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The Baroque period of music was an extreme change from the Renaissance period. These changes led to modifications of instruments to play the music that was in the heads of the Baroque composers of that time. If an instrument could not adapt to this music its loss of popularity might have banished it forever. " The Renaissance favored the affections of restraint and noble simplicity1". This was the opposite of the Baroque; "(the Baroque favored)..extreme affections, ranging from violent pain to exuberant joy.2" New methods of technique would have to be invented in the Baroque period to perform music with such a high emotional level. " The works of Corbetta and his school can be regarded as the ultimate in development of style of the Baroque guitar3". The expression of this music was between the style of strumming the strings with ones hand and individual string picking with the fingers like the lute. Usually the guitar was tuned differently for musica ruidso which used the strumming technique, than when one played in a contrapuntal style. Corbetta's influence was very great in Paris, from 1656 to 1662. In French court circles, Corbetta had come to know England's exiled Charles II, who had become an enthusiastic guitarist. When Charles returned back to England in 1660, Corbetta followed. The guitar was given a respected place in England and replaced the lute as the favored instrument by 1670. Corbetta's last two books entitled La Guitarre Royalle, were dedicated to his royal patrons Charles II and Louis XIV. Robert de Visee was the most famous of Corbetta's students. Vissee's first collection published, Livre de Guitarre dedie au Roy, "was more delicately constructed then Corbetta's, and concerned more with melodic and contrapuntal clarity.4" Vissee did not the use musica ruidso technique, known as rasgueado in his composition to the extent of Corbetta. Several of Visee's suites, particularly the one in D minor from his Livre de pieces pour la guitarre (1686) are favorites of today's guitarists, but the performance of these pieces by most is not an accurate representation of Visse's pen. " On the most basic level, one must keep in mind that Vissee's guitar sounded nothing like today's concert models5".(22) Visse's tuning "....included higher octave doubling on the fourth (D) and fifth(A) courses- a configuration that cannot be achieved on the modern single-strung guitar.6" The rasgueado passages that are written in Visse's work are now plucked instead of strummed. In Spain, Gaspar Sanz was blazing the guitar path. Born in Calenda around 1640, Sanz studied the organ in Rome and landed a job as an organist. During his stay in Rome Sanz was introduced to the guitar, and studied it under the aid of Corbetta. When Sanz returned back to Spain, he wrote and had published, Instrucion de musica sobre la guitarra Espanola( 1674), studies and technical notes. "This was the only collection of work Sanz had published, and stresses the punteado (plucked) style and gets even further away from the rasgueado style.7" During the Baroque period the guitar did not change much from the Renaissance. Although the five string guitar was developed late in the Renaissance, ( A-D-G-B-E) much of the music written for it was in the Baroque. It might be considered a Baroque instrument from that perspective. The sixth string was added to the guitar in the middle of the eighteenth century which marks the end of the Baroque period. Although the sixth string guitar(Ee-Aa-Dd-gg-bb-ee) is in this period, much of its music comes in the next. Remember, the guitars of this period are double strung, so the six string guitar has 12 strings, two for each pitch.. " The first single six string guitars were being made in Italy a little after the middle of the eighteenth century8". Much of the music that is played on the guitar today is from the Baroque period, and was originally written for the lute. In fact much of the music that was played on the Baroque guitar was styled after the music played on the lute. The allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue and bourree were all well used forms for the Baroque lute. Much of the music found from this time was anonymous, but some composers, N. Vallet, G.W Druckhenmuller, Du Faut and of course Bach were known. The Bach lute suites are such good example of how guitar music was to be constructed that they are still used today for classifications of virtuosity. For example BWV 998 , Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro, is thought of as one of the most rigorous compositions for guitar in, and the lute suite 1006a has been deemed almost impossible to play as written. All of this music is extremely contrapuntal, especially the fugue in BWV 998. This fugue develops into three separate functioning themes played at the same time. Although not intended for the guitar, the lute suites have been transcribed for the guitar and are used today as a requirement for entry into many graduate schools. "In the sixteenth century the guitar is overshadowed by the lute and the vihuela, and the use of their music is evident in its repertory.9" Towards the nineteenth century guitar composers started to write for the instrument for the instruments sake only, not for dances or songs, but for performance as a solo instrument. "Between these dates the instrument is stuck with a reputation as a instrument that was more used for accompaniment style, playing many strings with a strumming action( rasgueado), than for solo playing style of controlling each string as a separate entity(punteado)10". It took a very long time for the classical guitar to be accepted as a instrument capable of virtuosity.
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