Overview

More than twenty years ago James Tyler wrote a modest introduction to the history, repertory, and playing techniques of the four- and five-course guitar. Entitled The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook (OUP 1980), this work proved valuable and enlightening not only to performers and scholars of Renaissance and Baroque guitar and lute music but also to classical guitarists. This new book, written in collaboration with Paul Sparks (their previous book for OUP, The Early Mandolin, appeared in 1989), presents new ideas and research on the history and development of the guitar and its music from the Renaissance to the dawn of the Classical era.Tyler's systematic study of the two main guitar types found between about 1550 and 1750 focuses principally on what the sources of the music (published and manuscript) and the writings of contemporary theorists reveal about the nature of the instruments and their roles in the music making of the period. The annotated lists of primary sources, previously published in The Early Guitar but now revised and expanded, constitute the most comprehensive bibliography of Baroque guitar music to date. His appendices of performance practice information should also prove indispensable to performers and scholars alike.Paul Sparks also breaks new ground, offering an extensive study of a period in the guitar's history--notably c.1759-c.1800--which the standard histories usually dismiss in a few short paragraphs. Far from being a dormant instrument at this time, the guitar is shown to have been central to music-making in France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and South America. Sparks provides a wealth of information about players, composers, instruments, and surviving compositions from this neglected but important period, and he examines how the five-course guitar gradually gave way to the six-string instrument, a process that occurred in very different ways (and at different times) in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Britain.

Full Product Details

Author:   James Tyler (, Professor of Music and Director of Early Music Performance Program, University of Southern California) ,  Paul Sparks (, mandolin player)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 19.50cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 25.50cm
Weight:   1.139kg
ISBN:  

9780198167136

ISBN 10:   019816713
Pages:   348
Publication Date:   29 August 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Dedication Preface List of Illustrations List of Tables List of Musical Examples List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Part I: The Guitar in the Sixteenth CenturyJames Tyler: 1: Spain: La Guitarra de quatro ordenes 2: France: The Creation of the Repertory 3: England: '... yused of gentilmen, and of the best sort ...' 4: Italy: La Chitarra da sette corde 5: Italy: The Role of the Guitar in the Rise of Monody Part II: The Spanish Guitar (c.1600-c.1750)James Tyler: 6: Italy: The Creation of the Repertory 7: France: Les Guitarristes Royals 8: 1. England 2. The Low Countries 3. Scandinavia 4. Germany and the Austrian Empire 9: Spain, Portugal, and the New World Appendix I. A Brief Guide to Reading and Interpreting Baroque Guitar Tablatures Appendix II. Sources of Specific Information on the Tuning and Stringing of the Five-course Guitar Appendix III. The Mandora Part III: The Origins of the Classical GuitarPaul Sparks: 10: 1750-69: The Emergence of the Six-Course Guitar 1. Spain, Portugal, and South America 2. France 3. Britain 11: 1770-89: The First Six-String Guitars 1. A Short History of String Making 2. Spain, South America, and Portugal 3. Italy 4. France 5. England. Germany, and Austria 12: 1790 to the Early 1800s: The Triumph of the Six-String Guitar 1. Spain and Portugal 2. Britain 3. Italy 4. France 5. Germany, Austria, and Elsewhere 13: The Guitar 1750-c.1800: Practical Information 1. The Instrument 2. Strings 3. Playing Positions 4. Specialist Techniques and Ornamentation Appendix IV: Primary Sources (1750-c. 1800) 1: Paris - Instrumental Music (Published) 2: Paris - Songs with Guitar Accompaniment (Published) 3: Guitar Methods (Published and Manuscript) 4: Non-Parisian Guitar Music (Published and Manuscript) Appendix V: Pieces for Guitar (c.1750-c.!800) Bibliography of Secondary Sources Index

Reviews

... exquisitely researched tome ... fascinating as a tool for frequent reference and a good read too. Classical Guitar Not only does [The Guitar and Its Music] offer a detailed guide to the sources, it integrates recent work from the fields of organology and iconography, archival and patronage studies, performance practice, and the analogous area of lute music, resulting in a coverage that is impressively inclusive in the best sense of the word. Renaissance Quarterly ... with its detailed discussions of the sources, clear explanations of performance issues, and the extension of the coverage into the eighteenth century, all formed upon a solid musicological base, this book will surely be a cornerstone of future research and performance of early guitar repertories ... an important and essential study. Renaissance Quarterly This informative book with contributions from two of the most notable scholars in the field of early plucked instruments fills in a far more complete historical account of the guitar than James Tyler's already impressive 1976 OUP volume, A Handbook of the Early Guitar. Much new research figures in the detailed accounts of the guitar covering the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The Lute Society of America Quarterly In this very important new book, James Tyler and Paul Sparks have managed not only to document the guitar's early history, but also to open a window on the music, survey the various relevant instruments and playing techniques, and set a course for future research. Their work will appeal to a wide range of readers, from historians with little interest in the guitar for its own sake, to performers with little interest in history for its own sake. Charles Youmans, Notes Books on the history of the guitar are not in short supply but this one is one of the very best ... Tyler's contribution is excellent ... The Guitar and Its Music will open the eyes of those who think that the instrument is fit only for rock stars, born-again evangelists - and the occasional Prime Minister. Anthony Pryer, Times Literary Supplement

Author Information

James Tyler, lute player and musicologist, is Professor of Music and Director of the Early Music Performance Programme at the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music. He was a member of The Early Music Consort of London, the Julian Bream Consort, and Founding Director of the London Early Music Group, and has toured extensively throughout the world as a performer, also making several recordings. His books include The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook (OUP 1980), and (with Paul Sparks) The Early Mandolin (OUP 1989), and he contributed many articles to the revised edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan 2000). Paul Sparks, a perfomer and musicologist specializing in plucked string instruments, was awarded a doctorate at City University, London, for his thesis on the 18th-century Neapolitan mandolin. As a mandolin player and guitarist he has worked with most leading British orchestras, and in his numerous recitals (including several for BBC Radio 3) he has endeavoured to rehabilitate forgotten items from the 18th-century repertoire. He is the co-author (with James Tyler) of The Early Mandolin (OUP 1989), author of The Classical Mandolin (OUP 1995), and a contributor to The Classical Guitar: A Complete History (Balafon 1997) and to the revised edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan 2000).

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