THE HISTORICALLY CURIOUS GUITARIST. Early music performance practices applied to contemporary fingerstyle (researcher: Giulio Quirici)

Could the modern-day steel-string guitar, considered from a larger-scale historical perspective, be ascribed to the same instrumental lineage of its more classically established predecessors, such as lutes? My research is based on the principle that the “historically informed” (or better: historically curious) contemporary guitarist can draw abundant practical inspiration from the performance practice of the Renaissance and Baroque. Consequently, a deep reflection upon this past/present connection could yield musical results that enrich the contemporary guitar scene in practical ways. The goal of this project is to write and arrange guitar music allowing the influence of early European traditions, both in juxtaposition and opposition to the instrument’s current vernacular. Exploring steel-string guitar from such an angle will not only be a natural way of seeking artistic unity between my own parallel careers as lutenist and contemporary guitarist; it is also a means of making a whole portion of music history more accessible and familiar to non-early music colleagues.