The early romantic guitar, the guitar of the Classical and Romantic period, shows remarkable consistency from 1790 to 1830.Stalking the Oldest Six String Guitar
/ref> Guitars had six or more single courses of strings while the

Baroque guitar The Baroque guitar (–1750) is a string instrument with five Course (music), courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets. The first (highest pitched) course sometimes used only a single string. History The Baroque guitar replaced the lute as ...

usually had five double courses (though the highest string might be single). The romantic guitar eventually led to Antonio de Torres Jurado's fan-braced Spanish guitars, the immediate precursors of the modern classical guitar. From the late 18th century the guitar achieved considerable general popularity though, as Ruggero Chiesa stated, subsequent scholars have largely ignored its place in classical music. It was the era of guitarist-composers such as

Fernando Sor Fernando Sor (baptised 14 February 1778 – 10 July 1839) was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer of the Classical period (music), late Classical era and Romantic music, early Romantic era. Best known for writing solo classical guitar mu ...

, Ferdinando Carulli, Mauro Giuliani and

Matteo Carcassi Matteo Carcassi (8 April 1792 – 16 January 1853)Raffaele Carpino, Mario dell'Ara: "Matteo Carcassi. Un nuovo aggiornamento biografico", in: ''Il Fronimo'' no. 184 (2018), p. 5–9. was an Italian guitarist and composer. Life Carcassi was born i ...

. In addition several well-known composers not generally linked with the guitar played or wrote for it:

Luigi Boccherini Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (, also , ; 19 February 1743 – 28 May 1805) was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and '' galante'' style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major classi ...

and

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...

wrote for it in several pieces,

Hector Berlioz Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the ''Symphonie fantastique'' and ''Harold en Italie, Harold in Italy'' ...

was a proficient guitarist who neither played keyboards nor received an academic education in music, the violin virtuoso

Niccolò Paganini Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini (; ; 27 October 178227 May 1840) was an Italian violinist and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices ...

played guitar informally and

Anton Diabelli Anton (or Antonio) Diabelli (5 September 17818 April 1858) was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote ...

produced a quantity of guitar compositions (''see List of compositions by Anton Diabelli'').

History

The first known guitar built to be strung with single strings rather than pairs of strings was built in 1774 by Ferdinando Gagliano in Naples. This guitar, which was displayed in the Heyer Museum, Cologne before that museum was dispersed, showed some important differences from the modern classical guitar. It had 5 single strings, inlaid brass frets, a long neck relative to string length (the fretboard meeting the body at the 11th fret), a pegged bridge and a characteristic figure-8 shaped tuning head. It lacked only a sixth string to make it identical with the early romantic guitar. The earliest extant six-string guitar was built in 1779 by Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 – after 1831) in

Naples, Italy Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is also known for developing the

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

. This guitar shows no sign of modification from a double-course guitar. The authenticity of guitars before the 1790s is often in question. Moretti's 6-string method appeared in 1799. Around the same time France also began to produce guitars with six single courses and Spain soon followed. Italian, French, and Spanish six-string guitars differed from the baroque guitar in similar ways. In addition to the advances already mentioned the guitar was gradually given more pronounced curves and a larger body while ornamentation was more restrained, remaining mostly around the edges of the body and the sound hole, which lacked a decorative rose to allow more volume. Frets were no longer of tied gut but fixed strips of some harder material, first ebony or ivory then metal. Wooden pegs were later replaced by metal tuning machines.Harvey Turnbull, P. Sparks. "The Early Six String Guitar." from the ''Groves Online Dictionary'' article: "Guitar", last updated December 2009

Technique

The many instructional books of the time show no standard playing technique but rather a reliance upon earlier traditions. For example, they often recommend that the right hand be supported on the guitar's table although the Spanish guitarist Nicario Juaralde took the modern view, warning against a loss of right-hand freedom. The thumb and first two fingers were mainly used for plucking with, in the 19th century, a free stroke ('' tirando'') more commonly than the rest stroke ('' apoyando'') that was favoured in the 20th century. Unlike most classical guitarists today, players were divided as to whether or not use fingernails. Fernando Sor, for example, did not use them while his compatriot

Dionisio Aguado Dionisio, a variant of Dionysius, may refer to: People Given name * Dionisio Lazzari (1617–1689), Italian sculptor and architect * Dionisio Aguado y García (1784–1849), Spanish classical guitarist and composer * Papa Isio (1846–1911), Dio ...

did. The narrower fretboard of the romantic guitar allowed the left-hand thumb to be used by some guitarists to fret the sixth string although

deprecates this in his

method Method (, methodos, from μετά/meta "in pursuit or quest of" + ὁδός/hodos "a method, system; a way or manner" of doing, saying, etc.), literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In re ...

, recommending that the left-hand thumb remain at the rear centre of the neck and noting that the "high" thumb position aids neither bass-string fingering nor support of the guitar. Romantic guitars often had a neck-strap around the player's neck while Dionisio Aguado invented a "tripodion" for holding the instrument. Aguado also advocated a relaxed posture, leaning back in a chair with both feet solidly on the ground rather than using a footstool to achieve the later conventional posture, the edge of the chair being used to keep the guitar from sliding down to the right, bringing the neck upward, closer to the player's torso, rather than projecting to the left.Thomas Heck, "A Relaxing Way to Hold the Guitar: Variation on a Theme by Aguado?" from ''Soundboard'' magazine, 2004. Vol. XXX No. 3 2004: 31 – 34.

Composers

* Antoine de Lhoyer (1768–1852) * Francesco Molino (1768–1847) * Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841) * François de Fossa (1775–1849) * Joseph Küffner (1776–1856) *

(1778–1839) *

(1781–1858) * Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829) *

(1782–1840) *

(1784–1849) * Carl Blum (1786–1844) * Charles Michael Alexis Sola (1786–1857) *

(1792–1853) * Josiah Andrew Hudleston (1799–1865) * Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806–1856) *

Napoléon Coste Claude Antoine Jean Georges Napoléon Coste (27 June 1805 – 14 January 1883) was a French classical guitarist and composer. Biography Napoléon Coste was born in Amondans (Doubs, Doubs, Doubs), near Besançon, France. He was first taught the g ...

(1805–1883) * Adam Darr (1811–1866) * Eduard Bayer (1822–1908) * Giulio Regondi (1822–1872) * Jacques Bosch (1825–1895) * Julian Arcas (1832–1882) * Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909)

Luthiers

* Johann Georg Stauffer * René François Lacôte * Jean Nicolas Grobert * Christian Frederick Martin * Antonio de Torres Jurado * Louis Panormo * Joseph Pons * Etienne Laprevotte * Gennaro Fabricatore

References

External links