Fernando Sor

Music for the purpose of an improvement in technique have been published for many centuries. These works used titles such as "lesson" or "study", and then later "etude". Some examples of such books include John Dowland's "Varietie of Lute Lessons" and Johann Sebastian Bach's four volumes of Clavier-Übung (keyboard practice). These books often contained pieces in order of increasing difficulty.

This guitarist was born in Barcelona, Spain. Fernando Sor was descended from a family of career soldiers, and initially planned to continue in this life. However his love of music was sparked after he was introduced to Italian opera, and to the guitar by his father. His mother saw his musical interests as a distraction from a military career, and so enrolled him in a military school. Sor continued to thrive musically though, by composing in his spare time.

Mp3 recording from youtube is performed by Cesar Amaro