The first book devoted to the composers, instrument makers and amateur players who advanced the great guitar vogue throughout Western Europe during the early decades of the nineteenth century.

Contemporary critics viewed the fashion for the guitar with sheer hostility, seeing in it a rejection of true musical value. After all, such trends advanced against the grain of mainstream musical developments of ground-breaking (often Austro-German) repertoire for standard instruments. Yet amateur musicians throughout Europe persisted; many instruments were built to meet the demand, a substantial volume of music was published for amateurs to play, and soloist-composers moved freely between European cities. This book follows these lines of travel venturing as far as Moscow, and visiting all the great musical cities of the period, from London to Vienna, Madrid to Naples.

The first section of the book looks at eighteenth-century precedents, the instrument - its makers and owners, amateur and professional musicians, printing and publishing, pedagogy, as well as aspects of repertoire. The second section explores the extensive repertoire for accompanied song and chamber music. A final substantive section assembles chapters on a wide array of the most significant soloist-composers of the time. The chapters evoke the guitar milieu in the various cities where each composer-player worked and offer a discussion of some representative works. This book, bringing together an international tally of contributors and never before examined sources, will be of interest to devotees of the guitar, as well as music historians of the Romantic period.

Contributor: Christopher Page CHRISTOPHER PAGE is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Academia Europaea, Emeritus Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and from October 2014 until May 2018 was Gresham Professor of Music at Gresham College, London (founded 1597). An Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he holds the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association awarded for outstanding services to musicology. --- Contributor: Paul Sparks PAUL SPARKS is a British guitarist, mandolinist, and author of three books for Oxford University Press: The Early Mandolin (1989, with James Tyler), The Classical Mandolin (1995), and The Guitar and its Music (2002, with Tyler). He has also published two articles in Early Music: 'Clara Ross, Mabel Downing and Ladies' Guitar and Mandolin Bands in late Victorian Britain' (2013), and 'The Mandolin in Britain, 1750-1800' (2018). He has also been a writer and/or producer for many BBC television music documentaries. --- Contributor: James Westbrook JAMES WESTBROOK is a British-based organologist whose particular interest is in guitar construction. He is the author of several illustrated books on history of the acoustic guitar. He is currently a member of the Research staff at the University of Cambridge Music Faculty, and he holds a Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge. --- Contributor: Christopher Page CHRISTOPHER PAGE is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Academia Europaea, Emeritus Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and from October 2014 until May 2018 was Gresham Professor of Music at Gresham College, London (founded 1597). An Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he holds the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association awarded for outstanding services to musicology. --- Contributor: Paul Sparks PAUL SPARKS is a British guitarist, mandolinist, and author of three books for Oxford University Press: The Early Mandolin (1989, with James Tyler), The Classical Mandolin (1995), and The Guitar and its Music (2002, with Tyler). He has also published two articles in Early Music: 'Clara Ross, Mabel Downing and Ladies' Guitar and Mandolin Bands in late Victorian Britain' (2013), and 'The Mandolin in Britain, 1750-1800' (2018). He has also been a writer and/or producer for many BBC television music documentaries. --- Contributor: James Westbrook JAMES WESTBROOK is a British-based organologist whose particular interest is in guitar construction. He is the author of several illustrated books on history of the acoustic guitar. He is currently a member of the Research staff at the University of Cambridge Music Faculty, and he holds a Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge. --- Contributor: Sarah Clarke SARAH CLARKE's research interests centre on the guitar in nineteenth-century England. She has a PhD in music from the Open University. In 2018 she was awarded the Andrew Britton Fellowship by the Cambridge Consortium for Guitar Research and has since been elected a member. She contributed a chapter to 'The Great Vogue for the Guitar in Western Europe 1800-1840' ed. by Christopher Page, Paul Sparks, and James Westbrook, 2023.

The information in this book represents the highest quality of guitar scholarship available today. This book is a must for anyone interested in classical guitar scholarship about the 19th Century.