Biography (read more)
Fernando Sor (born José Fernando Macario Sors, baptised 14 February 1778 – died 10 July 1839) was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras, born in Barcelona. Trained partly at the choir school of the Montserrat monastery and then in military school, he abandoned a planned military career for music, composing an opera at just 19 and later three symphonies and successful ballets, including Cendrillon (Cinderella). After the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, during which he served the French-aligned government, Sor left Spain permanently in 1813, living successively in Paris, London, and Moscow before settling for good in Paris, where he composed most of his guitar works and died in 1839.
Widely regarded — including by the influential critic and lexicographer François-Joseph Fétis, who called him “le Beethoven de la guitare” (the Beethoven of the guitar) — as the leading guitarist-composer of his generation, Sor left both a virtuoso concert repertoire and pedagogical studies that remain central to guitar training two centuries later.
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