Dear Rob, With regard to the name, it may have been the Portugese who, of course, still play a variant of the 'English' guit(t)ar (the guitarra), who prompted the modern usage of 'English guit(t)ar' for the instrument.
For example, two Portugese manuscript collections (P-La, 54-XII-177 and 54-X-371-5) from around 1800 contain 'Escala de Guitarra Ingles' and 'Receuil D'Ariettas choisies avec accompagnement de Guitarre Anglaise' respectively. The important book by Antonio da Silva Leite (Estudio de Guitarra,... Oporto 1796) contains much useful information about how the Portugese took to the instrument. He says the best guitars came from England, the best builder being 'Mr Simpson' and he goes onto say ..' and in this city of Oporto there is Luis Cardoso Soares Sevilhano who today loses little in comparison with Simpson'. Martyn --- On Thu, 31/1/13, Rob MacKillop <[email protected]> wrote: From: Rob MacKillop <[email protected]> Subject: [LUTE] The English Guitar To: "Lute" <[email protected]> Date: Thursday, 31 January, 2013, 8:50 I'm no fascist, so if you want to discuss the so-called English Guitar, I suggest you do so here, not in the thread of my video performance (which everyone except Martyn seems to have seen). I only ever said don't use my video thread to discuss the wider issues of the guittar. My reason for creating a separate thread is that it makes it easier for me to avoid. The reason for avoiding the discussion is that there are a few regulars here who cannot discuss anything without killing the subject for anyone who has a love for it. So, what is an English Guitar? Rob (exits stage left...) -- To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
