Ballet and Dance of the Blessed Spirits

Description

Guitar — Text from the scanned back cover:Arranger’s Note by Frederic HandWhen I was 6 years old, a favorite piece on my first Andres Segovia LP was his arrangement of theouter section of Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits from the opera “Orfeo ed Euridice.” Decades laterI discovered that there was a second part that Segovia didn’t transcribe. Its haunting beauty compelledme to make an arrangement. The original key of F major is not suitable for the guitar due to the lack ofneeded open bass strings for the primary harmonies. For that reason, Segovia made his arrangementin A major. In combining both movements, I chose G major for the opening section so the relativeminor section would fall in the key of E minor. In the second part, the original string accompanimentbeneath the flute melody is a constant stream of 16th notes in thirds. It is not possible to play themelody, authentic accompaniment, and bass parts on a single guitar. To capture the essential quality ofthe accompaniment, I’ve maintained the same intervalic relationships within the two violin figures, butchanged the underlying pulse from 16th notes to 8ths. For that reason (and also the guitar’s relativelack of sostenuto compared with the flute) it is helpful to play the Dance at a brighter tempo than istraditionally performed with flute and strings. An early favorite of Hand's was Segovia's transcription of the outer section of the Gluck classic. He now completes the Ballet and Dance for solo guitar, using key and rhythm changes to lie better upon the fretboard.