by Brian Jeffery
I specialize in textual scholarship and the making of editions. I’m a professional in what I do. I taught at the University of St Andrews, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Barbara, all of them at associate professor level (to use American terminology) and in one of them at full professor level when I held the Curtis Mayes Orpheus Chair in Musicology at FSU Tallahassee.
So when I make my books and articles and editions available here on this website, for example my editions TECLA 1200 the New Complete Works for Guitar of Sor or TECLA 101 the Complete Studies Lessons and Exercises of Sor, you can be confident that those books and articles and editions have high-level professional training and high-level professional qualifications and experience behind them.
I played lute and guitar in many concerts (including a Wigmore Hall solo recital), so I am aware of the needs of performing musicians as well as those of researchers. In my music editions I incorporate the needs of both of those groups.
You might like to read my article “The fiftieth anniversary of Tecla Editions” published in Soundboard in 2021 in which I pay tribute to the wonderful people especially at Canterbury and Oxford from whom and with whom I learned how to analyse texts and make editions of them.
Here are recent articles by me in reverse date order (newest first):
Félicité Hullin, a lady of “amabilité, gentillesse, bonté, fierté d’âme, désintéressement”. A new article of 2025 which reports on much new information about Félicité Hullin, especially from two articles published by Russian researchers.
“Sor’s Grand Solo: from seven strings to six” (published in Soundboard 49.4 for December 2023). This article demonstrates that the three earliest currently known sources of Sor’s Grand Solo (op. [14]} are for seven-string guitar, and it goes on to show how that earliest known version was then adapted for six-string guitar in the versions of Pierre-Jean Porro and of Meissonnier. It also considers which version a player might wish to play, and why. Just recently, in November 2024, I have published a new book also entitled Sor’s Grand Solo: from seven strings to six which builds on the Soundboard article and adds much new material, accompanied by three new editions of the three early editions which are significantly different from each other. If you wish to play Grand Solo, this book and its accompanying editions will be useful to you.
“What, precisely, does it mean to say that an editor of music is a professional? And does it matter?” This article considers the activity of editing music and what its professional training and certification might be. Anyone who wishes to play music, especially music from before about 1900, and who wishes to use an edition which shall be authentic, authoritative, and professional, will find this article helpful.
“The ancient and honorable profession of textual scholarship, and the place of music editions within that profession” (published in Soundboard in March 2023). This is a view of the field of textual scholarship and within that field the making of music editions.
“Sor’s Allegro in the Spanish style, Natalie Houzé, and key dates in European cultural and political history” (published in Soundboard in June 2022). This article considers how it came about that Sor in about 1830, the year of the July Revolution in France, composed this Allegro in the Spanish popular style as a movement in his duet op. 54 bis.
“The fiftieth anniversary of Tecla Editions” (published in Soundboard in December 2021) (an article on how my company Tecla Editions came into existence, and what it does).
Brian Jeffery curriculum vitae
Go to the Tecla home page.
