Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

Wenzel Matiegka's Grand Sonata I, 1: observations about the exposition, initial observation about Matiegka's appropriation and recomposition of works by Haydn and Mozart

Matiegka's Grand Sonata I was first published in 1808 and is one of my favorites of the early 19th century guitar sonatas.  While the historical and textual case for Matiegka's debt to Haydn could be made on the basis of his Op. 23 sonata alone (which opens with a guitar transcription of the finale from Haydn's B minor piano sonata), the larger case for the extent to which Matiegka appropriated and developed ideas that can be traced to Haydn's work is more readily fleshed out in a pending discussion of Grand Sonata II.  Grand Sonata I is, by far, the better represented of the two grand sonatas in terms of commercial recordings and, of late, a print edition.  I've retained that contested G sharp note in the transition that has been omitted in some performances and a print edition.  I've also added a potentially redundant sharp for an A sharp in the transition you'll get to see soon...