Sonata de la Muerte

Julio César Oliva was born in Mexico City in 1947, and is a prominent guitarist, composer, and arranger in Mexico in the post-Ponce era. His compositional style is varied and eclectic incorporating elements of impressionism, neoromanticism, neoclassicism, Mexican and Latin American folk music, and jazz. Like Manuel Ponce, Oliva possesses a keen ability to imitate styles from the past. His “Homage” works to composers like Ravel, Debussy, Mahler, Chopin, and Beethoven make up large portion of his output. One of his best works in this series is the Sonata de la Muerte, which is a homage to Beethoven. In this work, Oliva pays tribute to Beethoven by borrowing parts of themes and harmonies and pianistic style and seamlessly integrating them with his own thematic material and imagination to create a truly one of kind large three movement work.

This edition is the result of many years of dedication and work and brings this powerful work to a more guitaristic (or guitar friendly) place alleviating some barre chords and awkward arpeggios while completely maintaining its pianistic sound and power and intentions of the composer.  These changes and others have been overwhelmingly approved by Oliva himself, and he has authorized and endorsed the creation of this edition.