Leonard Schultz
Les Productions D’Oz: 11 pages
Here is another is the ongoing series from Daniel Marx of Neue Schreibart – 19th Century Guitar Music from Austria and Germany. This time it is a work by Austrian composer/guitarist Leonard Schultz (1813- 1860) a composer who does occasionally appear in print, although not very often, I must confess.
At times this piece does feel a little different from a lot of other guitar works of this period, as Schultz’s use of harmony and various melodic ideas seem quite unusual at times. Incidentally I have found what I think is a mistake on bars 219 and 220, because bar 219 appears to want to be a repeat back to bar 212, and needs to be a 1st ending, because bar 220 is, I think , the 2nd ending and therefore bar 220 should not follow on directly after 219.
Set in Dm, as an Allegro Con Spirito its opening theme relies on swift jumping from one part of the fingerboard to another, and therefore it does take some really good playing to achieve what the piece requires. He uses quite of lot of strummed chords throughout the piece, and also a number of harmonic runs too, one which requests the player to continue the accompaniment from the bar before, underneath the harmonic melody, which is quite a difficult thing to achieve successfully, which is probably why Marx says ‘if possible’ continue the accompaniment with the harmonics!
The keys change to G Major, Em , and Am in a number of varied sections but the general feel of Allegro Con Spirito, and mostly in continuous semi – quavers means that this piece is only for the very good players amongst you.The final section changes into D Major, where everything comes to a very optimistic close.
So in essence this is definitely a little unusual when compared with many of the other guitarist/composers of this period and so I can only suggest that you give the piece a try if you are intrigued by it.
Chris Dumigan
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