Classic guitar history

The classical guitar — (also called the "Spanish guitar" or "nylon string guitar") — is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones. The classical guitar is well known for its comprehensive right hand technique, which allows the soloist to perform complex melodic and polyphonic material, in much the same manner as the piano.

• the instrumental technique — the individual strings are usually plucked with the fingernails or rarely without nails.
• its historic repertoire, though this is of lesser importance, since any repertoire can be (and is) played on the classical guitar (additionally: classical guitarists are known to borrow from the repertoires of a wide variety of instruments)
• its shape, construction and material — modern classical guitar shape, or historic classical guitar shapes (e.g. early romantic guitars from France and Italy). A guitar family tree can be identified.^{[unreliable source?]} (The flamenco guitar is derived from the modern classical, but has differences in material, construction and sound^{[2][unreliable source?][3]}.^{[unreliable source?]})

The name classical guitar does not mean that only classical repertoire is performed on it, although classical music is a part of the instrument's core repertoire (due to the guitar's long history); instead all kinds of music (folk, jazz, flamenco, etc.) are performed on it.
The term modern classical guitar is sometimes used to distinguish the classical guitar from older forms of guitar, which are in their broadest sense also called classical, or more descriptively: early guitars. Examples of early guitars include the 6-string early romantic guitar (ca. 1790 - 1880), and the earlier baroque guitars with 5 courses.
The classical guitar has a long history and one is able to distinguish various:

• instruments
• repertoire (composers and their compositions, arrangements, improvisations)

Both instrument and repertoire can be viewed from a combination of various contexts:

• historical (chronological period of time)
  • baroque guitar — 17th to mid 18th century
  • early romantic guitars — 19th century (for music from the Classical and Romantic periods)
  • modern classical guitars
• geographical
  • e.g. in the 19th century: Spanish guitars (Torres), and French guitars (René Lacôte, ...), etc.
• cultural/stylistic and social aspects
  • e.g. baroque court music, 19th century opera and its influences, 19th century folk songs, Latin American music, etc.

Brief examples using the above classifications (historical, cultural/stylistic, social etc.), to show the colourful diversity of the classical guitar:

• Robert de Visée (ca. 1650–1725) with French Court music for baroque guitar and lute. He was the guitar player (maître de guitare du Roy) of Louis XIV of France at the court of Versailles. His works are influenced by hearing Jean-Baptiste de Lully (1632–1687) who was also engaged at the court of Louis XIV.
• Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829) with Italian/Viennese classical music for the 19th century so-called early romantic guitar. He was chamber-virtuoso of Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria . Some of his works include strong influences from his visits to 19th century opera performances.
• Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909) of Spain. His intimate salon-style music is both romantic in character and includes charming character pieces such as polkas and waltzes. He even played for the Queen of Spain, Isabel II. From 1869, Tárrega used a guitar by Antonio de Torres (1817–1892).
• Agustín Barrios (1885–1944) from Paraguay, towards the end of his life using a modern classical guitar (his last instrument was a gift from Queen Eugenia of Spain in 1935). His music is romantic in style, with some works showing strong folkloric Paraguayan influences, shaped from his cultural background.
• Sergei Orekhov (Сергей Орехов) (1935–1998) with music for the Russian 7-string guitar. In his compositions and arrangements, he draws inspiration from his intimate knowledge of traditional Russian folk music and folk songs.

Interpreting works of a specific composer in a specific style requires an understanding of the historical cultural/stylistic and social aspects/influences, considering music an expressive art. This is often called the study of performance practice, with attempts at historically informed performance (sometimes abbreviated HIP).

The classical guitar as an instrument today has access to repertoire that spans numerous chronological periods:

• renaissance
• baroque
• classical
• romantic
• modern (neo-classical, avant garde...)

Instrument Aesthetics (Early guitars)

Baroque Guitars from the Museum Cité de la Musique in Paris (which houses almost 200 classical guitars^[6])

Guitars from the Museum Cité de la Musique in Paris (which houses almost 200 classical guitars)

While "classical guitar" is today mainly associated with the modern classical guitar design, there is an increasing interest in early guitars; and understanding the link between historical repertoire and the particular period guitar that was originally used to perform this repertoire.

• Nowadays it is customary to play this repertoire on reproductions of instruments authentically modelled on concepts of musicological research with appropriate adjustments to techniques and overall interpretation. Thus over recent decades we have become accustomed to specialist artists with expertise in the art of vihuela (a 16th-century type of guitar popular in Spain), lute, Baroque guitar, 19th-century guitar, etc.

Different types of guitars have different sound aesthetics, e.g. different colour-spectrum characteristics (the way the sound energy is spread in the fundamental frequency and the overtones), different response, etc. These differences are due to differences in construction, for example modern Spanish guitars usually use a different bracing (fan-bracing), than was used in earlier guitars (they had ladder-bracing); and a different voicing was used by the luthier. See Classical guitar making for more information.

Classical and early romantic period

During the period from approximately 1780 to 1850 the guitar was an extremely popular instrument with numerous composers and performers such as

• Filippo Gragnani (1767–1820)
• Antoine de Lhoyer (1768–1852)
• Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841)
• Francesco Molino (1774–1847)
• Fernando Sor (1778–1839)
• Luigi Moretti (c. 1780-1850)
• Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829)
• Matteo Carcassi (1792–1853)
• Napoléon Coste (1805–1883)
• Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806–1856)

Modern Period
In the 20th century numerous different styles of music (using a classical guitar) emerged:
At the beginning of the 20th century (esp in the 1920s) Andrés Segovia began to popularize the modern Spanish classical guitar with a particular style of romantic-modern and neo-romantic works which were composed by Federico Moreno Torroba, Manuel Ponce, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Alexandre Tansman and often dedicated to Segovia. This music can be called Segovia-repertoire, since it would not exist without Segovia.
In the middle of the century Luiz Bonfá popularized Brazilian musical styles such as the newly created Bossa Nova, which was successfully received by audiences in the USA.

Instruments similar to what we know as the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The ancestry of the modern guitar appears to trace back through many instruments and thousands of years to ancient central Asia. Guitar like instruments appear in ancient carvings and statues recovered from the old Iranian capital of Susa. This means that the contemporary Iranian instruments such as the tanbur and setar are distantly related to the European guitar, as they all derive ultimately from the same ancient origins, but by very different historical routes and influences.

Overview of the classical guitar's history

During the Middle Ages, guitars with three, four, and five strings were already in use. The Guitarra Latina had curved sides and is thought to have come to Spain from elsewhere in Europe. The so-called Guitarra Morisca, brought to Spain by the Moors, had an oval soundbox and many sound holes on its soundboard. By the 15th century, a four course double-string guitar called the vihuela de mano, half way between the lute and the guitar, appeared and became popular in Spain and spread to Italy; and by the 16th century, a fifth double-string had been added. During this time, composers wrote mostly in tablature notation. In the 17th century, influences from the vihuela and the renaissance five string guitar were combined in the baroque guitar. The baroque guitar quickly superseded the vihuela in popularity and Italy became the center of the guitar world. Leadership in guitar developments switched to Spain from the late 18th century, when the six string guitar quickly became popular at the expense of the five string guitars. During the 19th century, improved communication and transportation enabled performers to travel widely and the guitar gained greater popularity outside its old strongholds in Iberia, Italy and Latin America. During the 19th century the Spaniard, Antonio de Torres, gave the modern classical guitar its definitive form, with a broadened body, increased waist curve, thinned belly, improved internal bracing, single string courses replacing double courses, and a machined head replacing wooden tuning pegs. The modern classical guitar replaced older form for the accompaniment of song and dance called flamenco, and a modified version, known as the flamenco guitar, was created.
(source: wikipedia.org)