Lindley, J. T. (2024). Allan Willcocks’ 12 Studies for Guitar: An Examination of the Allan Willcocks Pseudonym and His Impressionistic Studies for Guitar. Retrieved from https://purl.lib.fsu.edu/diginole/Lindley_fsu_0071E_18727
This treatise will briefly explore the reasons a composer would accredit their own works to a different name other than theirs; whether the name is of another living or deceased composer, or a name that is fabricated altogether. This will serve as a prerequisite to the central topic on hand, an examination of a set of guitar studies composed by the German classical guitar pedagogue, performer, as well as composer, Tilman Hoppstock (1961-). In 1992, Hoppstock recorded a piece by an allegedly obscure composer, Franz Werthmüller (1769-1841), and for the next 15 years managed to keep the secret that Werthmüller was merely Hoppstock’s first use of a pseudonym, to present a piece written in the style of an older musical era. In 2010, Hoppstock published a set of 12 studies, for the guitar, under another obscure composer, Allan Willcocks (1869-1956). Undoubtedly, Willcocks was in fact another pseudonym used by Hoppstock, and though this British composer came with an in-depth two-page biography, facsimiles of hand-written manuscripts, and even old photographs documenting various stages of Willcocks’ life, it took only two years for the true identity behind these studies to come out. This treatise will explore the alleged life of Allan Willcocks, Hoppstock’s own reasons for inventing this character, why the Willcocks’ 12 Studies for Guitar has proven to be a valuable addition to classical guitar literature, as well as the style in which they were written in. Provided are musical examples, biographical information, original manuscripts, photographs and even concert
