This attempt to classify the composers and guitarists of Italian origin or naturalised in the Italian peninsula during all the course of the present century and their output, bases only on the relationships "guitar teachers-pupils", so disregarding the compositive schools and their inspiration. My intent in presenting this repertory, beside the presentation of a wealth of often unexplored music, at least at its extension, is to point out its contribution to the guitar repertory which I also studied and classified. I am aware that in my diagrams I have much more guitarists then true composers, but that is due to the fact that so many -- too many, probably -- guitarists tried to compose for their own instrument. In my wishes these lists could serve as a tutorial for entering the Italian "jungle" of the Italian guitar during our century.

The article itself was stimulated by the composer and guitarist Larry Cooperman, some time ago, when he asked me to trace a "diagram or table of the XXth century Italian guitar composers". The things that convinced me mostly to embark on this quite challenging undertaking, was the right Larry Cooperman's observation that I already maintained a full list of Italian guitar composers of our century, but what we don't have is the connections between them. I took for grant that I have been living in a "country that has such a powerful classical guitar heritage that it is well worth a closer look for the people on the web" (Larry, again). So from the beginning I wished that some of my few readers worldwide could have praised my efforts instead of criticising my criteria of classification, whatever they would be. But I had to express him my doubts about the possibility to draw a true family-tree of "influencer-influencee" of the Italian composers or at least of the most relevant part: too much mingling of styles do exist after, say, the compositive school of Vienna.

Another noticeable fact that I want to remark here is that many relevant Italian composers had nothing to do with guitar in all their life except for one or few pieces written occasionally under commission -- take for instance authors like Giorgio Federico Ghedini (1862-1965), Girolamo Arrigo (1930) or G.F. Malipiero -- consequently I wonder about the eventual meaning of such a study, reduced in the sole context of the guitar repertory. So I aimed myself to redirect my efforts in the area of the Italian guitarists who were also composers, looking for some information in the guitar literature in my Country (see the below bibliography at this regard).

To my knowledge the Italian scholars who studied the subject are: Angelo Gilardino, who wrote several articles in behalf of the Italian magazines "il Fronimo" many years ago, then an entire Manual of Guitar History where the Italian music and the composers-guitarists have a great extension, even if not much adjourned (last edition is dated 1992). Other young scholars dealt with the subject during their thesis: my friend Filippo Poletti who dealt with The guitar techniques in the Italian repertory from 1950 to 1994, and Massimo Cunico, who dealt with the Italian guitar didactis, facing the effort of interviewing many exponents of the different guitar schools.

From the beginning I had also to solve the problem of which name I can give to such a "connection", which mostly goes beyond the family descendance -- the case of Carmen Lenzi, nephew of Luigi Mozzani -- into a kind of "apostleship" -- the case of Benvenuto Terzi, whose art was indirectly influenced by Mozzani. This "invisible connection" has in fact has characterised the different teaching of so many guitarists who were at the same time composers, guitar teachers, guitar makers and also scholar as well. I did not consider of course to have completed my task after written just the diagrams of their schools -- the "diagrams" which you can find below --, but I hope that can give some insights into some trends in the Italian guitar sphere of our century. I included also the name of some relevant guitar performers, who did not compose by their own right, but who were pupils of the former. The fact that I decided to define this trends as "schools" does not mean anyway that they represent "compositive schools" in an Academic way or that I recognise, strictly speaking, they were able to provide their disciples the three characteristics of "technical, analytical and spiritual preparation" (see M. Cunico, op. cit.). The concept of school I used in the following notes indicates instead simply "a group of artists whose works reflect a common conceptual, regional, or personal influence" and in alternative, as "the art and artists of a geographical location considered independently of stylistic similarity." or, generally, as "any group of persons having common attitudes or beliefs" (all definitions taken from the Random Websters' Dictionary).

At this respect, I must say that I quite agree with the following Oscar Ghiglia's have to comment:

It is a fact that the most part of the guitar music left by those Italian schools (in my sense), a conspicuous repertory that I have read with great efforts, disappeared de facto from the current repertory of young guitar performers -- with some lucky exceptions, but mostly connected with pupils of the composer himself. This was partially due to that these schools were devoted more to the formation of effective performers then of musician in the subtle art of composing. The industrious works of many composers, instrumentalist of their own instrument and consequently in principle the most informed and educated people on how to write music for guitar, at least in my Country had almost to surrend to the new wave of composers, educated quite invariably on pianoforte, violin or other academic instruments, who could compose well-appearing pages for an ideal guitar. They have the unquestionable merits in the so-called "New Rebirth of the classical guitar". I do not consider my task to investigate on this last phenomenon, but I can notice here that in the last few years I can find a good number of published Anthologies which contain together works of composers-guitarists by training and composers-not guitarists. So, I wish that this somewhat artificial difference is going to finish in next future, when writing for guitar will be consider a definite step in the education of composition in all Academies. At this respect, I consider the first published volume of La Grammatica della chitarra ("The Guitar Grammar ") by Angelo Gilardino, dedicated to composers who wish to write for our instrument, a giant step forward in this direction, and I wait for next issues. For the time being, let me do my homework without outcry.

Compiling the article, passing in review almost a century of guitar music composed by them, I could reflect myself on the sometimes strange ways the history of guitar (and more efficiently of course, the History of Music) get rid of the industrious works of many the difficulty of organizing in an analytical survey all the information I could afford. Finally, I want to say to anybody who does not share my view, that I promise I will not ever assume the task of "classifying" also the not-guitarist composers of our time.

The following lists themselves will be updated at any time when more information will be available to me. So, please, stay tuned for more pages and music to come; for any comment on the text, please send me an email.

Schools diagrams

Each record is formed by first and second name, birthdate and birthplace when known. The names of composers are underlined, other no underlined names refer to performers or guitar teachers whom I decided to add. Please, notice that many relevant names of Italian performers are not present at all: that is due to the fact they cannot be traced back by a some guitarist composers. All of the listed guitarists have many pupils and the notes I added are only as reference and in no case I meant to be exhaustive.

Luigi Mozzani - 3

Other composers

The Schools of Center Italy