HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Baroque guitar (c. 1600–1750) is a string instrument with five
course Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...
s of
gut strings Catgut (also known as gut) is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fiber found in the walls of animal intestines. Catgut makers usually use sheep or goat intestines, but occasionally use the intestines of cattle, hogs, horses, ...
and moveable gut frets. The first (highest pitched) course sometimes used only a single string.


History

The Baroque guitar replaced the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
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 Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the ...
instrument and players would be expected to improvise a chordal
accompaniment Accompaniment is the musical part which provides the rhythmic and/or harmonic support for the melody or main themes of a song or instrumental piece. There are many different styles and types of accompaniment in different genres and styles o ...
. 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 Francesco Corbetta (ca. 1615 – 1681, in French also Francisque Corbette) was an Italian guitar virtuoso, teacher and composer. Along with his compatriots Giovanni Paolo Foscarini and Angelo Michele Bartolotti, he was a pioneer and exponent of ...
(1615–1681), ''Varii scherzi di sonate, Libro 4'' (c.1648

*
Angelo Michele Bartolotti Angelo Michele Bartolotti (died before 1682) was an Italian guitarist, theorbo player and composer. Bartolotti was probably born in Bologna, Italy, as he describes himself as "Bolognese" on the title page of his first guitar book and "di Bologna ...
(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 Francisco Guerau (1649 – 1722) was a Spanish Baroque composer. After being born on Majorca, he entered the singing school at the Royal College in Madrid in 1659, becoming a member of the Royal Chapel as an alto singer and composer ten years late ...
(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 The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University o ...
in
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, England, and an instrument of 1700 is in the National Music Museum in
Vermillion, South Dakota Vermillion ( lkt, Waséoyuze; "The Place Where Vermilion is Obtained") is a city in and the county seat of Clay County. It is in the southeastern corner of South Dakota, United States, and is the state's 12th-largest city. According to the 2020 ...
.
Nicholas Alexandre Voboam II (Nicholas) Alexandre Voboam (1634/46–1692/1704) was a French luthier from a renowned Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more th ...
(c. 1634/46–1692/1704).
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
luthier A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers of ...
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 David Ryckaert III, David Rijckaert III or David Rijckaert the Younger (2 December 1612, Antwerp - 11 November 1661, Antwerp)Lex Eisenhardt *
Eduardo Egüez Eduardo Egüez (born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1959) is a lutenist, theorbist, and guitarist acclaimed for his interpretations of music by J.S.Bach. Egüez began by first studying guitar with Miguel Angel Girollet and Eduardo Fernández. H ...
* Paul O'Dette *
Hopkinson Smith Hopkinson Smith (born December 7, 1946) is an American lutenist and pedagogue, longtime resident in Basel, Switzerland. Smith was born in New York City, the son of architectural writer and photographer G. E. Kidder Smith. He graduated from ...
*
Stephen Stubbs Stephen Stubbs (born 1951) is a lutenist and music director and has been a leading figure in the American early music scene for nearly thirty years. Born in Seattle, he studied harpsichord and composition at the University of Washington where, at ...
*
Xavier Díaz-Latorre The Catalonia College of Music ( ca, Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, ESMUC; ) is a music school in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The school is located at L'Auditori, a performing arts center inaugurated in 1999 which also houses three ...
* Rolf Lislevand * Nigel North *
Jakob Lindberg Jakob Lindberg (born 16 October 1952) is a Swedish lutenist, performing solo, in small and large ensembles, and also directing operas, using instruments of the lute and guitar families. He is known for the first ever recording of the Complete Solo ...
*
Barry Mason John Barry Mason (12 July 1935 – 16 April 2021) was an English singer and songwriter. A leading songwriter of the 1960s, he wrote the bulk of his most successful songs in partnership with Les Reed. Mason gained many gold and platinum awar ...
* Ugo Nastrucci * Andrea Damiani * Massimo Lonardi * James Tyler * Patrick O'Brien


Gallery

File:M2676 - gitarr - Matteo Seelos - före 1653 - foto Olav Nyhus (clip).jpg, Baroque guitar by Matteo Seelos (before 1653) File:Five-course guitars (c.1695-1699) by Jean-Baptiste Voboam, and Joachim Tielke, National Museum of American History.jpg, Five-course guitars by Jean-Baptiste Voboam (ca.1695) and Joachim Tielke (ca.1695–99) File:Stradavarius Guitar, violin, mandolin and case, National Music Museum, Vermillion.jpg, '' The Rawlins'' guitar (1700), part of the Stradivarius collection at the National Music Museum File:Chitarra battente del Maestro Nicola De Bonis.JPG, Chitarra battente File:Baroque guitar copy 001.jpg, Modern copy of Baroque guitar File:Baroque guitar.jpg, Baroque guitar at the Casa Museo Del Timple, Lanzarote, Spain. File:Tielke baroque guitar.jpg, A baroque guitar by Joachim Tielke in the V&A Museum, London, UK.


Bibliography

*Lex Eisenhardt, ''Italian Guitar Music of the Seventeenth Century'', University of Rochester Press, 2015. *Lex Eisenhardt, "Bourdons as Usual". In ''The Lute: The Journal of the Lute Society'', vol. XLVII (2007) *Lex Eisenhardt, "Baroque guitar accompaniment: where is the bass". In ''Early Music'', vol. 42, No 1 (2014) *Lex Eisenhardt,
A String of Confusion
*James Tyler, "The Early Guitar", Oxford University Press, 1980. *James Tyler/Paul Sparks, The Guitar and its Music", Oxford University Press, 2002. *James Tyler, " A guide to playing the Baroque Guitar" Indiana University Press, 2011. * Monica Hall: ''Baroque Guitar Stringing : a survey of the evidence'' (Guildford: The Lute Society, 2010) *Monica Hall: "Recovering a lost book of guitar music by Corbetta". In ''Consort: The Journal of the Dolmetsch Foundation'', Vol. 61 (2005). *Monica Hall: "The "Guitarra espanola" of Joan Carles Amat". In ''Early Music'', Vol. 6, no. 3, July 1978. *Monica Hall: "Dissonance in the guitar music of Francesco Corbetta". In ''Lute: The Journal of the Lute Society'', Vol. XLVII (2007) *Monica Hall: "Angiol Bartolotti's Lettere tagliate". In ''Lute: The Journal of the Lute Society'', Vol. XLVII (2007) *Monica Hall: "Tuning instructions for the baroque guitar in Bibliotheque Nationale Res. Vmc Ms. 59, f. 108v". In ''Lute: The Journal of the Lute Society'', Vol. XLVII (2007) * 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). *Hélène Charnassé, Rafael Andia, Gérard Rebours, ''The Guitar Books of Robert de Visée'', Paris: Editions Musicales Transatlantiques,2000, 235 pages. *Thomas Schmitt: "Sobre la ornamentación en el repertorio para guitarra barroca en España (1600-1750)". In: ''Revista de Musicología'', XV, nº 1, 1992 *Giovanni Accornero, Eraldo Guerci (edited and translated by Davide Rebuffa) - The Guitar: "Four Centuries of Masterpieces", (Italian/English), Edizioni Il Salabue, 2008. *Carlo Alberto Carutti, "Passioni di un collezionista", Catalogue by Giovanni Accornero (edited and translated by Davide Rebuffa), (Italian/English), Edizioni Il Salabue, 2011. (also available on CD rom)


References


External links


Technique
"Baroque guitar for the modern performer - a practical compromise", by Don Rowe and Richard d’A Jensen {{Authority control Baroque instruments Non-Spanish classical guitars Acoustic guitars