This mazurka by Sor should be played very much with the dance-floor in mind, with plenty of rhythm. The mazurka was already popular in Paris ballrooms when Sor published this example there in 1828, and he counted many young ladies among his pupils who would certainly have been very interested in dancing.
Sor uses the scordatura of the sixth string to D which gives extra sonority and also enables almost all the bass notes to be on open strings.
This is a piece for beginners on the guitar, as we can see from the title-page of the collection from which it comes, Six petites pièces faciles et doigtées avec soin (Six short and easy pieces, carefully fingered).
The complete set of Sor’s Six petites pièces op. 32 is available from Tecla Editions at www.tecla.com as part of the new 2019 second edition of Sor’s New Complete Works for Guitar edited by Brian Jeffery. For details about Sor’s music and his biography, please see www.tecla.com.
