Fernando Sor

Fernando Sor was a Catalan composer and virtuoso who played a pivotal role in establishing the guitar as a respected classical concert instrument. When he was a young boy, Sor was introduced both to the Italian opera and to the guitar, the latter then considered distinctly plebeian and inferior to orchestral instruments. He eventually dedicated his career to the instrument, composing hundreds of works and authoring a foundational methodology book, Méthode pour la guitar, which remains significant to classical guitar studies today. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Sor lived in exile in Paris and London, where he achieved success as a performer, teacher and composer of ballets such as Cendrillon. Although his work fell into obscurity after his death, it was later revived in the 20th century by the renowned guitarist Andrés Segovia.