Summary of Guitar Investigation

              The guitar has experienced a severe marginalisation in recent years, in

particular since the advent of the authentic instrument movement. Swathes of

music written for the lute has now been reallocated to that instrument in concerts

and recordings, and guitar performances of Bach and Weiss now seem less

‘correct’. The establishment is less offended by Murray Periah’s renditions of

Bach on the the grand piano, for reasons which may escape the objective

observer. This has combined with a general perception of the guitar as an

instrument with a repertoire by, at best, marginal minor virtuosi.

           This is a great shame, in that the guitar is

otherwise an omnipresent music tool in most genres such as rock, jazz and folk;

 and as such has the potential to provide a bridge to the magic and depth

of classical music for people who may otherwise never discover it.

                                      The main problem, however, is the general perception

that there is no repertoire by any major composers to be found. This is a strange

conclusion, but predominates because many guitarists are patently unaware of

key compositions, or the true value of many of the pieces currently available in

the catalogue. There is also a false perception of the guitar as an almost

exclusively Spanish instrument, where the truth is that very few significant

writers of guitar music were (or are) Spanish. Further, the emphasis of guitarists

of the last century to focus on life as a soloist is also grossly misleading, as much

of the best music is in the literature for voice and guitar, and the small but highly

significant selection of chamber music; while the place of the instrument in the

world of opera has been grossly misrepresented, this constituting a presence as

an orchestral or onstage instrument in works from the beginnings of the Baroque

period right up to the present day.

                                The failure of the guitar to ascend to its rightful place in these

fields may be equally attributed to the players’ reluctance to get involved, and the

subsequent ignorance of other musicians (and the potential audience) of the

existence of this canon. Many great masters have also written vital chamber 

pieces with guitar, including Stravinsky, Berg, Schönberg, Henze and Boulez.

           The investigation reveals the following interesting points:

              ¤ The guitar gleans its most important core repertoire, also as a solo

instrument, from Italy. It is interesting to note that Francesco Corbetti’s

works,while lauded in textbooks as core repertoire, have been largely

unavailable to players in any reliable modern edition.

              ¤ Composers and players through the centuries have sung their songs

with guitar (or chitarrone), from Francesco do Milano, Corbetti and de Visée,

through Weber, Schubert and Berlioz; these last handing on ther tradition to

non-singing composers of the twentieth century such as Britten, Henze and

Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Many nineteenth century composers who used

 the guitar would sing to their own accompaniment, as did several of the

famous virtuosi of the  day. The almost total ignorance of this style of

performance in modern times shows a cavalier neglect of an historically

important and wonderful repertoire.

              ¤ The guitar has been, and is today, a continuo or orchestral

instrument in opera, as well as appearing onstage, from the first formative

years of the genre.

              ¤ The guitar quickly acquired more than six strings; being called the

chitarrone in the Baroque period, the Decachorde (among other things) by the

Romantic virtuosi, and being radically rethought in its functional significance

by Narciso Yepes in the twentieth century (Göran Söllscher and others have

been more traditional in their approach and performance).

              It is with some despair that one may note that none of the British

examination boards feature music by Paganini in their student test repertoire; a

composer of such stature could not be ignored by other instrumentalists. A

closer examination of his work (also for students) shows a melodic freshness and

level of pedagogic inventivenes which renders this neglect completely

inexplicable to this writer. A considered rediscovery of Corbetti, Paganini,

Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Alexandre Tansman would constitute a seismic shift of

perception for the average guitar student. And that is before one has given the

song repertoire and chamber music even the most cursory attention!

         An important clarification as concerns guitar opera and history:

the points made in this summary are based on the work

of serious scholars, and are freely available for

examination in available publications such as

the Grove Dictionary of Music, and composer biographies.

What is remarkable is the level of lip-service paid to the

great masters and their involvement with the guitar. The

general paucity of references to the guitar in composer biographies (and the

directly insulting nature of those which may be found) make construction of a

convincing academic document extremely difficult. I have based my theories on

certain threads of evidence which constitute an intriguing, if not incontestible,

case for the hypothesis - once these rare threads are collected. These include:

¤ The printed and manuscript music (such as it is - much has been lost)

¤ Autobiographical and eye-witness accounts (often dismissed as 'unreliable')

¤ Assessment of the respective environments from which the composers took

their inspiration (the guitar milieu in Napoli and Vienna, or the songwriters and

Nationalist folk movement spearheaded in Germany by Arnim and Brentano)

¤ Harmonic analysis of possible guitar music published for piano or orchestra

¤ Scholarly papers on biographical and musical themes

      A whole field of research awaits exploration: namely, the extent to which the

composers' association with the guitar influenced their composing techniques and

style. Is it a coincidence that the founders of the Romantic movement (Weber,

Spohr, Marschner, Wagner, Schubert, Berlioz, Paganini, Rossini, Donizetti and

Verdi) all played guitar and composed songs and solo works - even including the

instrument in their operas? Can this be dismissed as a merely superficial

preoccupation of no consequence for serious musiclogy? In light of such questions

is this summary intended to inspire the reader to further investigation.

        My conclusion here must be that the potential for the instrument is hugely

promising, but all aspects of the repertoire must be included, not only the solo

works.

                As a final note, we may acknowlege that the guitar has not seen

a repertoire of major masterworks to match that of the piano or violin.

 However, many important composers have written for the intrument; and

if the pieces by interested (and interesting) composers such as Respighi, Britten,

Gubaidulina, Henze, Terry Reilly and John Taverner are not acquired and

performed by guitarists, there will be no incentive for living composers to dedicate

challenging and significant works to the instrument. Nevertheless,

 John Williams told me that he was optimistic for the future of the guitar,

and I allowed myself to be convinced!

                                        ©Alexander MacAllister, BA(Hons), 2007

 For more information on the current extended-range and period guitar scene, check out the following links:

http://www.cathedralguitar.com/

http://www.tenstringguitar.com/

http://www.tenstringguitar.info/

http://earlyguitar.ning.com/

http://www.cincinnatiearlymusic.com/jarana.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNJaYInbbhs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieQej-99I6A&feature=related