Composer: Georg Beringer (1875-fl.1937)

 

Note "fl" means "flourished" and is used when a person's death date isn't known, but some idea of when they were active is known). So Beringer was apparently around and doing stuff in 1937, but who knows when he actually died.

I could not find *anything* on Georg Beringer. He has no biography linked in IMSLP; I have no idea how they know what his dates are.

I did find a Georg Beringer on German wikipedia, but his dates don't match and he seems to have been a teacher and visual artist, not a musician. There is also a Johann Georg Beringer, but he's described as a "German telecommunications engineer, Bavarian official, and bee specialist." Which is kind of an awesome resume, but doesn't lead me to believe he wrote this piece. (His dates also do not match IMSLPs listing).

So I have no idea who Georg Beringer was, where he was from, or where he lived. Presumably he was a German speaker, but.... shrug?

 

Date:  ?

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Original Instrumentation: Viola, Guitar

 

Why this one:

 

I thought Viola and Guitar was a cool instrument combination and this guitar part looked like a fun challenge. The fact that Beringer seems to be absent from the internet other than this music didn't hurt either.
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Description:  

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Key: C

Time:  4/4 BPM=80

 

This one is structured ABBCCDDABC. The guitar is mostly in accompaniment mode, though it takes the melody in part A and part D and there's a lot of motion in those parts. The D section modulates to F major.

The viola is the featured solo instrument in part B and C, and more of a co-soloist in part D.

"Ein Stucklein" is German for "A Little Piece." I had no idea what tempo this should be, so I put it into my notation software and then picked a speed that both sounded ok and seemed like I could actually play it.

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Performance:

 

I started with the guitar part, which was really difficult for me. I practiced this a lot, though so it wasn't a horrific experience. As I was expecting, I had trouble with the A and D sections which have a ton of motion and some tricky fingerings. There was also the standard "nylon guitars are unforgiving to record" stuff: having to be really mindful of all four fingers used on the fretting hand, avoiding mutes and buzzes, preventing strings from ringing too long, etc.

It took me a while to figure out what the left hand fingerings to use. I read guitar poorly in standard notation, so I ended up tabbing it out myself.