Phillip de Fremery knows he is no composer, however two situations have developed which called him to write. The first of these involved his role as supporting guitarist for a dramatic reading of the Federico García Lorca play, Poet in New York (1984) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This reading was fulfillment in part of the Doctoral dissertation requirement of Leslie Stainton, who has since published Lorca, A Dream of Life. (579 pp.; Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999)

Long known as a performer of Spanish music, de Fremery soon found that there were three situations in the Lorca play for which he not only did not have anything suitable, he did not even know of anything in the classical guitar literature which was remotely suitable. As a result, these three pieces were written spontaneously on the guitar during the rehearsal process.

Entitled Music after Lorca, the short suite begins with Asesinado, which opened the play to a darkened house as the actors and actresses crept toward the guitarist, center stage, each sharing in the speaking of Lorca’s poem by that name; then moves to Aña Maria Dalí , which was written to complement her two brief appearances, again in a darkened house under a single spotlight; and concludes with Duende, which was written to mirror Lorca’s feelings as he was coming to the realization that he was going to have to return to Spain after his year in New York and Vermont.

The existence of these pieces is not altogether a mystery. Between 1970 and 1980, de Fremery came to the conclusion that if he was going to play any Spanish music at all he was going to have to come to terms with El Arte, and so spent hours every day listening to all available recordings of the great cantaores, dancers and guitarists who were the acknowledged leaders of the scene between 1920 and 1970. It was from this experience and inspiration that he drew for the creation of this suite. Performance time, about eight minutes.

Star of the County Down, traditional Irish, was arranged in three parts for solo guitar after de Fremery heard his celebrated cousin, Hank Bradley, and Hank’s wife Cathy Whitesides, who like Hank is a fiddler of great reputation, perform the piece via recorded cassette for the wedding of Skip and ‘Tricia Clayton in 1996. Skip is the cousin who first taught Phil the guitar. Hank grew up on Coastways Ranch (mentioned in the biography section) and with his brother David and cousin Skip is the acknowledged leader of the musical scene there.

The writing of the arrangement took de Fremery a full five years before he could consider it finished. Performance time, about three minutes.

Both of the abovementioned pieces are currently in the process of being set to computer from the manuscript, and when they are available from the publisher they will be listed in this section.