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The 19th Century
We have seen that the various trends taken by the guitar in the preceding centuries led to the six single- string guitar. It was not until the nineteenth century that the instrument was to reach the peak of its development. The acceptance of the six single string guitar became universal, spreading not only to every part of Europe but to the American continent as well. This was the era of great guitar virtuosi whose worldwide concerts helped lay a firm foundation for the instrument's remarkable popularity in the twentieth century.
In the first half of the century enthusiasm for the instrument was centered in Vienna. By this time, Vienna had become a great musical center attracting many musicians from all over Europe, and guitarists were among those who came and their many performances gave the guitar the needed impetus for recognition as a serious medium for artistic expression.
Probably the first important guitarist to settle in Vienna was Simon Molitor (1766-1848). Molitor's numerous compositions include guitar solos and chamber music with guitar parts, among which are trios for violin or flute, viola and guitar. Another performer, Leonhard von Call (1769-1815), wrote a great deal of music for guitar which became popular, and also a method for the guitar.
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The Italian Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) was one of the most important exponents of the guitar and its music of the nineteenth century. Following an extended stay in Vienna, after 1807 he had a great influence as performer. He initiated the trend toward extensive concert tours for guitarists, thus spreading the guitar's acceptance as a serious instrument throughout Europe. |
Mauro Giuliani |
| In Vienna, Mauro Giuliani's influence on musical life was profound. He initiated concerts of guitar and orchestra. He frequently performed with some of the most important musical figures of his time because of his outstanding technical and musical accomplishments. |
| Giuliani's associates included Karl Seidler, Spohr, Loder and Anton Diabelli. Though Diabelli (1781-1858) was both a pianist and a guitarist, of greater importance was the fact that he was a music publisher. It was in this capacity that his association with Giuliani proved particularly profitable. He published many guitar compositions, including those of Giuliani, and his efforts to promote guitar music had a significant effect on the increased popularity of the instrument. Giuliani's daughter Emilia was at one time credited with the discovery of harmonics on the guitar. |
Other Composers
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) played and wrote music for the guitar. Too poor to own a piano, he used the guitar while composing. He wrote many beautiful songs with guitar accompaniment, and his most important contribution to guitar literature was the Quartet for flute, guitar, viola and cello.
Many other Italian guitarists followed Giuliani's example by giving concerts and publishing their music in Vienna. One of the most important was Luigi Legnani (1790-1877), who developed a technique and virtuosity that were eventually to surpass Giuliani's. Legnani's interest included guitar construction, and many of his suggestions led to valuable improvements on the instrument. As a composer he was prolific and his works numbered up to opus 250 and included a concerto, duos, trios, variations, 36 Cappricios and a Scherzo.
| Fernando Sor The leading exponents of the "expressionist" school were the Spaniards Sor and Aguado, and the Italians Carulli, Carcassi, and Giuliani. The outstanding figure in the group, Fernando Sor, was the greatest guitarist of the romantic era. Son of a Catalan merchant, he was born in Barcelona in 1778 and received a musical education at the choir school of the nearby monastery of Montserrat.
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At eighteen, Sor wrote an opera, Telemachus on Calypso's Isle which was produced in Barcelona in 1797. Sor was called into the army during the confused period of French occupation. When the French withdrew, defeated by Wellington and the Spanish guerilla armies, Sor left with them. After 1812, he lived mainly in Paris, where he gave many concerts.
He made his London debut in 1815 where he was the first and only guitarist invited to perform with the London Philharmonic Society. In 1817, he appeared as soloist in his own Concertante for Spanish Guitar and Strings. During the 1820's he went to Germany and then to Russia. He produced three of his ballets in Moscow. At the death of Czar Alexander I in 1825, Sor composed a funeral march at the request of the new Czar Nicholas I. After his return to France, he worked both as a teacher and composer.
His compositions range to more than 250 or 300 works ranging from salon pieces to complete operas. His best-known major scores were ballets - Cendrillon and Gil Blas. Thanks to his dance instincts, he was at his best composing waltzes, minuets, galops, boleros, and so on. For a French encyclopedia he wrote the first authoritative study of such Spanish dances as the bolero, seguidilla, murciana and sevillana. In a more classical vein he wrote sonatas, fantasias, and sets of variations on themes by Mozart, Hummel and Paisiello.
But Sor's crowning achievement is his Méthode pour la guitare of 1830 - easily the most remarkable book on guitar technique ever written. It represents the fruit of forty years experience.
19th Century Luthiers Challenged by the developments in guitar technique and the demands for finer instruments, more and more luthiers sought to keep pace with the changing requirements and to produce instruments that would satisfy them. Johann Georg Staufer (1778-1853) was an outstanding guitar maker established in Vienna. Besides being credited with the invention of the guitarre d'amour, he also gained a reputation for fine guitars. Johann Gottfried Scherzer (1843-1870) took over the Staufer workshop. Experimenting extensively to improve the guitar's tone and taking advantage of his contacts with physicists to achieve his aim, he became one of the first guitar makers to have approached his work scientifically, producing as a result fine quality concert guitars. Fernando Sor mentions several builders in his "Method for the Spanish Guitar" English Translation of 1836, published by Tecla Editions : "Mr. J. Panormo made some guitars under my direction, as well as Mr. Schroeder at Petersburgh.... In the goodness of the body or box, the Neapolitan guitars in general long surpassed, in my opinion, those of France and Germany; but that is not the case at present, and if I wanted an instrument, I would procure it from M. Joseph Martinez of Malaga, or from M. Lacote, a French maker, the only person who, besides his talents, has proved to me that he possesses the quality of not being inflexible to reasoning... The guitars which I have always given the preference are those of Alonzo of Madrid, Pages and Benediz of Cadiz, Joseph and Manuel Martinez of Malaga, or Rada, successor and scholar of the latter, and those of M. Lacote of Paris. I do not say that others do not exist; but never having tried them, I cannot decide on that of which I have no knowledge."
Panormo had used fan bracing in the Spanish style since the 1820's. He used the string length to 65 cm, the measure still in use today. He happened to make 650, but Stauffer was making 647, Lacote made some 650 depending on the size of the player's hands. It is now a standard because everyone copies what Torres did. He standardized a pattern of tied bridge almost identical to that found on all classical guitars today, although the tie bridge originated with Baroque guitars, and was standard on all Spanish guitars throughout the entire 19th century. Torres' innovations resulted in the foundation of a true Spanish school of guitar making whose membership eventually included the most important luthiers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the 19th century, nearly every builder made a different guitar shape, size, and style. Torres picked a combination of existing designs for his guitars Guitarists in Spain Guitar music flourished in nineteenth century Spain, and Spain produced many outstanding virtuosi at this time. However, the Spanish guitar virtuosi and the Spanish exponents of the instrument achieved their great success outside their native country. Fernando Sor exemplified these emigrant guitarists.
Julian Arcas (1832-1882) was another Spanish guitar virtuoso. After touring Spain, he traveled to England and performed at the Brighton Pavilion before members of the Royal Family. His playing was highly praised. He returned to Spain, continued to give concerts and was professor at the Royal Conservatory. No less than eighty of his compositions have been published.
This was followed by studies at the Conservatory of Music in Madrid where he later taught guitar. He also taught in the Conservatory of Barcelona and made over 100 transcriptions of works by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Schubert. In addition, he wrote many compositions of his own: preludes, studies, waltzes and so on that exhibit the increased complexity of harmony and technique made possible by his new approach to guitar playing. This new approach involved a major change: the holding of the right hand perpendicularly to the strings instead of being held obliquely to them. Tarrega's technique made more convenient the use of the so-called "supported stroke" or "hammer stroke". At any rate, Tarrega's accomplishments were definite and significant aids toward the formulation of modern guitar technique. They helped revitalize the popularity of the guitar, which had declined in previous years. Suddenly, there was a new generation of composers who could interpret Spain to the outside world in its own idiom: Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), Enrique Granados (1967-1916), and Manuel de Falla (1876-1946). All of them admired the guitar as aficionados, but only Albéniz grew up playing the guitar as well as the piano. Albéniz went on to become one of the great pianists of the century but he wrote for the keyboard as though it were a guitar. Many of his works are eminently well suited to guitar transcriptions. After Tarrega's death in 1909, his work was carried on by a circle of gifted pupils, including Emilio Pujol, Miguel Llobet, Daniel Fortea, and Alberto Obregón. The guitar in America The guitar was known in the New World as early as the sixteenth century when the Spanish colonizers sold vihuelas to the Aztec Indians. The coming of Spanish and Portuguese artists undoubtedly did much to encourage this instrument's popularity, and in South America their activities led not only to the promotion of the guitar but also to its entrenchment in the folk music of many South American countries. These developments resulted in an increasing number of guitarists and guitar makers in both South and North America. The rising popularity of the guitar created a greater demand for instruments. Later in the 19th century, the increased demand was met by using machines and factory methods in addition to the traditional handicraft. To some extent, the events of the nineteenth century - the changes in the instrument, the greater opportunities for performers to travel, the wider distribution of the instrument - may be regarded as natural and predictable parts of an evolutionary process. The age old practice of making instruments entirely by hand has been replaced for the first time by machinery capable of mass production.Many of these changes led to the events that were to take place in the twentieth century.
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