The art and times of the guitar an illustrated history of guitars and guitarists / Frederic V. Grunfeld.
| Author/creator | Grunfeld, Frederic V. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | New York : Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1974, ©1969. |
| Description | 340 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, portraits ; 21 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | A twang for all seasons -- When is a guitar? -- Guitarra and Vihuela -- La guitarre royalle -- The age of Figaro -- Guitaromanie -- Wine cups of daybreak -- The guitar in America -- Six maids dancing. |
| Abstract | In a lively narrative, filled with historical anecdote and the texts of songs and ballads, the author traces the guitar's evolution through the ages, in the hands of the people who played it: stone-age hunters who twanged the forerunner of all stringed instruments, the mouth bow; Hittites, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; the Moorish minstrels of Spain and the medieval troubadours; sixteenth-century Spanish court composers; rococo French voluptuaries; Romantic virtuosos like Sor and Giuliani (as well as Berlioz and Paganini): and the many important modern exponents of the guitar, ranging from Andrés Segovia and Julian Bream to Leadbelly, Charlie Christian, and George Harrison. Woven through the pages of this social history are details of the instruments technical development--the continuing changes in its physical form and the various styles of playing and notation that have produced drastically different sounds and moods from the sixteenth century to the electronic twentieth. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliography (pages 323-334) and index. |
| LCCN | 69010465 |