ron fernandez wrote: > Brad, > > Pedro Caldeira Cabral makes his argument in his book A Guitarra > Portuguesa (The Portuguese Guitarra--the word "A" in Portuguese means > 'The") published in 1999 by Ediclub in Lisbon. He also wrote a chapter > in Instrumentos Musicais Populares Portugueses, by Ernesto Veiga de > Oliveira published in 2000 where he gives his argument. > > His argument is basically that there was a 12-string citola made in > Portugal hundred of years before the English guittar. He argues that the > stringing, shape, tuning, and playing technique used on the citola are a > continuous line evolutionary line to the present Portuguese guitarra. He > says that the English Guittar had an influence on the evolution of the > Portuguese guitarra but that the English Guittar did not arrive into a > vacuum in Portugal. > > In another book called A Guitarra Portuguesa which was a compilation of > articles from the 2001 Universidade de Evora symposium, Manuel Morais > makes some arguments against Cabral's thesis. > > In my opinion this matter has an interesting political subtext which has > to do with cultural imperialism. > Namely that the English speaking world's view of the "Portuguese" > guitarra is that it was given to the Portuguese by the British--the > implication being that the Portuguese were so deficit that their > national instrument had to be invented for them. This view has been sold > by the Grove encyclopedia for many years. The thesis of Cabral attempt > to rebuke this English (anglo-centric) view of the evolution of the > Portuguese guitarra and Portuguese culture. > > I am presently trying to prepare dozens of Spanish guitars for shipment > to stores so I must drop out of this discussion for a month. Above I > have given the source books, I encourage all of you to do your research > on this issue. Perhaps Pedro Caldeira Cabral will express his views on > this forum. > > Regards, > > Ron Fernández > > > > >
This is very interesting. Perhaps this is what Martina was talking about too. And I'm sure I've seen a website on the Portuguese guitarra suggesting something similar. 1) First of all, the anglo-centric thing. Here in England, the English guitar is held with complete indifference. (Just an amateur instrument fashionable with well-to-do ladies.) You can even buy one - an original 18th century instrument - for less than $1000 dollars. I doubt you'd get any other eighteenth century musical instrument for that price. As I mentioned in a reply to Martina, the only people who play the instrument today (that I've ever heard of) are non-English. I think English people might be quite proud of the cittern tradition of Holborne and Robinson, but that tradition ends firmly in the seventeenth century. Terms like 'guitharre angloise' (1770) and Englischen Guitarre (1790s) go back to the eighteenth century. In Britain the instrument was simply the'guitar' or 'guittar' (very occasionally, 'cittern'!). Ron, it seems quite extraordinary that anyone would think that the English guitar was 'given' to the Portuguese by the English to give to improve Portuguese culture! (Britain and Portugal were both rapacious colonists - there's no post-colonial angle here.) 2) I got the the idea that the Portuguese guitarra was derived from the English guitar from a Portuguese book on instruments written in the 1930s (can't find the reference at the moment. I think it was written by Ribiero). I got someone to translate some pages for me. This text clearly says: "On the whole it is clear that it (the guittar/guitarra) was brought there probably by the English colony.".And then: "Silva Leite gave the version current during his time. We read on page25: 'The guitar,they say, has its origin in Great Britain'". Ron gave the reference to the online version of Silva Leite's 'Estudo de Guitarra" (1796) - http://purl.pt/165. And you can see this first sentence of Parte 11 (page 25) seems to be saying exactly this. According to the translation I have of the 1930s book on Portuguese instruments, on the next page of Silva Leite's 'Estudo', he says that guitars came from England and the best were by Simpson. (There are also some fascinating references to Brazil and someone called Domingo Caldas Banbosa) I suppose Pedro Cabral must be arguing that Silva Leite has got it all wrong. 2) The mysterious 12-string 'citola' that existed for hundreds of years before the English guitar. I raised a question last week on this list about the Iberian cittern. People who I think are really knowledgeable about the cittern of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the citola is isn't meant meant to predate the Renaissance cittern is it?) responded with just a very few references to the cittern in Spain and Portugal. On the face of it, there seems to be virtually no evidence of a cittern tradition there. On the other hand there are many, many references to citterns (instruments, publications, MSS, iconography, literary) in other places: the Low Countries, France, Britain, Italy etc. Why was the citola invisible when citterns were perfectly visible in other places? And why call it 'citola', rather than cittern? And why think there is a 'continuous evolutionary line' between this and the guitarra? We've had plenty of disagreement on this kind of thinking on this list. If Eugene were on this list, we'd get a lecture about the dissimilarities between biological and organological kinds. And Doc, for example, thinks that the cittern has a 'zig-zag' history (whatever that means). I just think that there are periods of fission and fusion between the guitar and the cittern. The recent discussions on mandolins and waldzithern suggest how entangled things get. 'Continuous evolutionary lines' are hard to come by - especially when one end of the line, the 'citola' end, seems wholly obscure. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
