We are delighted to announce that The Great Vogue for the Guitar in Western Europe 1800-1840 (Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer, 2023), edited by our members James Westbrook, Paul Sparks and Christopher Page, and in almost every way a Consortium book, was awarded a chitarra d’oro prize in the category ‘Musicology’ at the 2024 Convegno Internazionale di Chitarra held in Milan. One of the contributors, Jukka Savijoki (below) travelled to Milan to collect the award.
A very successful virtual colloquium of the Cambridge Cohort for Guitar Research took place on 2 November 2024, hosted by Consortium member Samantha Muir. For the full programme and abstracts see the Cohort page.
All who love the guitar will be sad to hear that Luis Briso de Montiano y Ruiz de la Sierra (1956-2024) has died after a long and courageous battle with illness. Luis studied the classical guitar at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Madrid, where he obtained his degree and where he taught, together with other conservatories at Cáceres, Ávila, San Lorenzo de El Escorial and Madrid for over thirty years. His scholarly work was always superbly well-grounded and meticulous, notably in Un Fondo desconocido de Música para guitarra. Música española y francesa para guitarra (c. 1790 – c. 1808) en la Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid (Ópera Tres, 1995). For many years Luis did invaluable service to the guitar community as the moderator/administrator of the net forum guitarra.artepulsado.com. His work on the life and music of his compatriot Dionisio Aguado, whom he held in the very highest regard, both as a musician and as a man, was unrivalled. The first paper Luis gave to the Consortium, an account of his recent work on Aguado, revealed the extraordinary craftsmanship and sympathetic understanding of his approach. Those able to converse with him in Spanish discovered that he was a rather different man than when he spoke English. A lunch with him in Madrid would take hours, for in his native tongue he was a fluent talker and his interests were wide, embracing politics, languages and many other topics which he would discuss with profound interest and seriousness. There are those who remember his determination, on at least one occasion, not to use an umbrella in a heavy downpour because he thought it would disturb other pedestrians – a striking example of his consideration for others. It was a mark of his generosity that a request for information via email would almost invariably elicit an answer the length of an essay which must have taken a considerable amount of time to write and research. The academic legacy of Luis does not consist in his own publications alone, therefore, but lives on in the works of many others. Warm in his relationships with his friends, passionate in his pursuit of truth, Luis was a true gentleman in the manner evoked by Miguel de Cervantes: afable, bien criado, cortés y comedido: well-bred, courteous, gentle-mannered, and kindly.
Los amantes de la guitarra recibirán con tristeza la noticia del fallecimiento de Luis Briso de Montiano y Ruiz de la Sierra (1956-2024) tras una larga y valiente batalla contra su enfermedad. Luis estudió guitarra clásica en el Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, donde obtuvo su título de profesor y donde impartió clases, al igual que en los conservatorios de Cáceres, Ávila, San Lorenzo de El Escorial y Madrid durante más de treinta años. Su labor académica fue siempre magníficamente fundamentada y minuciosa, destacando Un Fondo desconocido de Música para guitarra. Música española y francesa para guitarra (c. 1790 – c. 1808) en la Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid (Ópera Tres, 1995). Durante muchos años Luis prestó un valioso servicio a la comunidad guitarrística como moderador y administrador del foro guitarra.artepulsado.com. Su trabajo sobre la vida y la música de su compatriota Dionisio Aguado, a quien tenía en la más alta estima, como músico y como hombre, no ha tenido rival. La primera ponencia de Luis en el Consortium, en aquel momento, un relato de su reciente trabajo sobre Aguado, reveló una extraordinaria habilidad y comprensión de este autor. Los que podían conversar con él en español descubrían que era un hombre bastante diferente de cuando hablaba en inglés. Una comida con él en Madrid podía durar horas, porque hablaba con gran fluidez en su lengua materna y sus intereses eran amplios, abarcando la política, idiomas y muchos otros temas que discutía con profundo interés y seriedad. Hay quien recuerda su determinación, al menos en una ocasión, de no utilizar un paraguas en medio de un fuerte aguacero porque pensaba que molestaría a los demás peatones: un ejemplo sorprendente de su consideración hacia los demás. Una muestra de su generosidad era que una solicitud de información por correo electrónico casi siempre daba lugar a una respuesta de la extensión de un ensayo cuya redacción e investigación debían llevarle mucho tiempo. El legado académico de Luis no consiste únicamente en sus propias publicaciones, sino que perdura en las obras de muchos otros. Cálido en las relaciones con sus amigos, apasionado en la búsqueda de la verdad, Luis fue un verdadero caballero a la manera evocada por Miguel de Cervantes: afable, bien criado, cortés y comedido.
Selected writings by Luis Briso de Montiano
Book and book chapters
Un fondo desconocido de Música para guitarra (Madrid: Ópera Tres, 1995).
‘Inventario y concordancias de fuentes’, chap. 2.1, in Pedro Jesús Gómez, D. Robustiano Hernández y el fondo de Música para Guitarra de Tobarra (Albacete: Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses “Don Juan Manuel”, 2009), pp. 17-31.
‘Catálogo del Fondo Manuela Vázquez-Barros de la Biblioteca Lázaro Galdiano’, in Jesús Saiz Huedo (ed.), Los manuscritos de guitarra del Fondo Manuela Vázquez-Barros de la Biblioteca Lázaro Galdiano (Madrid: Asociación Cultural More Hispano, 2022), pp. 137-60.
‘Dionisio Aguado (1784-1849)’, chap. 14, in Page, Sparks and Westbrook (eds.), The Great Vogue for the Guitar (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2023), pp. 221-37.
Articles
‘Una parte de la biblioteca personal de Dionisio Aguado en el legado de Rosario Huidobro’, Roseta, 12 (2018).
‘Colecciones y periódicos de música para guitarra en Madrid (1788-1830)’, Roseta, 14 (2019).
‘Dionisio Aguado – El hijo’, Roseta, 15 (2020).
‘Dionisio Aguado – Los escritos a Santiago de Masarnau’, Roseta, 16 (2021).
‘Dionisio Aguado: Testamento y memoria’, Roseta, 17/18 (2022/23).
Web page
Información sobre el guitarrista Fernando Sor (1778-1839), https://fernandosor.es
Music edited by Luis Briso de Montiano
Isidro de Laporta: Seis dúos para dos guitarras (Madrid: Ópera Tres, 1996).
François de Fossa: Les Adieux à l’Espagne Op. 11 (Columbus, OH: Editions Ophee, 2009).
François de Fossa: Douze Divertissemens Op. 15 (Columbus, OH: Editions Ophee, 2014).
We are sorry to report the death of our member Luis Briso de Montiano, a distinguished scholar and a devoted friend. A memoir of Luis will appear on this site in due course.
We are delighted to announce that Cohort member José Luis Segura Maldonado has been appointed to a full-time position as an Associate Professor at the Music School of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, beginning next August.
Many congratulations to Jose Luis!
A Colloquium of the Consortium was held from Friday 12 April to Monday 15 April 2024 in the magnificent and medieval surroundings of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
We are delighted to announce the publication of a new book by our member and current Vice-President Dr. James Westbrook, Guitar Making in Nineteenth-Century London: Louis Panormo and his Contemporaries (ASG Music Ltd., Halesowen, 2023). This encylopedic work contains three chapters on the Panormo family, one on Madame Pratten and her guitars, a comprehensive directory of makers and dealers, and information about the Mirecourt luthiers working in London, for example, the Roudhloffs (whole chapter), Boullangier (large section), Gerard (large section), the Guiots, Pons, and Lacote guitars imported into London. This is a luxury A4 size hard-back publication of 514 pages, containing 370 colour images and some 170,000 words. It may be soon ordered from the website of the Classical Guitar Centre Ltd.
We are delighted to announce that Yseult Martinez has been elected to the Andrew Britton Fellowship for 2023-4. Yseult earned a Ph.D. in early modern history from Sorbonne University, with the dissertation ‘De la puissance des femmes: réflexion sur cinq personnages d’opéra créés par G. F. Handel pour Londres entre 1730 et 1737’, a research that was awarded with the Prix Philippe Lescat in 2023. She is especially interested in Italian opera librettos, particularly in tracing and analysing their evolution from the first version to later adaptations in order to better understand the choices made by the composer and librettist and, consequently, the expectations of the audience. Yseult is currently preparing the publication of her thesis with Classiques Garnier (forthcoming). Since September 2022 she has been working at the University of Angers as a postdoctoral researcher on the program ‘CastrAlter: Castrati. Discourses and experiences of otherness in the Europe of the Enlightenment’. After initial training in piano, she now studies the lute, theorbo and opera singing. She is now starting a new research project on the French guitarist and theorist François Campion.
We are delighted to announce the new book edited by our member Damián Martín-Gil:
Damián Martín-Gil (ed.), The Classical Guitar in Spain, Portugal, Italy & Germany. A General Approach to Its History (Madrid: INAEM, 2023), 293 p. ISBN: 978-84-9041-483-5
It can be download directly by clicking here.
A very successful virtual meeting was held on 4 November 2023. For details see the Cohort page.
The Cambridge Consortium for Guitar Research 