The Spanish guitar

I live in a World Heritage City in the U.K. It may be because of its constant stream of visitors and the perceived need to give them reasons for coming, that the city is continually holding festivals of one sort or another. The International Music Festival is the most prestigious but there is also a Bach Festival, a Mozart Festival, a Food Festival and just now as I write, an International Guitar festival. Amongst the performers is the brilliant English acoustic jazz guitarist, Martin Taylor, who I have heard in concert.

Spain invented the guitar, so much so that the terms ‘classical’ and ‘Spanish’ guitar have become interchangeable. The earliest instruments can be traced back to the 14th. century, and are one of a large family of ‘cordofonos’, producing sound from the plucking of strings by fingers or prongs. The early guitar with three double pairs of strings and a single (high) string were the alternative amongst the middle and lower classes to the aristocracy’s ‘vihuela ‘, often played with a bow or quill. In the mid 18th century a sixth string was added and the double strings made single and then in the 19th century the old wooden pegs were exchanged for a machine head and later still the strings were changed to nylon rather then gut.

It was Fernando Sor (17718-1839) who set the guitar on its course of moving to a position of musical prominence. He was a musician and composer of a great deal of music, much of it for one or two guitars. It was after leaving Paris after a brief stay there and settling in London, that he wrote his massive Variations on a theme of Mozart, which became a standard work for the instrument. It was left to others and notably Segovia (who edited much of his work) to build on his foundation and then as we have seen, other composers of the 20th. century to vastly extend the instrument’s repertoire and reputation.

B.R.