Fuenllana scores

I put a call out to my friends on the vihuela discussion group http://www.mail-archive.com/vihuela%40cs.dartmouth.edu/ for my lost French intabulations of the tientos and fantasias by Fuenllana. Within a few hours I had almost all of them replaced, so they are now available for free online: http://www.rmguitar.info/vFuenllana.htm Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Now that I have some time off from my post of Musician In Residence at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh, I'm finding the peace of mind to return to the vihuela repertoire. I think my New Year's resolution must be not to forget my own musical activity.

Spent a gloriously peaceful two hours yesterday playing through Narvaez's 6 diferencias on the hymn, 'O Gloriosa Domina'. What a great work it is, possibly the finest in the vihuela repertoire. I have a lot of work to do on the piece to get to the point where I can relax enough to let the music breathe naturally, with each voice floating freely in its set course.

I have a baroque guitar arriving mid January, and am already having dreams of performing concerts with vihuela, baroque guitar and Sor on a 19th-century guitar. This, despite being aware of my aversion to actually seeking out concert opportunities. Narvaez, Fuenllana, Sanz and Sor - sounds good to me! Oh, how easy it is to dream up programmes - if only it were as easy to perform them. Actually, the performance is the enjoyable part, the not so enjoyable part is trying to convince concert secretaries to book you. You have to say how wonderful and entertaining you are, which can do strange things to your brain if you do it repeatedly over a decade or two. I no longer seek out concerts, and am contented enough to play to friends and family, and to record mp3 files for my website. Having said that, I might perform a lunchtime concert at QMUC this coming term. At least I kind of get on with (though not always!) the concert secretary: me!