Romantic Trifles for Guitar (Christoph Dalitz, 2010)
- Instruments: solo guitar
- Composer: Christoph Dalitz
- First publication: 2010
- License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (nos. 2 & 5)
These pieces are not merely "romantic" in its colloquial meaning, but also in such a way that they call for a "romantic performance style", as it was common in the 19th century, and which aimed at touching the listeners. This was achieved by means like permanent tempo fluctuations, frequent use of slides, addition of embellishments, and in general an unforeseeable delivery. As modern "classically trained" guitarists no longer feel at home in such an extrovert performance style, the edition includes suggestions for starting points for embellishments.
By calling these pieces "trifles", I want to make clear that these pieces are no "great" music according to the romantic ideology of ETA Hoffmann or Robert Schumann. On the contrary: in these pieces, I strive for comprehensiveness rather than originality! I consider comprehensiveness a necessary prerequisite without which the player cannot elaborate beyond the written score and cannot make playing and listening to the music a touching experience.
In the different pieces, there is a variety of stylistical influences. Numbers 2, 11 & 12 sound a little like Fernando Sor, numbers 1 & 8 like M.C. Linnemann, number 3 like Daniel Gottlieb Türk, and number 10 (with a minor section reminiscent of Beethoven's "For Elise") like Napoleon Coste.
Download
The compelete edition with twelve pieces is available directly from me. Here I make two "Trifles" and an audio sample available so that you can get an impression style and difficulty of the music:
Audio sample of the Romantic Trifle
No. 11
YouTube video of the Romantic Trifle No. 12
Romantic Trifle no. 9 (e minor)
(one A4 page, 22kB)
Romantic Trifle no. 2 (c minor)
(one A4 page, 21kB)