Greetings all, 1. The answer to Stuart's question is that the book Instrumentos Musicais Populares Portugueses, by Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira published in 2000 is I only available in Portuguese. If you really want to know about these Iberian instruments you will have to read Spanish and Portuguese. The English language sources are very poor... I should say here that I am not a native Spanish or Portuguese speaker. Although my father was from Galicia Spain, my mother was American of Polish descent. I was born in New Jersey, We did not speak Spanish at home. Although I made my first trip to Spain when I was a teen, I had to learn Spanish and Portuguese through many years of study in high school, college and graduate school.
2. I do not remember the Portuguese guitarra made by Rosa and Caldiera, Lisbon, mid 19th century that you mention in Baines 'European and American Musical Instruments' (1966). I do know the guitarra on the front the Guitarra Magica book. 3. I know of a maker named João Viera da Silva who Cabral states was active in Lisbon in 1799. His guittar is shown in Cabral's book. His first name is also given as Jaco. 4. Here is Stuart's statement which I wish to comment on: Doesn't that beg the question of the origin of the Portuguese guitar? There simply couldn't have been a method for the Portuguese guitar in 1796 because it hadn't yet been invented/developed. To a non-Portuguese person it would seem simpler to say that the Silva Leite method is the start of the uniquely Portuguese development of the instrument (rather than take Cabrals' route of surmising a mysterious 'citola' and a prior but invisible tradition)? Your statement raises all kind of issues which I am not really prepared at this moment to deal with but I will make few comments. a) As everyone on this list knows the information about the medieval cítola is scarce (Let's not get hung up at this time how this term is supposedly spelled--citole, citolom, citra, cithara). In Cabral's book (A Guitarra Portuguesa) he starts by showing drawings of medieval instruments which he variantly calls cítola and cítaras from the Psaltério de Utrecht, Reims circa 820 located at Biblitheek Der Rijksuniversiteit, Utretcht, Holland, Salmo 43, fol. 25r, Salmo 92, fol. 54v. , Salmo 147, fol. 82 r.. Then, he displays paintings with cítaras in them located in the Bible of Carlos, ) O Calvo, from 830 AD, located at the Biblioteca Nacional de Paris, Ms. Lat I. I fl. 215 v. . Next, he shows another cítola from the Psalterio de Estugada, circa 860 AD, located at Wurtembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl., fol. 23, fl. 63. v and fol. 23, fl. 63 v.. He then shows a sculpture from the Baptisterio de Parma de Benedetto Antelami (circa 1180 AD). Then he shows various drawing from the Cancioneiro de Ajuda from the XIII and XIV centuries (I do not understand where these are located). He also shows a colored drawing from the Cantigas de Santa Maria (XIV century) located at the Library of the Escorial, Madrid, fol 29. He goes on to show the 14th century cítola from Warwick Castle in England ( located at the British Museum in London)--saying that this is only existing example of this instrument. He does not show a drawing or a specimen of a distinctively Portuguese medieval cítola. He is only presenting Western European evidence of the medieval cítola.It is important to remember that during medieval times that the Moors were in possession of ost of the Iberican peninsula. b) Cabral proceeds to show a number of nice Italia cítaras dating from 1550 and after: one from Giovanni Salvatori (Italy), another from Gasparo da Salo (Brecia), three from Girolamo de Virchis (Brescia), another from Augustinus Citaraedus (Urbino, Italy), the anonymous Italian cítara at the Ashmolean in Oxford and an anonymous Flemish cítar from 1640 in the Museu da Músia in Lisbon. He also show a photo of sculpture of an angel playing a cítara from 1415 located at the church of the monastery of Santa Maria da Vitoria located at Batalha, Portugal. To this point in his text, which was written in the mid 1980's, he has only be able to show the 1415 sculpture of a Portuguese cítara. I should mention that since that time I believe that an earlier sculpture has been located just over the border from Portugal at the cathedral ofSantiago de Compostela, Spain--I do not remember the date of that sculpture--it is above a doorway whcih was mentioned to me by Luis Penedo (President of the Academia da Guitarra Portuguesa e do Fado, in Lisboa) c) Cabral next presents a short section on the Baroque cítara then he proceeds to the Grand Family of the European Cítaras. This section includes cítaras (citterns) from Hamburg (1700 by Joachim Tielke), 2 from Nuremburg (1766 by Andreas Kram and the other anonymous), 1 from Paris by Georges Cousineau, 1780), 1 from Lille ( byGerard Deleplanque 1770), 1 from Turingia, Germany (19th century anonymous). The English Guittars by (John Preston between 1734 and 1770), John Rutherford (circa 1750), Remerius Liessem (1756), Edward Dickenson (1759), Frederick Hintz (1760), William Gibson (1765, Dublin), Michael Rauche 1770 and 1772), Joseph Rudiman (1780, Aberdeen), Jacøo Vieira da Silva (1790 Lisbon), Chritian Claus (1783), Domingos José de Araujo (Braga. Portugal 1806, 1807, 1812) Henrique Rufino Ferro Lisbon 1820) d) The next chapter Cabral entitles the Portuguese Guitarra. The first instrument shown is the 12 string instrument with 12 wooden pegs made in 1764 by Joaquim Pedro dos Reis. I have seen this instrument at the City Museum in Lisbon. This instrument is distinct from the contemporary English guitars which have 10 strings and also in the peg head design. The pegs come through the head like a modern flamenco guitar, not from the sides like English guittars which have wooden pegs (such the John Preston Guittar shown in the book). If the date of this instrument is correct (and many believe it is), then it predates the Silva Leite book by 30 years. Also, it show that there was a 12 string Portuguese tradition from at least the last third of the 18th century. Cabral refers to this instrument as the cítara popular (popular cittern)-- it seems that the term guitarra comes later (perhaps with Silva Leite's book). I should note here that the last reference that Cabral could find for the use of the term cítara in Portugal was in 1858 in a work by François Joseph Fétis entitled A Música ao alcance de todos. (Cabral does not mention where this book was published.). The Joaquim Pedro dos Reis instrument is also interesting because it is claimed to the be "guitarra" of Maria Severa who was the first great fado singer. The rest of this chapter includes a variety of Portuguese guitarras ranging from great instruments by João Pedro Gracio (1925), Joaquim "Kim" Graçio (1957), alvaro Marciano da Silveira (1961), João pedro Gracio Junior (1964), Gilberto Gracio (1969 and 1971) Fernando Meireles (1998), Antonio Victor Vieira (1932) Jose Mendonça (1910), antoio França Camacho (1912), avelino Coutinho (1915), augusto Viera (1921), antonio Diogo de Moraes (1922) Antonio Duarte (1900), Arthur de Albuquerque (1900), and Portuguese Electruc guitarra by Gil Oliveira (1989) and, my favorite a Portugese guitar made from a large rectangular tin can which used to hold Estrela da Beira brand coffee. O course, all of this is mind boggling. There are so many loose ends, misunderstandings of terms, poor translations of facts, terminological difficulties. In the new year when I work on my playng the guitarra DVD I will review all of the Portuguese literature and maybe I will be able to give a digested version of the relevant history. Ron Fernandez -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
