These works are all also available separately on this site, but if you are interested in acquiring this album, it will afford you a very big discount.All pieces are arranged by David Warin Solomons and the scores and parts are all provided in the pdf.The sound sample is Lass of Richmond Hill (advanced version) electronic preview.The pieces are as follows:Lass of Richmond Hill (advanced version)Lass of Richmond Hill (simple version)Love's God is a Boy (Jones)Sapphic Ode (Brahms)O du Fröhliche (O sanctissima)Dansons mais sans oublier (based on a Haitian lullaby)When Laura Smiles (Philip Rosseter)To the Maypole haste away (including an extended version)Beautiful dreamer (Stephen Foster)Believe me if all those ndearing young charms (Thomas Moore)Cradle Song (William Byrd)Davy oy vey Davy (a harmonic minor version of Davy Davy Knick Knack)Nobody's JiggBailero (from Songs of the Auvergne)Ound Onoren (from Songs of the Auvergne)L'aio de rotso (from Songs of the Auvergne)The Entertainer (Scott Joplin)Polly Wolly DoodleAn die Musik (Schubert)Dido's Lament (Purcell)Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen (after Praetorius)If music be the food of love (Purcell)It was a lover and his lass (Morley)Nymphs and Shepherds (Purcell)What shall I do (Purcell).

ISBN 9781609743260. This collection is drawn from the Portefeuille Guitarre-Spieler series and is intended for intermediate to advanced guitarists.The works in this collection:Fantasy on themes from Don Giovanni, Op. 28Don Giovanni has long been famous among enthusiasts of fretted instruments for Mozart's sublime use of the mandolin in Don Juans' aria Deh, vieni alla finestra. Mertz himself took note of Mozart's 'mandolin serenade' for he employed as a catalyst a brief quote of the mandolin introduction in his Op. 28 for a modulatory transition based upon the theme. Mertz also included a simple arrangement of the aria as number 76 in his Kukuk, a 'musical panorama' of 136 short pieces.Martha, Op. 16Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond by German composer Friedrich Flotow (1812-1883) was first produced in Vienna in 1847. In the second act of Martha Flotow incorporates 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer (Qui sola, verginrosa), a traditional Irish melody to which the poet Thomas Moore wrote lyrics. It was one of the most popular songs of the nineteenth century. In addition to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Thalberg, guitar composers to produce works based upon the famous song include Giuliani, Ferranti, Holland, and Foden. Preceding Ah! che a voi perdoni Iddio in his Op. 16, Mertz quotes a brief passage from his Elegie.The Prophet, Op. 21Giacomo Meyerbeer was the leading composer of French grand opera during Mertz's professional career. Following studies in Italy, the German composer was chiefly active in Paris and Berlin, although he traveled Europe extensively producing his operas. Le prophete premiered in Paris in 1849 after a long delay due to casting problems. Mertz's Op. 21 was published shortly thereafter.Nabucco, Op. 62 and Rigoletto, Op. 63Giuseppe Verdi's first major triumph as an opera composer was with the biblical opera Nabucodonosor (more commonly known as Nabucco). The opera was premiered in Milan in 1842 and its subsequent revivals throughout Europe spread Verdi?s fame at an astounding rate. Consequently, Verdi was commissioned to compose 14 operas in the following decade. Among these operas was Rigoletto, first produced in Venice in 1851. Mertz frequently turned to the music of Verdi for his operatic fantasies, producing no fewer than four distinct works based on themes from Rigoletto alone.

Originally a poem written by Thomas Moore in 1805, "The Last Rose of Summer" is based upon the Irish traditional tune of "Aislean an Oigfear", or "The Young Man's Dream."



Sigismond Thalberg was one of the most famous and most successful piano composers of the 19th century. During the 1830s and the 1840s his style was a major force in European piano-playing.[57] He was greatly in fashion and was imitated by others.[58] In 1852, Wilhelm von Lenz wrote:

'The piano playing of the present day, to tell the truth, consists only of Thalberg simple, Thalberg amended, and Thalberg exaggerated; scratch what is written for the piano, and you will find Thalberg.'

Ten years later, in 1862, a London correspondent of the Revue et gazette musicale wrote:

'Nobody in fact has been so much imitated; his manner has been parodied, exaggerated, twisted, tortured, and it may have happened more than once to all of us to curse this Thalbergian school'.
Expressions like "exaggerated", "twisted" and "tortured" indicate that some contemporaries were starting to feel jaded of his style. It was at this time when Thalberg's career as composer and as virtuoso came to an end.

In the late 19th century, Thalberg's fame had come to depend on his association with a single piano technique, the 'three-hand effect'. Carl Friedrich Weitzmann, in his Geschichte des Klavierspiels (1879), wrote about this.

'His bravura pieces, fantasies on melodies from Rossini's Mosè and La donna del lago, on motifs from Bellini's Norma and on Russian folk-songs, became extraordinarily popular through his own, brilliant execution; however, they treat their subjects always in one and the same way, [namely] ... to let the tones of a melody be played in the medium octave of the keyboard now by the thumb of the right, now of the left hand, while the rest of the fingers are executing arpeggios filling the whole range of the keyboard.'