and its music in the U. S. and throughout the world. For more information about the guitar program at CSU Fullerton, see the website at http://www.fullerton.edu/arts/ music/programs/classicalguitar.html
Piranesian Italian ruins, and allegories reminiscent of Poussin’s Et in Arcadia Ego.
The Pic-Nic, commissioned in 1845 by James Brown, a
wealthy New York banker, is a Romantic fête champêtre, or
perhaps a bourgeois fête galante, reflecting the influence of the
European masters Cole saw during his Grand Tour to Europe a few years earlier. In this idyllic scene, nature and civilization are juxtaposed; the guitar and its music imply the refinements of civilization, although the tree stump in the foreground may symbolize human intrusion into the heretofore pristine primeval wilderness.
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4C
olin Symons Cooper, a very dear friend of the guitar and an editor for Classical Guitar magazine in Englandfor the past thirty years, died on August 25, 2012, at the age of 86. He had a massive stroke and was rushed to a hospital where he gently slipped away the next morning, with his wife, Maureen, and son, Dan, at his side. His death was very quick, painless, and peaceful. His funeral was held on the afternoon of September 13 near his home in St. Leonards on Sea, on the English Channel, near the spot where Enrique Granados lost his life when a German U-Boat torpedoed his ship in 1916 as he was returning home to Spain after the successful premiere of his only opera, Goyescas, by the New York Metropolitan
Opera. Colin wrote to me once that he used to stare out at the sea from his home and wonder exactly where that tragic event took place.
Born in Birkenhead, England, in 1926, Colin Cooper was a World War II veteran, an amateur violinist, a playwright and novelist, an avid golfer, and a guitarist. He apprenticed as a toolmaker for an aircraft factory
during World War II and worked for a steel construction company while beginning his career as a writer after he was released from military service in 1947. Fascinated by human dia-logue, he settled into playwrighting and wrote various dramas for BBC radio while working on his novels. His writings have been published by Faber and Faber, and three novels are currently available on Kindle Books, one of which, Best Bent Wire, is
based upon his military experiences as a telegraph operator in the Middle East after World War II.
Colin first encountered the guitar through the BBC’s airplay of Segovia’s early recordings. He began teaching himself the instru-ment in 1962 as a break from long hours at the typewriter, and later took lessons with Dave Alcock and George Clinton. He eventually
be-In Memoriam
Colin Symons Cooper (1926-2012)
gan teaching guitar, both privately and for the Inner London Education Authority’s Adult Education program. In 1972, Colin and George Clinton founded Guitar International
magazine. Around the same time, Colin started a printing business called Alley Press and wrote a monthly column for the Japanese guitar magazine Gendai Guitar. In 1982,
Colin became full-time News Editor for Classical Guitar,
a new magazine that he joined Maurice Summerfield in founding. Colin devoted himself to this endeavor with all his energy and seemed to be everywhere in the European guitar scene—attending festivals and serving on juries for over sixty international guitar competitions, and was active in his work for the guitar until the end. His ubiquitous and unceasing efforts for the guitar over these many years will surely raise the bar for future generations, while continuing to influence those of us left behind.
Colin Cooper is survived by his wife of 46 years, Mau-reen, his two sons Ben and Dan, and one grandson. His
son Dan sent me some of Colin’s autobiographical writings, saying, “When a writer dies he can still talk to us.” I think it only fitting for this American guitar journal to conclude with Colin’s first impression of a Yank. —Charles Postlewate
My First American
by Colin Cooper (June 6, 2009)
I
am writing this on the 65th an-niversary of D-Day, commemo-rating the landing in France of the Allied forces in their successful campaign to rid Europe of the mur-derous Nazi regime. It reminded me of the first American I met, a few days before the invasion began. My family was living in the Quantock Hills, in Somerset. American sol-diers were training somewhere in the area, though we never knew exactly where. I, my sister Wendy, and my7
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
brother Clive were playing an informal game of cricket on a flat stretch of grass at Courtway. We had a few stumps, a bat and a ball, and that was enough. I was seventeen, Wendy was sixteen, Clive was thirteen. I suspect that Wendy only joined us because she had nothing else to do on that warm June evening. Courtway was a remote hamlet in those secluded hills—a post office-cum-shop, a corrugated steel chapel, and a few houses and cottages, a pub called “The Bell” half a mile distant, and that was it.
As we played our game, we noticed an American GI watching us. He was in uniform and wearing a steel helmet. He wanted to know the rules of this strange-looking game. We told him, and invited him to join in. This he did, with more enthusiasm than skill. When it came to bowling, he was inclined to pitch the ball like a baseball player. When it was his turn to bat, we had to warn him that if he connected with the ball as a baseball player would, the ball would disappear into the gorse bushes and in all probability be lost.
When we had had enough cricket, we asked him back to our cottage, and he readily agreed. Indoors, he apologized for not taking off his helmet. His head had been shaved, he told us, and he was self-conscious about his appearance. None of us could guess that sixty years later that style would be in vogue. Because security was tight, he would not reveal his real name—because he came from Georgia, he said we could call him George. He was a good guest. He told us about his home in Georgia and his family. He played the violin, though without any professional ambition. I brought out my own violin and George played it, my mother accompanying at the piano. What George would not do was tell us about his army activities, beyond the information that he had been called up (“inducted” was his word) like thousands of others in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s determination to crush the spread of Nazism. We understood, and didn’t press our questions. We all knew that the invasion was imminent, and that security was important: “Careless talk costs lives” was a slogan imprinted on our minds from the beginning of the war five years earlier.
Before he left, George gave his home address to my mother, who in return gave him ours in case he felt like getting in touch at some later date. It never happened. We heard that George’s landing craft had been sunk before it reached Omaha Beach, with no survivors. Omaha Beach was exceptionally well defended, and American casualties were heavy. We were grieved to know that George was one of them, and that so friendly a young man would never grow to full maturity and lead a normal life. My mother wept.
Three months later, I was called up, trained as a radio
operator and, in February of 1945, sent out to France to take part in the last four months of the campaign. My mother was anxious—she had experienced some of the horrors of war during her time as a nurse in France during World War I. My father had also served in France, and seemed to take it for granted that was what a young man did. As for myself, I was determined to “do my bit,” to do what was asked of me without complaint.
I crossed the English Channel on D-Day plus 235, or thereabouts. Some of the men in my new unit had crossed on D-Day itself and did not let me forget it. They were justifiably proud of their action, and felt superior to anyone who came later. One of them even, in a fit of irritation, called me a “D-Day dodger,” as if I had made a deliberate decision to avoid the danger by being only seventeen at the time and working for the war effort in an aircraft factory.
After the failure of Hitler’s last counter-attack in the Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge) two months previously, there was a feeling of victory in the air. But I never forgot George, his gentle manner, his courtesy, his friendliness. He had, out of necessity, been trained to fight, but he was not a soldier. Any more than I was. •
8
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4From the Editor
I
n Spring, 2010, a number of friends and guitar enthusiasts metin Sidney Sussex, founded in 1596 and a college of the Univer-sity of Cambridge, to hear papers on the subject of instruments called “guit(t)ars” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With an optimism that proved to be justified, we called the gathering the First Cambridge Conference on the Nineteenth-Century Guitar, for we have met several times since and hope to meet again. Those who came to this original colloquium were Sara Clarke, Tom Heck, Christopher Page, Panagiotis Poulopoulos, Richard Savino, Paul Sparks, Erik Stenstadvold, Taro Takeuchi (who gave a fine recital on Spanish and English guitars in the college chapel), and James Westbrook. The essays printed here all owe something, in one way or another, to the enthusiasm and sense of common endeavor gener-ated by that meeting.
We are grateful to Tom Heck for first suggesting that these
About This Special Issue of
Soundboard
T
he Guitar Foundation of America, celebrating its fortieth birthday next year, has grown into a major arts organiza-tion. The energy and professionalism of its leadership and management and the enthusiasm of its members have resulted in an exemplary annual national convention, prestigious international competitions, new educational outreach programs and regional meetings, a fine website, and expanding archives of musical and historical resources. Not to mention Soundboard. And the guitaritself has never been more popular, with more fine teachers and programs at all levels from elementary school to university, more dedicated students (some of them amazing!), more new composi-tions being written, published, and performed, and more luthiers making superb instruments and experimenting with exciting new designs and materials. Guitar scholarship has made a quantum leap in the last few years, thanks to online resources undreamed of just a decade ago.
Next year, in 2013, Soundboard will begin its 39th year. It
started in 1974 as the eight-page, stapled newsletter of the new GFA. The first page of the first Soundboard was a list of “Research
in Progress” compiled by Tom Heck, who also contributed a “Re-turn With Us Now: Soundboard’s Featured Facsimile” to issue No.
3; both remain regular features to this day. Soundboard—entirely
the work of volunteers—took advantage of the technology that was available: electric typewriters, pasted-up photocopies, rub-off type and ornaments. Beginning in the 1980s, the desktop computer created a revolution in publishing, and Soundboard rode the wave,
changing its appearance along with the evolving software and im-provements in printing technology.
It was eleven years ago that the GFA offered me the editorship of Soundboard, a task that I have enjoyed thoroughly. The profound
affection and dedication that the guitar has always inspired among
its devotees is a curious but real phenomenon, and a very gratify-ing one. Nevertheless, for the last few years I have been aware that major changes—organizational, technological, and strategic—were becoming inevitable. For example, the internet has already rendered obsolete any quarterly publication as a medium for making timely an-nouncements; what else might the GFA website do more efficiently? Online publishing, alternative electronic editions, full-color printing, all are increasingly common; in short, the publishing industry will be completely transformed in a few years, and it will require skill sets quite different from mine. Furthermore, eleven years is a long time to be involved in any intense and demanding enterprise; my own publishing business has languished and my performing chops … well, let’s not go there. So, about a year ago, for these and many reasons, I tendered my resignation from the editorship, giving a year’s notice. The GFA has taken advantage of this year to study the entire question of Soundboard, its role and mission within the organization, to see
how it can best be transitioned into the new digital age.
Your next issue of Soundboard will be the first from the new
editor, Kim Perlak, and her staff. I’ve known Kim since she was a young guitar prodigy at the Stetson Workshops in Florida, and I’ve followed her career since then, so I was delighted that she was selected. I’ve been asked to give a lecture—a retrospective on
Soundboard over the years—at the GFA Convention in Louisville
in 2013, and I’ve asked Kim to join me and discuss its future, too. GFA members can expect some exciting changes. In Louisville, I hope to thank personally my editorial staff for their great work over the years, and the GFA leadership for its unfailing support. I also look forward to meeting some of the hundreds of people with whom I have worked or corresponded over the years. As I look back on the past eleven years, I think the people I’ve met were the job’s best “perks,” and the part that I’ll miss the most. —RML
articles might appear in Soundboard, albeit before he knew how
substantial some of them were to become, and offer special thanks to the editor of Soundboard, Richard Long, for his encouragement
and work on our behalf. May he regard these articles as suitable for the last issue of his distinguished editorship. The British (indeed English) emphasis in most of the essays is explained less by the circumstances of our meetings and more by a common realization that the English material relating to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century guitars is rich and yet has often been indifferently studied in the past. We hope these pieces will be of interest to members of the Guitar Foundation of America. They relate to an era when a London writer looked to Washington Irving for writing that best captures the charm of the guitar, when guitarists in the East Coast towns and cities of America often played much the same music as their British counterparts. —the Contributors
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
“The Worst Drunkard in London”:
The Life and Career of the Guitar Virtuoso
Leonard Schulz
by Erik Stenstadvold
A
round 1850, the Russian nobleman and guitar enthusiastNikolai Petrovitch Makaroff made a journey through Europe for the purpose of meeting other guitarists. According to what he later wrote in his memoirs, he had been spurred to make this trip by a letter from the renowned Viennese guitar maker Johann Anton Stauffer, who had suggested to him to go to London “to hear the greatest of all guitarists of that time, Mr. Schulz.”1 Thus, after travelling through Germany
and Belgium, seeing various guitarists on his way, Makaroff came to London. His first encounter with Leonard Schulz is vividly described in this often-cited snippet from the noble-man’s memoirs:
His playing embodied all I could ever hope for—an ex-traordinary rapidity, clearness, forcefulness, taste, suavity of touch, brilliance, expression, as well as surprising effects that were quite new. I noticed, moreover, a decided self-assurance during the performance. It seemed, in fact, that playing the instrument was but a light diversion for him, for he showed himself heedless of the tremendous difficulties in which his own compositions abounded.2
This was indeed an extraordinary tribute from a man who often made critical comments about the guitarists he met on his journey. In fact, the encounter with the 36-year-old Schulz made such an impact on the Russian nobleman that he left London without pursuing his initial plan of also calling on Giulio Regondi.
The lives and careers of Regondi and Schulz show several points of resemblance. Both came to London at an early age, and were acclaimed for their extraordinary talents. Both died relatively young—Regondi at the age of fifty, Schulz at barely forty-six. And, while both guitarists had brilliant careers, they seem also to have suffered from a general decline of interest in the guitar during the Victorian period. The long-term effect was that their music remained mostly unknown during the better part of the twentieth century. However, whereas the music of Regondi has enjoyed a well-deserved revival lately, Schulz has been less fortunate.
Over the years, Leonard Schulz has nevertheless been the subject of some scholarly and some not-so-scholarly studies. However, insofar as these have presented new in-formation about the guitarist, it has mostly concerned par-ticular episodes or periods of his life.3 In this article, I shall
give a broad presentation of Schulz’s life and activity, with special focus on details not covered in previous works. The new finds are retrieved from a wide range of contemporary sources, mainly newspapers and periodicals, accessed by various internet resources.4
Early Years in Vienna
Leonard Schulz was born into a musical family in Vienna in 1814.5 There has been some confusion regarding the name
of his father, who was a musician of Hungarian background, born around 1787.6 Zuth mistakenly named him Leonhard
like his younger son, and later writers have frequently repeated that error.7 However, press reports of early concerts by Schulz
senior and his sons unanimously name him Andreas. Andreas Schulz acquired some reputation as a guitarist in Vienna. There are records of concerts in and around the capital where he performed in duet with other guitarists.8 Perhaps most
interesting is that he accompanied Mauro Giuliani on at least one occasion, at the Untermeidling theatre in August, 1817. Giuliani’s playing was, of course, highly praised, but Schulz also received his share of the acclaim: “the accompaniment by Mr Schulz likewise deserves praise.”9 Among other
musi-cians participating in this charity concert was the pianist Ignaz Moscheles.
Andreas Schulz was also active as composer; eight works for the guitar appeared with various Viennese publishers in the years 1811-13 and 1824.10 Furthermore, it is clear that he
had good connections in musical Vienna. Later, in London in 1825, he provided Sir George Smart, about to leave for Vi-enna, with introductory letters to several important Viennese musicians, some of whom belonged to Beethoven’s circle.11
And, two years earlier, he had actually introduced his sons Leonard and Eduard to Beethoven personally.12
10
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4With such a background, it comes as no surprise that Leonard and his two-years-older brother Eduard embarked on an early musical career. Both children learned to play the guitar, but whereas Leonard devoted himself fully to that instrument, Eduard concentrated more on the piano and later became a celebrated pianist in England. Early in November, 1822—Leonard was then only eight—the two young boys were presented at a gathering of the prestigious Viennese musi-cal association Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Here Leonard played a Polonaise, but no further details are known.13
Leonard’s real baptism of fire occurred half a year later. On April 16, 1823, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den österreichischen Kaiserstaat
(henceforth simply AMZ Kaiserstaat) announced that on
Sunday, April 20, at mid-day, the eight-year-old Leonard Schulz, pupil of his father Andreas Schulz, would give a concert in the Landständischer Saal in Herrengasse, in which he would be heard on the guitar. (The Landständischer Saal was one of the main concert venues in Vienna where, incidentally, the eleven-year-old Franz Liszt had made his public debut a few months earlier.) The announcement also gave details of the program. As was normal in concerts those days, several soloists and a small orchestra participated; there was no doubt, however, who was the central figure of the event. The orchestra opened with Mozart’s overture
to The Marriage of Figaro, after which Leonard played the
first movement of Giuliani’s third Concerto (Op. 70). This
was followed by the tenor Ludwig Titze singing Beethoven’s
Adelaide,14 accompanied on the piano by Leonard’s brother
Eduard. The next item was Hummel’s Pot-pourri (Op. 53)
for piano and guitar, played by the two young boys. Then followed a work for czakan, composed and played by Ernst
Krähmer,15 and, finally, Leonard concluded the concert with
the “Rondo alla polacca” [“Polonaise”] from Giuliani’s first
Concerto (Op. 30). Indeed, an extraordinary achievement
for an eight-year-old boy!
It is worth dwelling on this event, for no review of it has hitherto been known. The concert was enthusiastically received in the press, and rarely do we encounter reports from that time where guitar playing is described in such detail. The most extensive review appeared one week after the concert in
the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode
(hereafter called Wiener Zeitschrift):
On April 20, the eight-year-old Leonard Schulz, pupil of his father Andreas Schulz, gave a concert in the Landständischer Saal, in which he was heard on the guitar. This talented boy played the first movement of the third concerto by Mauro
Giuliani, and the Rondo alla Polacca of the first concerto by the same composer with a skill, or rather, with such vir-tuosity that surely no one would have expected of him. His tone is strong and beautiful; he played the most difficult passages absolutely fluently, without the slightest mistake, almost always with great clarity, and highlighted several places quite properly, so that one could not fail noticing the good school and the zealous efforts of his master; yes, what is more, that in spite of the so complicated, you might say, irregular fingering of the guitar, he played all the difficult pieces without watching his fingers one single time. ... He is the first we have seen on this instrument shining already at such tender age. The entire audience present recognized his merit by giving him the most thundering applause after each item.16
Other reviews called attention to Leonard’s “technical skill, taste, and an admirable sureness of touch” and the “security and skill, with which he executed the most dif-ficult passages without ever looking at his hands; his beau-tiful interpretation, the tranquility in his playing, his due observance of time, and his surprisingly strong sound.”17
One of the reviews added another small but significant point: “The extraordinarily delicate accompaniment by the orchestra deserves a special mention.”18 This shows
that Leonard was accompanied by the orchestra, not just the piano.
The reviewer in the Wiener Zeitschrift also made a
spe-cial comment regarding the Hummel Pot-pourri, a piece he
did not find entirely successful. This was not so much from its execution, but rather from the arrangement “in which the guitar on the whole is too weak against the piano, and because it was set for a normal or so-called large guitar which, due to its low tessitura, is not as penetrating as the higher-pitched terz guitar.”19 This observation obviously
reflected the reviewer’s own experience; not only was the terz guitar used in many chamber works in Vienna in those days (guitar duets in particular), it was also heard at this event in Giuliani’s Concerto, Op. 70, which is scored for
that instrument.
Leonard was clearly an extraordinary child, even for an epoch known for cultivating young talents, and both he and his brother Eduard were widely recognized as Wunderkinder
(Eduard was even compared to Liszt). A brief article in the Viennese magazine Der Wanderer (January 28, 1825), titled
“Österreich, die Mutter großer Musikgenies” (“Austria, the Mother of Great Musical Geniuses”), lists six musical child prodigies from what was then the Austrian empire; among the names we find Liszt and the Schulz brothers.
11
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
The Concert Tours
The father immediately saw the musical and commercial potential of his sons. Soon after the suc-cessful debut of Leonard, the two wonderboys began to appear in concerts with their father. At these events, Eduard or his father often played the physharmonica (or æol-harmonica), a newly-invented small keyboard instrument fitted with free reeds (a kind of harmonium).
Their first genuinely inter-national tour commenced in the autumn of 1824. In early Septem-ber, the Schulz trio was passing through Bayreuth in Bavaria, not far from the Austrian border, “on their travel to the capitals of Germany, France, and England.”20
From their journey we also know of concerts in Nuremberg (Sep-tember/October), Darmstadt (November), and Liege (early 1825); surely, they would have performed in a number of other
places on their way. Although reports from France have not yet surfaced, there is, nevertheless, reason to believe the Schulzes were there. Soon upon their arrival in London in the spring of 1825,21 the Literary Gazette on April 16 wrote of Leonard
and Eduard that “the French, as well as the German journals, represent them as first-rate masters.”
The family trio remained in the British Isles for almost two years. During that period they made a number of concert appearances, several also in the presence of the king, George IV, at Carlton House and at Windsor. In addition to London, appearances in Bath, Bristol, and its suburb of Clifton, Liv-erpool, and Dublin are known. Wherever they appeared, the young boys created quite a stir, not least Leonard. A citation from the Bristol Mercury on March 13, 1826, may serve as
an example: “Master Leonard Schulz is quite a miracle of his age [he was then eleven], he is a perfect master of the guitar.” Their instant fame also resulted in a portrait of the two boys being made in London around that time (see Illustration No.
1; Leonard is on the right).22
By early 1827, the Schulzes had returned to Vienna, reuniting with Frau Schulz who (according to Sir George
Smart) had remained at home with two other small children. In Febru-ary, they gave a new concert in the Landständischer Saal where Leon-ard had made his debut four years earlier. They lingered in Vienna for the next half year, sometimes appearing in concerts there and in nearby towns, such as Pressburg. Another lithograph of the two young boys was probably made in Vienna at that time ( a copy in the Austrian National Library can be seen online, http://www.bildar-chivaustria.at/Pages/ImageDetail. aspx?p_iBildID=9257756).
Their feet were itching, how-ever, and in the autumn of 1827 Andreas Schulz and his two won-derboys embarked on yet another extended tour. After travelling through Germany (with known concerts in Munich in October/ November, and Augsburg and Stuttgart in November), they came to Paris via Strasbourg in January, 1828. They remained in the French capital for two months, during which time they played in several concerts. At least two took place in the salons of the piano maker Jean-Henri Pape. The concert on January 27 is often mentioned because Liszt, then fifteen years old, also participated. However, both his and Leonard Schulz’s roles at this event were quite modest.
On March 9, the Schulzes had their own concert at M. Pape’s salon, this time with young Leonard in a more prominent role. He opened this soirée musicale by
perform-ing an unspecified concerto by Giuliani; accordperform-ing to the review in Revue musicale, it was played on a terz guitar and
was thus probably Op. 70.24 As no orchestra was involved
at this event, we must assume that Eduard accompanied his brother on the piano. The brothers also played in two works for æol-harmonica and two guitars by their father, and in the
Abschied der Troubadours (here announced as Les Adieux de Raoul de Coucy à la dame de Fayel) by Giuliani, Moscheles,
and Mayseder.
The Revue musicale review of the concert was quite
detailed. Again we learn that Leonard played the terz guitar, an instrument about which the writer (Fétis?) had some
Illustration No. 1:
“Master Edward Schulz, The famous Piano-Forte Player, and Master Leonard Schulz, The celebrated Guitar Player.”
Lithograph c.1825 by Charles Ingrey and George E. Madeley, after a sketch by Jules Bouvier.23 © Victoria and
12
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4reservations (as he also had about the guitar in general). Of Leonard’s playing he had this comment:
M. Leonard is the Ajax of guitarists; he has fingers of iron and performs with great accuracy the most terrifying diffi-culties. His talent has lustre, but he sometimes lacks charm. This is, however, a reproach addressed more to the instru-ment than the artist.25
London 1828, Return to Vienna
From Paris, Andreas Schulz and his two sons headed for London. On March 29, 1828, the Morning Post announced
that the Schulzes “at present in Paris, will shortly arrive in London.” One month later, on April 28, they appeared at the Argyll Rooms in the fifth concert of the 1828 season of the Philharmonic Society. This was a marathon event, which included Beethoven’s “Pastorale” Symphony, a Mozart
sym-phony, two orchestra overtures, a violin concerto by Beriot, and several vocal interludes with Rossini arias and duets. In the midst of this, the Schulz trio performed a Concertante
for æol-harmonica and two guitars.26 A previously unknown
review in the London journal The Athenæum on May 7,
1828, gives us an eye-witness account of the event. Here it says that the composition by Andreas Schulz incorporated some “exceedingly clever variations” on God Save the King,
exhibiting both “invention and ability.” This notwithstand-ing, far from all present found the music appropriate for the respected Philharmonic Society, whose aim was “to promote the performance, in the most perfect manner possible, of the best and most approved instrumental music.”27 The Athenæum
wrote somewhat diplomatically that the performance was “of a new and peculiar character, and created a considerable discussion and diversity of opinion in the society.” One part of the problem was apparently that the audience had difficulties hearing this small ensemble—three soft-voiced instruments in a concert chiefly featuring a full symphony orchestra was no easy match. (Sor met with a similarly mixed reaction after performing his Concertante for guitar and strings at a
Philhar-monic Society concert some eleven years earlier.28)
Life was not made easier for a performing guitarist by the fact that audiences in those days were not, in general, quiet during a concert. This was commented on in 1833 in the short-lived London guitar journal the Giulianiad, in
which the writer (probably Ferdinand Pelzer) complained that “there is generally as much noise [from the audience] as sound [from the musicians].” Under such circumstances the soft-voiced guitar was particularly at a disadvantage, and Pelzer(?) recommended “all those who are really lovers of
the instrument, to attend as early as possible at any concert where the guitar is to be played, and obtain as near a seat to the orchestra as possible.”29
So, all in all, the appearance of the Schulz trio at the Philharmonic Society concert was not entirely successful, as vividly depicted in the Athenæum:
… their whole performance would have been admired, had it not proceeded to too great a length; but the audience, (especially that part at the farther end of the room who could not distinguish a note,) grew at last impatient, and a few hisses, and a considerable degree of coughing and unequivocal murmurs, forced the poor Germans to effect a hasty retreat; and some of the ci-devant directors expressed their disapprobation of the introduction of the Messrs. Schulz, by the “powers that be”.30
The reviewer also suggested what had occasioned the controversial introduction of this family-trio: “These gentle-men have, several times lately, had the honour of performing before the King, and, having afforded his Majesty consider-able amusement; hence, perhaps, it was thought expedient to introduce them to the Philharmonic audience.”
This was actually not the first time the Schulzes had played at the Argyll Rooms; they had done so in June, 1825, shortly after their first arrival in London. And the mixed reac-tion after the Philharmonic Society concert did not discour-age them from scheduling another appearance in the same location. Two months later, on June 18, 1828, they organized (surely it was the father who handled such affairs) their own concert there, under the auspices of the Prince and Princess Esterhazy. As usual, several musicians participated; the three Schulzes themselves performed anew the Concertante for
æol-harmonica and two guitars, and Leonard and his father
a duo brillante for two guitars, “which was beautiful as well
as extraordinary.”31
There are also reports of concerts in Bristol/Clifton in the late summer of 1828. Soon after, it seems that at least young Leonard (probably all three) returned to Vienna, “on account of his health,” as announced on September 2 in the
Bristol Mercury.
There is only sporadic information about Leonard Schulz’s whereabouts during the next three years. At the end of June, 1830, he was in London playing in a concert in which, among others, Moscheles also participated (the Times, June
24, 1830), and exactly two months later he and Eduard played in Mainz in Germany. From the review here we learn that the brothers travelled without their father, and the critic was full of praise for Leonard’s playing (although he recommended
13
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
the young musician to concentrate his talents on a proper instrument like the violin):
We hear full harmonies in chromatic, enharmonic and contrapuntal chords and inversions; rapid runs and cadenzas with a force, clarity and skill displayed, as on the harp and violin; moreover, the interpretation does not lack gentleness and sweetness, so that this sixteen year-old artist induces the greatest admiration.32
Final return to London
By early 1832, the Viennese brothers had once more re-turned to London, where they performed at a meeting of the “Melodists’ Club” on January 26. Although only seventeen, Leonard’s fame was now well-established, and henceforth he and Edward (whose name now was anglicized) pursued independent musical careers with London as their base. Oc-casionally they would also appear in the same concerts.
Bone claims that Leonard Schulz made further visits to Paris in the 1830s. This is quite possible, but no such records in the Paris press have come to light.33 However, throughout
the 1830s there are regular press reports of London concerts, often several per year, in which he participated. Reviews of concerts were usually brief, often little more than just a sum-mary of the program. But, when his playing was commented on, with but few exceptions the reviewers were full of praise, and there seems to be little evidence for Button’s assumption that by now the London audience had become more disap-proving of Schulz’s handling of the guitar.34
Now at the peak of his career, Schulz moved in the highest musical circles in London. The concerts in which he played frequently featured the most distinguished British and foreign musicians, such as the pianists Ignaz Moscheles, Sigismond Thalberg, and Henri Herz; the violinists Charles de Beriot, Paolo Spagnoletti, Nicolas Mori, and Edward Eliason; and the singers María Malibran and Manuel García. On at least two occasions in 1837, Schulz and Giulio Regondi appeared in the same concerts, the latter performing on the concertina. Usually Schulz played solo (the reports in the press are regret-tably vague), but there are some records of him partaking in chamber ensembles, performing La Sentinelle by Hummel/
Giuliani, or the aforementioned Abschied der Troubadours.
We also hear of a tantalizing “grand MS. concertante on the pianoforte and guitar, [composed and played] by Messrs E. and L. Schulz,” premiered at Edward Eliason’s soirée musicale
on January 28,1835 (reported three days later in the Court Journal).
A particularly noteworthy event was “Mr. Eliason’s An-nual Grand Concert” on June 1, 1840, in which Edward
Eliason performed Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata together
with Franz Liszt (who also played solo), and Beethoven’s
Violin Concerto with an orchestra conducted by Sir George
Smart. On this occasion, Schulz played a guitar fantasia on
the Gabriele Waltz, “which he gave with taste and purity of
execution, and without practising any of the claptraps often resorted to upon the instrument,” as stated in the Morning Post the next day.
Judging from the subsiding number of records in the press, his concert appearances became scarcer in the 1840s. Whether this was because of a generally dwindling popular-ity of the guitar or personal problems (see below), we do not know. However, Schulz’s high reputation as performer did not falter; after a concert in June, 1846, the Morning Post
wrote that “Leonard Schulz played a solo on the guitar in such perfection of style and execution as belongs to no other guitarist”.35 This notwithstanding, there are no known records
of public appearances of his after two concerts in April and May, 1847.
It is quite possible that those concerts indeed were the last in which Schulz appeared.36 When Makaroff came to
London around 1850, he had some difficulties tracking down the guitarist who was apparently hiding from his creditors; even his pianist brother Edward explained that he had not seen him in the last three years. Thus, the Russian nobleman’s meeting with the 36-year-old Schulz, quoted at the beginning of this article, is the last account of our guitarist. Except for some contact the Argentine guitar amateur Fernando Cruz Cordero had with Schulz during a visit to London in 1851 (inferred from the dated and signed dedication to Cordero on the title page of the autograph ms. of Schulz’s Cinq Etudes, WoO, in the Robert Spencer
Collection), the last ten years before his premature death are shrouded in obscurity.
Leonard Schulz died in London on April 27, 1860, ac-cording to Bone, after a long and painful illness. Bone further intimates that Schulz’s disappearance from the public scene and untimely death were caused by a disreputable lifestyle. Indeed, according to Makaroff, Edward Schulz had said of his brother that “he has the greatest talent, but is the worst drunkard in London.”
Leonard Schulz achieved the greatest success as guitar-ist; this notwithstanding, he did not escape the prejudices of the musical establishment that were experienced by all major guitarists of that time; Sor and Giuliani were no exceptions. This lasted throughout his career; frequently, a critic, after first commending his playing, would add some derogatory words
14
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4about the guitar. A review from the Musical World on April
10, 1847, after “Madame Dulcken’s Matinee Musicale” three days earlier (Schulz’s second-last known public appearance), may serve as a conspicuous illustration:
Mr. L. Schulz executed a fantasia on the guitar, as only he could execute it, and it is happy for the art that he stands unrivalled, for were there many who could do on the guitar what he does, we fear it would be before long forced into the bit [i.e., class] of musical instruments to which we cannot
at present think it legitimately belongs.
What a splendid blend of praise and disdain! Was this condescending attitude towards the guitar also the reason why no review appeared after “The First of his Recitals”, announced in the Morning Post on December 14, 1841, to
take place four days later? (This was in fact among the earli-est public solo guitar recitals ever, Liszt having introduced the recital concept and the term only the previous year in London.) Anyone unceasingly experiencing such arrogance and contempt might indeed end up seeking consolation in the bottle.
The guitar music of Leonard Schulz
A check list of Schulz’s compositions is bound to be incom-plete.37 Much of his music was probably never published and
is presumably lost; some of the contemporary press reviews mention compositions not known today (see above), and so do Bone and Makaroff. The highest numbered printed work is Op. 101, but with wide gaps in the opus list and many pieces without opus numbers, we have no way of knowing if this high number indeed reflects a continuous series. Few substantial compositions seem to have survived; the majority
of the pieces published during Schulz’s lifetime or shortly af-terwards—Madame Pratten issued a series posthumously—are brief and written in a rather popular style; many also require the guitar tuned to an open E-major chord.38
Some of his compositions are known only in manuscript versions. One of these, Recollections of Ireland, Op. 41, (which
exists in a modern edition from Editions Orphée) is probably identical to “a new MS. Fantasia on some Irish Airs” played by Schulz at a concert on July 12, 1837, as announced in the
Morning Post the previous days.
Although much of his known output consists of light pieces of slight musical value, we do from time to time get glimpses of a talent that was clearly capable of more than these trifles reveal. In conversation with Makaroff, Schulz explained that, when publishing his music, he often had to simplify it in order to make it more accessible to the amateurs.39
Perhaps the most interesting surviving work, both tech-nically and musically, is his L’Indispensable, Op. 40, a set of
twelve studies, originally published in London around 1840 (a modern edition of this work, together with the Cinq Etudes,
WoO, from 1851, was recently published by Chanterelle Verlag). Many of the studies are technically quite demanding, often with a focus on specific and sometimes unusual tech-niques or right-hand fingerings. In several of the studies, the melody appears in the middle voice or the bass, accompanied by repeated notes in the upper voice, indicated to be played by one right-hand finger only. This can be seen in Illustration No. 2, presenting the opening measures of Op. 40, No. 6; here,
the middle voice represents il canto. All fingering is original.
In Op. 40, No. 12, Schulz used a two-staff notation to elucidate the recurrent inclusion of an open first-string E in a sequence of high-position chords. Illustration No. 3 shows this
15
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4
section from the original ca.1840 London edition, published
by Wessel & Co.
The studies by Leonard Schulz display an instrumental and compositional proficiency far beyond that of the average guitar composer at the time. In quality, the best of the studies may be compared to those of his compatriot Giulio Regondi. The two players obviously knew each other; not only that, in his annual benefit concert at the Hanover Square Rooms on May 30, 1856 (reviewed the following day in the Daily News),
Regondi honored his colleague by performing an unspecified fantasia by him. This was an unusual mark of respect, as a professional musician in those days rarely performed music by another contemporary virtuoso. It shows that Regondi, perhaps the foremost of all Romantic guitar composers, held in high esteem the music of Schulz, “the greatest of all guitar-ists of that time.”40
Notes
1 Nikolai Petrovitch Makaroff, “The Memoirs of Makaroff,”
translated by Vladimir Bobri, Part 1, Guitar Review, No. 1 (1946),
12.
2Ibid., Part 2, Guitar Review, No. 2 (1947), 34.
3 Some writers have done little more than recycle what Josef
Zuth and Philip Bone said of Schulz many years ago (Josef Zuth,
Handbuch der Laute und Gitarre [Vienna, 1926; Reprint
edi-tion 1972]. Philip J. Bone, The Guitar and Mandolin, [London,
1954; Reprint edition, 1972]). By far the most thorough study
of recent years was done by the late Peter Pieters as part of an extensive article about child prodigies on the guitar during the first half of the nineteenth century, “Die Wunderkinder der Gitarre während der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Teil 1,”
Gitarre und Laute, No. 5 (1995), 13-21). An Italian version of
that article appeared as “I bambini-prodigio della chitarra nella prima metà dell’Ottocento,” il Fronimo, No. 100 (1997),
77-101. Pieters’ excellent study provided many new details about the life of Schulz, particularly his early years. Stuart W. Button, in his Ph.D. dissertation, The Guitar in England 1800–1924
(University of Surrey, 1984) also presented some new finds about Schulz in London. In a recent Ph.D. dissertation, The Guitar in the Romantic Period: Its Musical and Social Development, with Special Reference to Bristol and Bath (Royal Holloway College,
University of London, 2010), Andrew Britton provided new information about the Schulzes in Bath and Bristol during their early period in Britain. Hereafter, references to these five works are simply by author name; in Pieters’ case, page references are to the German version of his article.
4 Several people have cooperated by communicating various
information or links to internet resources. Above all, I am most indebted to Christopher Page, Gerhard Penn, and James Westbrook for their valuable assistance. I am also indebted to Christopher Page for advice on the translations of the foreign citations.
A large number of Continental and British newspapers and periodicals contain records of concerts in which Leonard Schulz played. These records constitute the main source material for this study. However, to avoid cluttering the pages with numerous notes of sources, such references are only given in connection with direct
16
Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4 quotations. Here is the complete list of the newspapers andperiodi-cals from which information has been drawn:
German/Austrian: Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung; Allge-meine musikalische Zeitung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den öster-reichischen Kaiserstaat; Baireuther Zeitung; Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung; Didaskalia oder Blätter für Geist, Gemüth und Publizität; Flora: Ein Unterhaltungs-Blatt (Munich); Hesperus: Encyclopaedische Zeitschrift für gebildete Leser; Iris: Unterhaltungsb-latt für Freunde des Schönen u. Nützlichen; Neckar-Zeitung
(Stutt-gart); Der Sammler; Städtische Preßburger-Zeitung; Tags-Blatt für München; Der Wanderer; Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode; Zeitung für die elegante Welt (Berlin)
French: Revue musicale
British: the Athenæum; the Bristol Mercury; the Court Journal: Gazette of the Fashionable World; the Daily News; the Era; the Harmonicon; the Kaleidoscope: or, Literary and Scientific Mirror
(Liverpool); the Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c.; the Liverpool Mercury; the Monthly Magazine, or, British Register; the Morning Chronicle; the Morning Post; the Musical World; the Standard; the Times.
5 The Christian name of Leonard Schulz is sometimes written
Leonhard (with “h”). Zuth did that, and this version is also occa-sionally seen in the German contemporary press. However, in the majority of the sources his name is written without “h,” in British sources almost consistently so; this is the spelling on all original English editions of Schulz’s music I have seen, and it is also his own spelling in an autograph manuscript of Cinq Etudes, WoO. The form
Leonardo, used by Prat in his Diccionario, has no historical basis. 6 According to an entry in the Wiener Zeitung, Andreas Schulz
died on Nov. 13, 1860, in Vienna, at the age of seventy-three. I am indebted to Gerhard Penn for this information.
7 This includes Pieters and Britton.
8 Three concerts are mentioned by Pieters, 17.
9 “Das Accompagnement von Hrn. Schulz verdient ebenfalls
Lob.” (AMZ Kaiserstaat, August 28, 1817, col. 303-4) 10 Thanks to Gerhard Penn for providing this information. 11 H. Bertram Cox and C. L. E. Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (London, 1907), 101-4.
12 See Pieters, 17, for further details.
13 Josef Zuth, “Eine Handschrift von Giulio Regondi,” Musik im Haus, No. 3 (1927), 79.
14 Ludwig Titze was known as one of Schubert’s favorite singers. 15 The czakan was a woodwind instrument, somewhat similar to
the recorder. Ernst Krähmer, one of its most prominent exponents, appeared frequently in concerts in Vienna in the 1820s.
16“Am 20. April gab der achtjährige Leonard Schulz, Schüler seines Vaters Andreas Schulz, ein Concert im landständischen Saale, worin er sich auf der Guitarre hören ließ. Dieser talentvolle Knabe spielte den ersten Satz des dritten Concertes von Mauro Giuliani, und das Rondo alla Polacca des ersten Concertes von ebendemselben mit einer Fertigkeit, oder vielmehr mit solcher Virtuosität, die wahrlich Niemand von ihm erwartet hätte. Sein Ton ist stark und schön ; die sehr schwierigen Passagen spielte er durchaus geläufig, ohne den ger-ingsten Fehler, fast durchaus mit großer Deutlichkeit, und markirte [sic] mehrere Stellen sehr richtig, so daß man die gute Schule und die
eifrige Bemühung seines Meisters nicht verkennen konnte ; ja was noch mehr ist, daß er trotz der so verwickelten, man möchte sagen : regellosen Applicatur der Guitarre alle seine schwierigen Stücke durchspielte, ohne ein einziges Mal auf die Finger zu sehen. … um so mehr, da er der erste ist, den wir auf diesem Instrumente schon in so zartem Alter glänzen sehen. Das ganze anwesende Publicum erkannte sein Verdienst, indem es ihm nach jedem Stücke den rauschendsten Beyfall zollte.” (Wiener Zeitschrift, May 27, 1823, 520).
17“… technische Fertigkeit, Geschmack und eine bewunder-ungswürdige Sicherheit” (AMZ Kaiserstaat, No. 36, May 3,1823,
col. 286); “Sicherheit und Fertigkeit, mit welcher er die schwierigsten Passagen ohne jemahls auf seine Hände zu sehen, ausführte; seinem schönen Vortrage, der Ruhe in seinem Spiel, seiner Gleichheit im Tacte und seinem überraschend starken Tone.” (Der Sammler, No.
66, June 3, 1823).
18“Das ungemein zarte Accompagnement von Seite des Orchesters verdient eine besondere Erwähnung.” (AMZ Kaiserstaat, loc. cit.)
19“Wenn dieses Stück nicht besonders ansprach, so war es keineswegs in der Durchführung, sondern vielmehr in dem Arrange-ment gelegen, daß die Guitarre gegen das Pianoforte überhaupt zu schwach ist, und daß es für eine gewöhnliche oder sogenannte große Guitarre gesetzt war, die wegen ihrer Tiefe nie so durchgreift, als die im Ganzen höher stehende Terz-Guitarre.” (Wiener Zeitschrift, op. cit.)
20“… auf ihrer Durchreise nach den Hauptstädten von Deutsch-land, Frankreich und England.” (Baireuther Zeitung, Sept. 3, 1824). 21 Zuth and Bone claimed that the pianist Ignaz Moscheles
brought the Schulzes to England. This is, however, not substanti-ated by the pianist’s own memoirs, and in 1825 Moscheles arrived in London in May, at least one month after the Schulzes (see further discussion by Pieters, 18). Nevertheless, it is quite possible that Moscheles, who already knew England from previous visits, had inspired Andreas Schulz to aim for London. The two musicians were acquainted in Vienna: they had played in the same concert at least on one occasion (at the Untermeidling in 1817, discussed above); furthermore, there is a note by Moscheles in Beethovens Konversationshefte in early December, 1823, saying that “Schulz ist
ein braver Mann” (see Pieters, 21, n. 39).
22 I am grateful to Gerhard Penn for bringing this portrait to
my attention.
23 George E. Madeley and Charles Ingrey were partners ca.
1824–1829. The Paris-born artist Jules Bouvier (1800-1867) had moved to London in 1818.
24 See Pieters, 21, n. 53, for a discussion of the identity of the
Giuliani concerto. It should be added that, from an announcement in the Wiener Zeitung on August 9, 1822, it can be ascertained that
Hummel indeed orchestrated Giuliani’s third concerto, Op. 70. Thanks to Gerhard Penn for this information.
25“M. Léonard est l’Ajax des guitaristes; il a des doigts de fer et il exécute avec une grande précision les plus effroyables difficultés. Son talent a du brillant mais il manque quelquefois de charme. C’est du reste un reproche qui s’adresse plus à l instrument qu’à l’artiste.” (Revue musicale, 1828, 155-6)
26 The original program leaflet is reproduced in Button, 194
