While looking for information on Manuel Maria Ponce (1882-1948), I came across this illuminating article by Peter Kun Frary, Professor of Music at the University of Hawaii, Leeward. It charts the history of Ponce’s Baroque, Classical and Romantic pastiches written for Andres Segovia when he was in France.
Segovia would refer to these pieces as their little joke, and probably found a willing collaborator in Ponce who helped him fill out his concert programmes in a Kreisleresque manner.
One of the earliest pieces was attributed to Sylvius Leopold Weiss who was not very well known generally at the time, but conveniently shared a birth year with J.S.Bach who was Segovia’s first choice.
Apparently the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska heard the first performance and went backstage to say that Segovia’s attribution of the piece to Bach had been rumbled, at which point Segovia and Ponce admitted that it was by Weiss!
The inside story on this issue is available in print, in the words of Andres Segovia himself. See: Miguel Alcázar, (Ed.) The Segovia-Ponce Letters, translated by Peter Segal.
However, also see this discussion on the subject.
The pieces are certainly charming enough, and those which come clean – the Sonata Clasica and Sonata Romantica are substantial works.
Peter Kun Frary lists the following as Ponce’s “secret” compositions:
Balletto (Weiss)
Prelude (Weiss) (also for guitar and harpsichord)
Suite Antigua (A.Scarlatti)
Suite en La Mineur (Weiss)
This article is certainly worth a read and throws light on the different (some pirated) editions of Ponce’s pastiches as well as dates and circumstances of their composition.