24 Preludes The manuscripts of most of these preludes can be found in a large green notebook that contains several works for piano and guitar in the Ponce archive. When I saw it for the first time I decided to make a thematic written there. So, from folio 37 atalog of the guitar pieces to 39 I found preludes 7 to 16, but preludes 14 and 15 were missing. The following two folios contained from 21 till 24 and on the obverse of this last folio appeared prelude 1. Later, among other papers, I found another two folios that I put back in the notebook. These contained preludes 14 and 15 as well as from 17 until 20. By observing that all were written in different ke 24 preludes in all major and minor keys, as Chopin and Scriabin had done; so I started and also because of their disposition, I came to the conclusion that Ponce had composed searching for the other ones that were missing, In a large folded folio I found preludes 2, 4 and 5. Number 6 was taken from a small copybook with several sketches for guitar and number 3 in G major could not be found. In order to fill this gap I decided to transcribe a canon for voice, in two parts, that appeared in the first edition of all the preludes published by Tecla Editions of London in 1981. Afterwards, when I also published with Tecla Variations on a Theme of Cabezén, one of the variations from another manuscript copied by Don Antonio Brambila was in G major and not in the variations’ tonality that was A minor. Since its mono—thematic form was similar to a prelude, I decided that it could take the place of the canon transcription and for the second edition it was included as prelude 3. Ponce starts this cycle with the first prelude written in C major, which should probably be followed by the prelude written in its relative minor, A minor. This could be deduced by the 119placement of the other preludes, in the manuscript, similar to the order employed by Chopin for his own preludes, which follows the circle of fifths with its relative minor. However, Ponce breaks the circle of fifths sequence, inverting it after B flat minor and goes to F major, D minor, B flat major, G minor, E flat major, C minor, A flat major to conclude in F minor. This order was altered in the edition of 1981 by following, like Chopin, the circle of fifths; but in this critical edition based on the manuscripts, the original disposition has been respected. Also, [have not added any slurs or harmonics, nor tempo indications where they did not exist; nor the octave change indications, written by Segovia in prelude 16, both having appeared in the Tecla edition. According to several mentions in the Segovia correspondence it seems that the preludes were originally planned as studies and the first reference of them appears in a letter written in French by mid 1928. Then in the following letter, written in Geneva they emerge again and later on they are mentioned again in a letter of 13 September of the same year. Finally, the change to preludes turns up in a missive of 24 February 1929 where Segovia says: “I also keep silence about the Preludes.” Afterwards, in a letter of 26 February 1930 he refers to the D minor prelude, when suggesting to Ponce that it could be used as a prelude for the Folia variations. However, the most extended mention is given in a letter, possibly written in April or May of 1930: By reading the preludes (naturally mean the ones in the Spanish style) I have lamented that you do not want to dedicate a few months to write Spanish music for guitar, or voice and piano, etc., etc. Taking into account, of course the narrow limitation you have had because of the form and the choice of instrument —Prelude and guitar— and in spite of that the spirit is so deeply Spanish that it could not be found more authentic even in. Certainly, the preludes cannot be used in the sense that they were conceived. Most of them are of an incompatible difficulty with the character of elementary studies thar the preceding scale, gives them, and others are totally impossible. Then I had the idea to make the proposition to Schott of editing them in four sets of six cach, and without tonal relation and he has accepted. Yesterday I sent the six of the first set which are these: F sharp minor, A major, B major, D minor, F sharp major and the one in B flat minor that I had to transpose to B natural, because in the original key it was not possible, I have suppressed the scales. Do you agree? I will take the others to Paris to show them to you and see whether they can be modified. | am sorry to still give you work with this but there is no other choice. If we had been together, while you composed them, everything would have come out all right 121}‘The 24 preludes must have been composed during the second half of 1929 and only twelve of them were arranged and published with Schott by Segovia in 1930. By the end of the 50s Segovia recorded for Decca, only six of the twelve preludes published by him. 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