The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era

349 Pages·2007·20.15 MB·English

by  James Tyler

OXFORD EARLY MUSIC SERIES
THE GUITAR AND ITS MUSIC
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THE
GUITAR AND
ITS MUSIC
FROM THE RENAISSANCE
TO THE CLASSICAL ERA
JAMES TYLER
AND PAUL SPARKS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, 0x2 6DP
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Published in the United States
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Parts I and II © James Tyler 2002
Part III © Paul Sparks 2002
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Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2002
First published in paperback 2007
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tyler, James.
The guitar and its music: from the Renaissance to the Classical era /
by James Tyler and Paul Sparks.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
i. Guitar—History. 2. Guitar music—History and criticism. I. Sparks, Paul. II. Title.
ML1015.Gg T96 2002 787.87 '09—dc21 2001058231
ISBN 978-0-19-816713-6 (Hbk)
ISBN 978-0-19-921477-8 (Pbk)
1 3 5 79 10 8 6 42
Typeset by Figaro, Launton, 0x26 5DG
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Bookcraft Ltd.,
Midsomer Norton, Somerset
For Joyce and Tobey,
and
in memory of
Pauline Geller and Robert Spencer
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PREFACE
More than twenty years ago I wrote a modest introduction to the history, repertory,
and playing techniques of the four- and five-course guitar: The Early Guitar: A His-
tory and Handbook. Since its publication (Oxford, 1980), many performer-scholars of
Renaissance and Baroque music have expanded their repertories and research to
include early guitar music and topics. Awareness of the guitar's history and repertory
has grown appreciably in the Classical guitar world as well, although, as some of the
most recent writings on the subject indicate, many guitarists continue to harbour basic
misconceptions concerning the nature of the early guitar. Some still think that the
vihuela was 'the early guitar', and find it difficult to accept that for musicians and theo-
rists in the sixteenth century the guitar was actually a small, treble-range, four-course
instrument. Some find it equally troubling that the later and larger five-course guitar,
for much of its most attractive, complex, and virtuoso solo repertory, often requires
tunings and stringing arrangements that are radically different from that of the mod-
ern instrument.
Having significantly expanded my research on the early guitar and its music over
the past twenty years, I decided that it was time to publish a new book on the subject.
This, in part, to address in a more systematic (and, I hope, more convincing) fashion
than I did in The Early Guitar the fundamental issues described above, and to recant
or reaffirm certain views that I had previously endorsed; but mainly to share new
research and proffer some new ideas on the development of the early guitar and its vast
repertory, to amend and expand the annotated lists of primary sources previously
published in The Early Guitar, and to furnish additional source lists and information,
which performers and researchers may find useful.
Since my work has focused primarily on the guitar and its music from c. 1550-
£.1750 (Parts I and II of the present book), I am deeply indebted to Paul Sparks, my
collaborator on other recent writings on the guitar and a prior book for Oxford Uni-
versity Press (The Early Mandolin, 1989), for contributing Part III. Some readers may
notice that there is a greater emphasis on organology in his portion of the book than in
mine. There are good reasons for this. While essential to a study of the guitar in the
second half of the eighteenth century (a period of transition in which numerous
instruments survive in their original state), it is not as relevant to a study of the princi-
pal guitar type of the sixteenth century, the four-course instrument—no examples of
which survive! As for the five-course Baroque guitar, while there are a number of
extant instruments, there are also many opinions as to which features of any particular
example are original—so many opinions that a separate book on the subject is prob-
viii Preface
ably warranted. In any case, the richest sources of information on the two main guitar
types of the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth century seem to be the publications and
manuscripts containing their music and the writings of contemporary theorists.
Accordingly, what these sources tell us about the nature of the instruments and their
roles in the music-making of their times is at the heart of Parts I and II.
James Tyler
Pasadena, California
September 2001
Information about the guitar during the second half of the eighteenth century has
been conspicuously absent from the standard histories. The period has usually been
dismissed in a few curt paragraphs as a time when the old five-course Baroque instru-
ment had fallen into widespread disuse throughout Europe, when the low E string had
not yet been added (except by a handful of experimental makers), and when very little
guitar music was being written or published. In short, the guitar between 1750 and
1800 has generally been presented to modern readers as a musical Sleeping Beauty,
lying dormant and unloved as it awaited the onset of the nineteenth century, when
Fernando Sor and Mauro Giuliani would finally arrive to breathe new life into it.
As Part III of this study will demonstrate, those widely held perceptions simply do
not correspond to the facts. Far from falling into disuse, the five-course guitar
remained very popular until the early years of the nineteenth century, above all in
France. Guitars with a sixth course tuned to E were being manufactured in Spain
prior to 1760, and they became the standard form in that country long before the
eighteenth century ended, remaining so well into the nineteenth century. Further-
more, an enormous amount of guitar music was published between 1750 and 1800,
mainly accompaniments to vocal music, but also a considerable quantity of instru-
mental pieces. Admittedly, the guitar was seldom heard in the formal environs of the
concert hall at this time; neither were many solo virtuoso showpieces being composed
for it (as they had been for guitars in the Renaissance and Baroque). Far from being a
Sleeping Beauty, however, the instrument was a vital and indispensable part of
music-making in France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and South America throughout
the second half of the eighteenth century.
In Part II and Appendix III of this book James Tyler has recommended new sources
of guitar repertory from his period to players of the modern instrument. I hope that
my contribution will persuade players of both the modern guitar and the five-course
Baroque guitar that many pieces from the latter decades of the eighteenth century
deserve rehabilitation and can become a legitimate and meaningful part of their
Prefaix ix
instrument's repertory. Whether they play an old or modern type of instrument, I am
confident that musicians will want to explore this little-known repertory, especially
some of the fine duets, trios, and songs, which, if played with sensitivity and an aware-
ness of the appropriate style, will help to illuminate yet another side of the multi-
faceted personality of the guitar.
Paul Sparks
Leven, Beverley, East Yorkshire
September 2001