Musicology Commons^™

The Performer As Stylistic Free Agent: A Historically Inspired Approach To Interpreting Manuel De Falla’S Homenaje, Yiannis Efstathopoulos, Maarten Stragier, Kristin Van Den Buys

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Manuel de Falla’s Homenaje pour “Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy” presents a complex identity knot that reflects Debussyan Alhambrism back onto its inspiration, drawing from both classical and folk traditions. This is the first research project to approach that knot from the perspective of historically inspired performance. It identifies a fascinating counterpart to its complexity in the stylistically hybrid guitar practices that were common at the time Falla composed his miniature masterpiece. The authors therefore propose that a historically inspired performer of Homenaje can act as a stylistic free agent, traversing the continuum of styles that gave birth to Falla’s …

The Verney Family And Their Guitars In France And England, 1643–53, Christopher Page

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The five-course guitar was a fundamental resource for the Verney family from 1643 to 1653 as they sheltered in France, avoiding their creditors and escaping the state of civil war at home in England. Their papers from that period, comprising many thousands of letters and financial accounts, show them hiring a guitar-master, ordering new guitars in Paris and debating the relative benefits of lessons for their eldest son on the guitar as opposed to the lute. This article reproduces the key documents and considers the music that the Verneys may have played. The papers particularly show how an instrument often …

Recovering Hidden Histories: Christopher Page On The Guitar In Victorian England, Jenny Nex

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A review of The Guitar in Victorian England: A Social and Musical History, by Christopher Page (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

Dowland Is For Everyone! The Making Of A New Biography, K. Dawn Grapes, Katharyn R. Benessa

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Following the publication of her new biography of the Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland, K. Dawn Grapes details her research journey in conversation with Katharyn Benessa. They discuss both the history of Dowland research, including the legacy of Diana Poulton, and the gaps that still remain. Grapes offers new context for understanding Dowland’s music and considers how his travels and experiences may have shaped his life and work.

A Two-Winged Murcia: Spanish Dance, Italian Corelli, One Guitar, Ellwood P. Colahan

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Review of Santiago de Murcia (1673–1739): Entre dos almas, by Stefano Maiorana (Baroque guitar).

So Much For Musicology: William Carter Plays Santiago De Murcia, Ellwood P. Colahan

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Review of La Guitarra Española: Santiago de Murcia (1682–1732), by William Carter (Baroque guitar).

Creolized Baroque: Early Music In A Brazilian Key, Ellwood P. Colahan

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Review of Iberian and Afro-Brazilian Music of the 17th Century, by Ensemble Banza, Rogério Budasz, (Baroque guitar).

A Living Source Report: Cristian Gutiérrez Plays Cifras Selectas, Ellwood P. Colahan

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Review of Cifras selectas de guitarra, by Cristiano Gutiérrez (Baroque guitar).

Pedro Ximénez Abrill Y Tirado: Another And Deeper Look, Richard Savino

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Born in Arequipa, Peru, Pedro Ximénez Abrill y Tirado was a virtuoso cellist and guitarist who composed over forty symphonies, forty masses, dozens of chamber pieces with interesting instrumentations, and over three hundred solo pieces for the guitar. He moved to Lima for a period and later became Maestro di Capilla at the Sucre Cathedral in Bolivia. At the time Sucre was one of the wealthiest cities in South America, if not the wealthiest.

Abrill's renown was such that he was published in Paris by Richault and was written about in Hugh Bonelli's published travel diary (London, 1854). His music …

Mapping Legnani In Print: Mustardino’S Thematic Catalogue, Marco Riboni

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A review of Luigi Legnani: Catalogo tematico delle edizioni a stampa per e con chitarra [Thematic Catalogue of Printed Editions for and with Guitar], by Marco Mustardino (Rome: Aracne, 2023).

“The Only Maker Of Spanish Guitars” In England: Panormo And His Contemporaries, Stefan Hackl

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A review of Guitar Making in Nineteenth-Century London: Louis Panormo and His Contemporaries, by James Westbrook (Halesowen, UK: ASG Music, 2023)

classicalguitar.co.uk/shop/guitar-making-in-nineteenth-century-london

Mignone, Fernandez, Guarnieri: Brazilian Guitar Music After Villa-Lobos, Fabio Zanon

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This article challenges the widespread perception of Heitor Villa-Lobos as an isolated peak in Brazilian musical culture with no natural successors. The author focuses on the composers who followed Villa-Lobos—Francisco Mignone, Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez, and Camargo Guarnieri—arguing that their works deserve far more attention in international concert life, not least their contributions to the guitar repertoire.

These twentieth-century Brazilian composers are situated within a broader historical narrative that traces the impact of European colonial models, the delayed and contested formation of musical nationalism in Brazil, and the shifting aesthetic and political conditions of the twentieth century. Analytical discussions of representative …

The Six-Course Guitar In Spain: Some Considerations Of Repertoire And Musical Practice, Thomas Schmitt

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The six-course guitar is still a little-known instrument. One need only look at books on the history of music to verify that claim: there is hardly any mention of it, nor are its composers or repertoire often cited. In fact, researchers have given far more attention to other plucked-string instruments than to the six-course guitar—whether for reasons of tradition or ideology—leading to a major gap in the literature. The repertoire of the Spanish Golden Age, to take one example, has been thoroughly explored, in the domains of both vocal and instrumental music (as in the vihuela). Similarly, there is quite …

Toward A British Guitar Canon: Ernest Shand’S Collected Works, Declan Hickey

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A review of Guitar Music from Late Victorian England: Collected Works, by Ernest Shand, edited by Stanley Yates (Classical Guitar Study Editions, 2022), publisher's website.

Left-Hand Technique And The Limits Of The Possible, Ricardo Iznaola

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This article conceptualizes classical guitar left-hand technique through a physiomechanical framework that places coordinated movement—particularly shifting—at the center of technical practice. Challenging traditional positional doctrines that privilege static hand forms and digital independence, the author argues that such approaches often disregard the functional anatomy of the limb, resulting in inefficiency, unnecessary tension, and potential injury.   Advancing the principle that form must follow function, the study proposes shifting as the fundamental technical category governing all left-hand procedures. A systematic typology—interpositional, intrapositional, and compound shifting—serves as the basis for analyzing arm-wrist-hand coordination across diverse technical contexts, including extensions and contractions, barrés, slurs, …

A Lost Culture Of Touch And Sound: The Contribution Of Visually Impaired Musicians To The Evolution Of The Spanish Guitar, Marco Ramelli

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In the story of music-making, blind musicians have played an intrinsic role, helping to drive the development not only of musical styles but also of instruments, instruction, and aesthetics. Many musical practices were cultivated first within blind communities and adopted only later by sighted musicians, often with a gradual erasure of their original context. The history of the Spanish guitar offers a compelling case study of this progression, demonstrating how the contribution of blind musicians could be both wide-reaching and yet, over time, forgotten. The history of this contribution is challenging to recover, for in Spain as elsewhere, blind musicians …

Come, Heavy Sleep: Motive And Metaphor In Britten’S Nocturnal, Opus 70, Stephen Goss

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"The prevailing melancholy [of Britten’s Nocturnal] is as natural to the guitar’s sonorities as it is appropriate in a tribute to John Dowland."

—Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten.

Such summary remarks characterise what little has been written about Britten’s Nocturnal outside the guitar world. The reader’s reaction might be one of passive agreement or mild irritation, but there is rarely dialogue because discourse is limited: Nocturnal after John Dowland is often passed over by Britten scholars with scant discussion or no mention at all. In fact, little has been added to Evans’ reliable commentary, written only three …

Rules And Rhetoric: Historically Informed Guitar Performance Of Baroque Music, Arash Ahmadzadeh

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Reviews of Interpreting Baroque Music: A Guide for the Modern Classical Guitarist, by Afshin Torabi Ardekani (Bergmann, second corrected edition, 2025) and Performing Baroque Music on the Classical Guitar: A Practical Handbook Based on Historical Sources, by Peter Croton (2015)

Round The Tárrega Bend, Julian Bream

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In this previously unpublished talk from 2004, delivered two years after his retirement from public performance, Julian Bream traces his own career in relation to the evolution of the modern guitar, recounting his early encounters with nineteenth-century guitars, the introduction of nylon strings to replace gut, innovations in guitar construction, and a transformative meeting with Andrés Segovia. But at the heart of the talk is his approach to sound. Bream discusses the essential elements of his tone production, including his right-hand position with its characteristic “three-quarter Tárrega bend” of the wrist, and his strong preference for the rest stroke. He …

Soundscapes, Pioneers, And Practices: Laying The Foundations Of The Russian Guitar, Wojciech Gurgul

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A review of The Seven-String Guitar in Russia: Its Origins, Repertoire, and Performance Practice, 1800–50, by Oleg Timofeyev (Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2023), Worldcat, publisher's website

8th Lake Constance Guitar Research Conference, Soundboard Scholar, Daniel Marx

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A brief report on this year's Lake Constance Conference series for researchers specializing in guitar, which took place on May 1–4, 2025.

Manjón, Llobet, And Barrios In Chile: Concerts And Reception In The Newspaper Record, Pablo Soto Hurtado

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Based on an investigation of newspaper articles, this article presents a first look at the activities of Antonio Jiménez Manjón, Miguel Llobet, and Agustín Barrios in Chile between 1893 and 1918. Manjón’s concerts were well received, clashing with some of the discourse in the local media, which considered the guitar vulgar and expressionless. Llobet introduced the Tárrega school in Chile in 1912, which is in itself a milestone in the study of Tárrega’s pedagogical philosophy in that country. Furthermore, his technique was praised and, like Manjón’s, led to the challenging of prejudices against the guitar. The case of Agustín Barrios, …

Putting It Together, Bit By Bit: Partimenti For Guitarists, James Renwick

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A review of Fenaroli's Musicali per i principianti di cembalo [Naples, 1775], edited for guitarists by Nicola Pignatiello, with translations of Fenaroli’s text by Robert Gjerdingen (Independently published, 2023), PDF available online.

Ferdinand Rebay And The Sonata Paradigm, Luiz Mantovani

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With an output of over thirty sonatas or sonata-structured works, Viennese composer Ferdinand Rebay (1880–1953) may be considered among the most significant composers of guitar sonatas; as yet, however, little has been written to place Rebay’s sonatas in historical context. Departing from a review of a guitar concert held in Vienna in 1925, which clearly indicates a shift in the perception of the instrument’s role and capabilities among mainstream audiences, I begin this investigation exploring the guitar club environment in German-speaking territories around the turn of the century, with a focus on the activities of the IGV (Internationale Gitarristenverband; International …

Picturing The Victorian Revival Of The Guitar: The Diary Of Caroline Maud Berkeley (1859–1949), Christopher Page

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The diary of Caroline Maud Berkeley née Tomlinson, compiled in thirteen sketch books from 1888 to 1901, offers the most extensive social record of guitar-playing to be found in any private document of the nineteenth century. This article, compiled with exclusive access to the original manuscripts, offers the first comprehensive digital record of more than twenty scenes of guitars in use, together with the accompanying diary text, which has never before been published in an authentic form. The diarist’s sharp eye for facial expressions and gestures, her radiant sense of color, and her keen sense of humor allow her to …

In Search Of A Granada School Of Lutherie, James Westbrook

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A review of Alberto Cuéllar et al., La guitarra tradicional en Granada = Granada and the Traditional Guitar (Granada: Diputación Provincial de Granada, 2024).

Vincenzo Pocci: Cataloguer, Editor, Digital Pioneer, Marco Vinicio Bazzotti, Adriano Sebastiani

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An obituary of Dr. Vincenzo Pocci, author of the Guide to the Guitarist’s Modern and Contemporary Repertoire and an internationally recognized scholar of twentieth-century guitar music.

The Tradition Of Illusion: Guitar Arrangement As A Post-Canonical Patchwork, Katalin Koltai

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This paper proposes an underpinning terminology for scholarly discussions of contemporary arrangement practices in the field of classical guitar performance. The introduction provides some historical foundations for the topic, aiming to present the roots of different approaches and methods in the work of important guitar arrangers. The paper continues by contextualizing arrangement processes within linguistics and language philosophy, discussing the topic of translation, and giving an overview of relevant terminologies. The centre of the paper is the theoretical investigation of arrangement and the identification of translating acts related to musical space, instrumental choreography, texture, timbre, or a combination of those, …

Dowlandia: Leafing Through Grapes’S New Research Guide, Katharyn R. Benessa

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A review of John Dowland: A Research and Information Guide, by K. Dawn Grapes (New York: Routledge, 2020)

New Light On Sagrini, Richard M. Long

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Reviews of a new biography of Luigi Sagrini (1809–1874) and a volume of his guitar works:

Bernard Lewis and Robert Coldwell, In Search of Luigi Sagrini (DGA, 2021)

Robert Coldwell, ed., The Music of Luigi Sagrini (DGA, 2021)