Tecla Editions is a trading name of the company Taylor and Jeffery Ltd which is registered at Companies House in the UK. It publishes professionally made editions of books and music, especially professional editions of music by Sor, Giuliani, Carcassi and Aguado, particularly for guitar but also notably for vocal music and keyboard.
Tecla Editions was founded by Brian Jeffery in 1976 and now involves family members and others. Tecla started in 1976 with an edition of Sor’s then newly-discovered Seguidillas, still in print today, as catalogue number 01 (then 001, and now 0001). There are now more than 200 published items. For a time Tecla was based in the USA, but it is now in England, but with sales worldwide and prices in euros and US dollars (as well as pounds).
Why Tecla? In Spanish, tecla means a key on a keyboard, both a musical keyboard and a typewriter keyboard. So when I chose the name for the firm, music and literature were both covered. Also, at that time it was the name of a tea-shop owned by friends of mine in Mexico City, where artists, writers and musicians met.
Early music players will be familiar with the word tecla from the 16th century vihuela books which spoke of “arpa, tecla o vihuela”, whereby they took the part (tecla, a key) for the whole (the keyboard, which today would usually be the teclado).
BJ
