The little wire-strung guitar/guittar of the second half of the the 18th
century was almost always tuned to a C major chord. And almost all of
the music written (or arranged/adapted) for it is in... C major.
Occasionally there will be pieces in C with sections in C minor and A
minor. After C major, the second most common key is F major. Pieces in
keys other than C or F are rare. And pieces exclusively in minor keys
are rarer still.
(The seven-string Russian guitar, tuned to a G major chord, is quite
different - with pieces in a range of keys and many pieces, including
virtuoso pieces, in minor keys. Perhaps this is because it has gut
rather than wire strings.)
But there are very few pieces for the wire-strung English guitar in
minor keys. Rudolf Straube, who was harmonically the most adventurous
for this instrument, didn't write any pieces in minor keys in his 1768
collection (but there are minor key sections within major key pieces.)
Maybe minor keys don't work well on a wire-strung instrument tuned to a
major chord (I think Rob Mackillop has suggested this). Well here's one
in D minor by G.B. Noferi. I'm playing this on an original instrument
with peg tuning and the fretting of that time - not a modern instrument
with ET.
Interestingly, at the end of each section of the piece, the final chord
(F major at the the first, D minor at the second) doesn't have the root
of the chord. There are no technical difficulties in playing the lower
note F or D - but Noferi conspicuously omits them, leaving the final
chord as an inversion. (Suggesting his background as a violinist?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MukVuk1Os
Stuart
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