by Brian Jeffery

These 30 very easy exercises by Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) are simple but quite musical, on a small scale but with their own charm. In particular I like nos. 9, 14, 17, 21, 23, and 24.

Of course any of the pieces can be played as a single piece, and nowadays for most people that is going to be the best way to play them. However, it's interesting to notice that the collection does have a structure, and that there is some evidence that Diabelli intended at least some of the pieces to be played together. For that historical point of view, see below.

The fingering is that of the original edition and no new fingering has been added.

The work appeared in Vienna in 1814 or shortly before, that is to say at about the same time as Giuliani's collections of easy pieces for the guitar, the very successful Le Papillon op. 50 and the 18 Leçons Progressives op. 51 (the former is published by Tecla in facsimile in Volume 6 of Giuliani's Complete Works, and the latter is published in a new re-engraved edition in Giuliani's Complete Studies, TECLA 105). It's interesting that this work by Diabelli for beginners, and the two works by Giuliani mentioned above, all consist of pieces at the lowest positions on the guitar, whereas Giuliani, in some of his other works which seem to have been intended to be pieces for beginners, often set them high up on the fingerboard, which when you think about it is indeed in one way easier for the beginner in that the frets are closer together and therefore the fingers don't have to stretch so far. (Put the pieces into tablature and they become even easier).

Now for some more about the structure. When you look closely at the pieces, you can see that there are five groups of six pieces each, that each group is in the same key, that each group begins with a prelude, and that the second piece in each group is nothing but an elaboration of the prelude in that group.

For example, no. 1 is a prelude in C major, no. 2 is a written-out elaboration of the prelude, then four more pieces in C major follow, nos. 3-6. Then no. 7 is a prelude in G major, no. 8 is a written-out elaboration of the prelude, then four more pieces in G major follow, nos. 9-12. The same with the remaining three groups all in the same pattern, six in D major, six in A major, and six in F major.

It works out like this:

The fact that nos. 14 and 20 are marked "più mosso" when each of them immediately follows a prelude, suggests that Diabelli intended the prelude to be played first and then the succeeding piece or pieces immediately, without a pause. This was a very ancient practice, going back to the lutenists and beyond. Giuliani included a group of preludes in his Etudes Instructives op. 100, calling them "preludes to be used as cadences, to be played before beginning a piece of music". Carcassi's Étude no. 1 in his 25 Études op. 60 has every appearance of having being intended as just such a prelude. In the case of this op. 39 of Diabelli, of course it would be perfectly possible today to play any of the five groups of these exercises as a whole, or indeed the entire set of 30 pieces.

I hope that this present edition may make these pleasant and musical pieces available to many players, especially to beginners on the guitar.

The original title of this work was XXX sehr leichte Übungs-stücke für die Guitarre verfasst und den Anfängern auf diesem Instrumente gewidmet von Anton Diabelli, 39tes Werk (Vienna, Steiner, 1814 or shortly before).

Take note of the careful dynamic markings. For example in the Scherzo no. 10, the dots and slurs are carefully marked to indicate slurred or not slurred, the rests are precise, and the dynamics are sometimes in a wide range as in the fortissimo of bars 15-16 followed by the pianissimo of bar 17.

No. 23 doesn't have a title in the original, but its rhythm is clearly that of a Ländler. No. 26, bars 8 and 20: in the original the second note from the bottom of the chord was A not C (no doubt because the bottom F was stopped with the left hand thumb, something which was common in Vienna at that time and which is also found in Giuliani). I have changed the A to a C.

Brian Jeffery