Baroque Guitar

The Baroque guitar (c. 1600–1750) is a string instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets. The first (highest pitched) course sometimes used only a single string.

History

The Baroque guitar replaced the Renaissance lute as the most common instrument found when one was at home. The earliest attestation of a five-stringed guitar comes from the mid-sixteenth-century Spanish book ''Declaracion de Instrumentos Musicales'' by Juan Bermudo, published in 1555. The first treatise published for the Baroque guitar was ''Guitarra Española de cinco ordenes'' (The Five-course Spanish Guitar), c. 1590, by Juan Carlos Amat.

The baroque guitar in contemporary ensembles took on the role of a basso continuo instrument and players would be expected to improvise a chordal accompaniment. Several scholars have assumed that the guitar was used together with another basso continuo instrument playing the bass line. However, there are good reasons to suppose that the guitar was used as an independent instrument for accompaniment in many situations. Intimately tied to the development of the Baroque guitar is the alfabeto system of notation.

Tuning

Three different ways of tuning the guitar are well documented in seventeenth-century sources as set out in the following table. This includes the names of composers who are associated with each method. Very few sources seem to clearly indicate that one method of stringing rather than another should be used and it is often argued that it may have been up to the player to decide what was appropriate. The issue is highly contentious and different theories have been put forward.

A very brief list of composers and tunings:

Composers

* Giovanni Paolo Foscarini (c.1600 - 1650), ''I quattro libri della chitarra spagnola'' (c.1635

*Francesco Corbetta (1615–1681), ''Varii scherzi di sonate, Libro 4'' (c.1648

*Angelo Michele Bartolotti (c.1615-1680)
* Giovanni Battista Granata (1620 - 1687)
*Gaspar Sanz (c.1640–1710), ''Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española'' (1674

*Robert de Visée (c.1658 – 1725), ''Livre de guittarre dédié au roy'' (1682

''Livre de pièces pour la guitare'' (c.1686

*Ludovico Roncalli (1654 - 1713), ''Capricci armonici sopra la chitarra spagnola'' (1692

*Francisco Guerau (1649 - 1722), ''Poema harmonico'' (1694

* Henri Grenerin (fl. mid-17th century)
*Santiago de Murcia (c. 1673 - 1739), ''Resumen de acompañar la parte con la guitarra'' (1714

''Cifras selectas de guitarra'' (1722

''Códice Saldívar No.4'' (c.1730

and ''Passacalles y Obras'' (1732

Sample of makers

Matteo Salas (1600s).

Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737). Of his five surviving guitars, the 1679 "Sabionari" is the only one in playable condition.
It is the solo instrument on more than a dozen videos at YouTube.com.
Two other Stradivari guitars are in museums.
An instrument of 1688
is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, and
an instrument of 1700 is in the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota.

Nicholas Alexandre Voboam II (c. 1634/46–1692/1704). French luthier with three guitars bearing his signature (from a total of 26 attributed to the Voboam Family). The guitars of Alexandre were held in high esteem during his lifetime and a century later were still considered desirable instruments.The Guitar (From The Renaissance To The Present Day) by Harvey Turnbull (Third Impression 1978) - Publisher: Batsford () - p20 ''"Alexandre's reputation lasted long after the seventeenth century. An advertisement in the Journal de Musique for September 1770 offered 'an excellent guitar made in Paris by the celebrated Voboam in 1675'.... "''(Chapter 1 - The Development Of The Instrument)

Performers

* David Ryckaert III

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases