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==="Romantic guitar" or "Guitar during the [[Classical music era]]"===
==="Romantic guitar" or "Guitar during the [[Classical music era]]"===
{{main|Romantic guitar}}
{{main|Romantic guitar}} daniel likes men


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Revision as of 13:49, 24 February 2009

The history of the classical guitar and its repertoire spans over four centuries, including its ancestor the baroque guitar. Throughout the centuries, the classical guitar has evolved principally from three sources: the lute, the vihuela, and the Renaissance five-string guitar. The popularity of the classical guitar has been sustained over the years by many great players, arrangers, and composers. A very short list might include Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710), Fernando Sor (1778-1839), Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), Andrés Segovia (1893-1987), and John Williams (1941).

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Renaissance - Classical music era

Orpheus playing a vihuela. Image from the famous tabulature by Luis de Milán, Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro (1536). The text surrounding the image praises Orpheus as the inventor of vihuela. Most vihuelas are much smaller than the engraving suggests.

Renaissance guitars and vihuela

The gittern was a four-string instrument resembling a small lute or guitar used during the Renaissance. It is related to but is not a citole, another medieval instrument. The gittern was carved from a single piece of wood with a curved ("sickle-shaped") pegbox. An example has survived from around 1450. There was also a renaissance five-string guitar.

The vihuela is believed to be the main guitar of Italy. It had a smaller base and a shorter neck than is used today. The Spanish vihuela appears to be an intermediate form between the ancestral guitar and the modern guitar, with lute-style tuning and a small, but guitar-like body. It is not clear whether this represents a transitional form or simply a design that combined features from the two families of instruments. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. (See the article on the lute for further history.)

Classical music era - contemporary guitar

"Romantic guitar" or "Guitar during the Classical music era"

Main article: Romantic guitar

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Instrument

The earliest extant six string guitar was built in 1779 by Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 - after 1831) [1] [2] in Naples, Italy. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin. This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar. [3] Authenticity of guitars before the 1790s is often in question. This also corresponds to when Moretti's 6-string method appeared, in 1792.

Technique

The guitar can be played in many ways. The strings can be plucked, strummed or even tapped.

Repertoire

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Notable composers:

Romantic guitar

Main article: Romantic guitar

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Instrument

The Romantic Guitar has a much larger body giving it a soft deeper sound.

Technique

Repertoire

Main article: Romantic guitar repertoire

The first 'Golden Age' of the classical guitar repertoire. Composer-guitarists.

Notable composers:

Modern classical guitar

Agustín Barrios
Main article: Modern classical guitar
See also: Modern art and 20th century classical music

Instrument

Antonio de Torres Jurado, Ignacio Fleta, Hermann Hauser Sr., Robert Bouchet

Technique

Francisco Tárrega, Emilio Pujol, Andrés Segovia

Repertoire

In the 20th century, many non-guitarist composers wrote for the instrument, which previously only players of the instrument had done. Francisco Tárrega, Roberto Gerhard (1896-1970), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

Contemporary classical guitar

Main article: Contemporary classical guitar
See also: Contemporary art and Contemporary classical music

Instrument

Modern concert guitars occasionally follow the Smallman design which replaces the fan braces with a much lighter balsa brace attached to the back of the sound board with carbon fiber. The balsa brace has a honeycomb pattern and allows the (now much thinner) sound board to support more vibrational modes. This leads to greater volume and longer sustain.

Greg Smallman, Matthias Dammann

Technique

Main article: Classical guitar technique

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Repertoire

Short list of significant compositions for the contemporary classical guitar. For a longer list see the article Selected contemporary repertoire for guitar.


Bibliography

See also: Classical guitar bibliography
  • Wade, Graham, Traditions of the Classical bris, London : Calder, 1980.
  • Antoni Pizà: Francesc Guerau i el seu temps (Palma de Mallorca: Govern de les Illes Balears, Conselleria d'Educació i Cultura, Direcció General de Cultura, Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics, 2000)

References

  1. ^ The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995)
  2. ^ Early Romantic Guitar
  3. ^ Stalking the Oldest Six String Guitar
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