The 19th-Century Italian Guitar

1. Biographies of Italian Guitarists and Composers

The work of collecting Italian music for the classical guitar of the 19th century took me much time in last ten years. Now I can present the biographies of all the greatest Italian guitarists and composers and also of many now neglected guitarists and composers of the last century who fluorished in the years between the last decades of 18th-century and approximately 1860, in the so-called Classic period of the guitar.
I maintain also a database of Italian composer of 20th-century which starts after 1900 and goes up 1960. The listing of the authors' works also are limited to the printed works in their first printed edition (if known) or 19th-century editions (there are still many mistakes and ambiguity, I apologize for that). These pages are UNDER CONSTRUCTION, I wish to finish the work before next decade (2010).
I will be very thankful for all suggestions and request of amendments to the data here presented. I will add any help in my list of Acknowledgments. See also the Bibliography

If you have no prior knowledge of this subject I suggest you to start with the most acknowledged composers, for example in the following order:

2. Cronology of the Guitar in 19th-Century

I am currently working on the project of presenting a chronology of the most important events in the CG (classical guitar) sphere of the century.

3. History of the Biographical Files

These bibliographic files were originally extracted from the Italian entries in the CD-ROM "Catalogo analitico delle musiche per chitarra del XIX secolo" by Massimo Agostinelli, Associazione Musicale Ottocento, Ancona (Italy) and translated into English by M. Bazzotti with the help by Michael Penny and then published in the Italian website Just CLASSICAL Guitar. A new volume "Guitar Dictionary 1800-1860" containig all the guitarists' and composers' biographies was issued by Ottocento Edizioni Musicali, by M. Agostinelli, in cooperation with M. Bazzotti.

4. Limits of the Biographical Files

Due to the limits of the present work, some authors were excluded by this database, due to lack of reliable information about their activity and their music.

We will be grateful to anybody will help to add more information on the biographies to this list.

It is contained in a separate file: Bibliography

6. Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Prof. Thomas Heck for his necessary suggestions about the biography of Mauro Giuliani, Dott. Mario Torta for his valuable suggestions, Dr. Michael Penny, Assoc. Professor of Voice at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee (USA), for his valuable help in the phase of translation of these files.