GUITAR COLLECTION - The Classical Shop

extensively throughout Europe. He was
employed at both the French and English
courts and it was through his playing and
teaching that the guitar gained not only
popularity but particularly sophistication
of technique and musical composition.
The Sinfonia for guitar and basso
continuo comes from Corbetta’s 2nd
printed collection Varii Capricii (Milan
1643). The guitar part has a mixture of
rasguado (strumming) and punteado
(plucking) which was to become usual
for the remainder of the century. I play it
on a wonderful copy of a Venetian
instrument of the same period which has
an ebony vaulted back, ebony sides and
much decoration in true Venetian style.
Gaspar Sanz studied in Rome with
Lelio Colista, a composer who had great
influence on Henry Purcell. On his return
to Spain, Sanz published a book of
instruction for the spanish guitar. This
includes much attractive solo music in
which he advises the use of a tuning with
no low bordones on the 4th and 5th
course. I used this tuning on the Diaz
guitar which shows to great effect the
campenallas (bell-like) technique used
by Sanz in these pieces.
Robert de Visee was a pupil of
Corbetta and in his music we find again a
mixture of the two styles of playing
combined in a most elegant way. The
music is more tuneful than that of the
French lutenists as de Visee deliberately
imitated the style of the great Lully.
Although printed in the late 17th-century,
de Visee’s music was played well into the
18th century and was included in
anthologies such as Le Cocq of 1729 . I
have chosen a short suite taken from the
most famous suite in D minor and play it
on a Parisian guitar of the mid 18th
century. This instrument by Salomon,
although slightly late for de Visee, still
has all the fine and subtle characteristics
of the earlier French guitars.
While you turn over to side B
approximately 50 years of guitar history
have passed by. In the second half of the
18th century the guitar remained
primarily an accompanying instrument,
particularly in France and very little solo
music of worth was composed for it. The
transition to 6 single strings occurred
gradually as 5 course instruments had a
6th course added in the bass at G or E.
Eventually single strings were preferred
and the guitar with 6 single strings like
the modern instrument was established in
most of Europe. Russian guitarists used 7
string instruments in a different tuning
and many of the late Romantic players
experimented with adding up to 4 extra
basses to the standard 6 string model. By
the beginning of the 19th century the
time was ripe for a new generation of
virtuoso guitarists and I have chosen to
represent the most important of these in
the second part of this recording.
Although composers never denied
the inherent Spanish origin of the guitar,
three European cities outside Spain
became the centre of the guitar world at
this time—Vienna, London and Paris. In
each city we find a different guitarist
responsible for new developments. The
Italian guitarist Mauro Giuliani settled in
Vienna between 1806 and 1819 and was
the inspiration for much guitar activity
there He may well have brought with him
an Italian guitar such as the Fabricatore
which I use for the Grande Ouverture.
This instrument has the body depth of the
Spanish-styled instruments of the time
and compared with other known
examples of Fabricatore’s work is much
6 7
deeper than usual. It gives a strong, full
sound, particularly light to the touch and
quick to speak which is marvellous in the
arpeggios which Giuliani uses. The
Grande Ouverture is an original
composition which parodies the Italian
opera ouverture. It is in true sonata form
preceded by a slow, dramatic
introduction and includes orchestral
devices such as the “Rossini crescendo”.
One can also hear many orchestral
colours throughout the piece. This
Ouverture shows that Giuliani was an
outstanding performer who used the
guitar in a truly idiomatic way. At his
death it was said: “The guitar was
transformed in his hands into an
instrument similar to the harp, sweetly
soothing men’s hearts.”
The famous Spanish guitarist
Fernando Sor left his home country
during the Napoleonic Wars, going first
of all to Paris in 1813 and then to London
between 1815 and 1823. The first English
performance of Mozart’s ‘’The Magic
Flute” took place in London in May 1819
and it was probably this that inspired
Sor’s most famous work, the Op. 9
variations The Panormos were a family