Week 4: Romantic spirits! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the fourth week of "The Romantic Era" challenge!
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Carulli - Andantino Op 241 No 5
I'm not sure if this should count for Romantic era music, as it is more classical in character. However, when I looked up "When is the Romantic period in music?" Google said between 1820 and 1900. Carulli published this (as part of his method) in 1825. So ... I'm going to include it!
This is a VERY simple piece, but SO beautiful. Sometimes I like to start with this when playing for people, as it is so appealing and simple. It boosts my confidence, and immediately gets me into a mindset of simply trying to make beautiful music, not trying to impress anyone with my virtuosity.
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Eric Phillips Beautiful Eric. As you say, a piece doesn't have to be virtuosic to be worth listening to. I have this piece in a collection of works, just marked andantino so it is nice to find out the opus number!
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Derek Thanks, Derek. Like I mentioned, Opus 241 is Carulli's method. I have actually found a lot of pieces from his method that are well-worth playing, aside from any pedagogical purpose they may serve.
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Eric Phillips for sure it counts for the Romantic era... as much as Paganini or I'm in trouble!
You play it with great control and sensitivity, and for sure it makes a beautiful warm up piece... If I recall, is it the piece Martin used for it's recording course? -
Eric Phillips you don't have the rights over this piece... as the «Master Challenger»!
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Blaise Laflamme Glad to have your stamp of approval!
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Blaise Laflamme Wai I think the only one with rights over this piece would be Carulli himself. I asked him, and he says it's fine to play it at a slower tempo.
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Jaime Bosch - Les Adieux Op 89 No 4
Bosch was a Catalan guitarist and composer who spent most of his professional career in Paris (where he was known as Jacques Bosch). He was apparently a good friend of Edouard Manet. Below is one of many paintings Manet did of people playing the guitar.
In this piece, I like the cadenza-like runs before the last repeat of the A section (1:02 - 1:22 in the video). Very Romantic in character.
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Eric Phillips A nice piece Eric
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Derek Thanks, Derek.
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Eric Phillips For me, a charming discovery, I didn't know Jaime (or Jacques) Bosch. Thank you, Eric!
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Moyses Lopes Thank you, Moyses!
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Ferrer - Ejercicio No 9 from "Colección 12a de Ejercicios"
This is another simple but very satisfying piece to play. Like with my last few posts, I spent time working on details like:
- Using some less conventional fingering to avoid string hops
- Reducing bass string squeak (although I could not eliminate it)
- Phrase shaping
- Bass string damping
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Eric Phillips Great piece Eric - I used to play this and use it in the same way as your Carulli piece earlier!
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Derek This would be a crowd-pleaser, no doubt.
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Eric Phillips that's definitely a winner this piece and you play it very well with great control over the details you worked on. Not only satisfying for you to play but for us to listen to!
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Eric Phillips That was wonderful, Eric. I was not convinced of Ferrer before but your performance of this piece has won me over. Your playing was very expressive and this piece is beautiful.
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Blaise Laflamme Jack Stewart Thank you both.
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Eric Phillips Beautiful performance, Eric, and great organization to studying. Thank you for sharing!
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Moyses Lopes Thanks, Moyses!
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Sonata 1 (MS84) - Niccolo Paganini
This is my humble contribution to the challenge and at the same time the only one! I had not enough time to explore music for this challenge but I wanted to participate with you guys. I found that Paganini has written a lot of little sonatas for guitar and I picked the first one... I was able to give it roughly 15 minutes per day for about 12 non-consecutives days.
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Blaise Laflamme Brilliant! Great selection and wonderful performance.
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Blaise Laflamme That's wonderful Blaise. A great performance!
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Blaise Laflamme I am just blown away by this, Blaise! What really jumps out at me is your incredible right hand technique, controlling each string like a singer in a choir. The articulation, tone color, and dynamics are all so perfect and so musical. And to think you did this in just three hours of practice?
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Dale Needles Derek thank you!
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Eric Phillips thank you Eric for your kind comments! I still need a bit of practice to shine it better but overall my ideas are expressed as I hear them... and the challenge ends tomorrow
. Well, I haven't calculated my practice in terms of hours (could be a bit more), but for me it takes a few days or weeks to integrate technical and musical aspects, like slow cooking time, all done by small increments spreaded out over a timeframe. The time spent between each practice sessions is just as important, or even more in some cases, for my learning curve.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
