Spain's Unwritten Repertoire

In Italy the five-course guitar was invariably called chitarra spagnuola, and Girolamo Montesardo, who was the first to publish a guitar book there, speaks of playing and singing “in the Spanish style.” It is appropriate, therefore, to start this chapter with a brief survey of the instrument's position in the Spanish musical landscape.

In the sixteenth century, music for the vihuela and the four-course guitar consisted for the most part of polyphonic fantasías and intavolations of vocal polyphony, dances taking a more modest place. This repertoire can be roughly compared to that of the lute from the same period. Around the turn of the century, though, the vihuela had lost ground, the last book, El Parnasso by Esteban Daza (or Daça), having been printed in 1576. At about the same time, the fi vecourse guitarra española began its rise across Europe. And so it is likely that in other countries the guitar was seen as intrinsically Spanish, even though there were no sources of guitar music printed in that country for the greater part of the seventeenth century. This does not mean that a Spanish repertoire did not exist. There is, for example, the Metodo mui facilissimo para aprender a tañer la guitarra (1626) by Luis de Briçeño, published in Paris, but of a truly Spanish character. Briçeño used the guitar as a chordal instrument in accompaniment, but also in very simple dance solos. The many references to the Spanish background of the ciaccona and other dances, such as the folia and villano, are an indication that there was more music for the guitar than has survived on paper. Spanish songs are also contained in the numerous collections of arias with alfabeto, edited in Italy in the years after 1600. From all available information it appears that at that time playing alla spagnuola was, in fact, chord strumming.

Suárez de Figueroa, in his Plaza universal de todas ciencias y profesiones (published in Madrid in 1615) speaks of Vicente Espinel, “autor de las tocatas, y cantares de sala,” from which we can learn that Espinel composed tocatas, instrumental solo pieces.