Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841)

Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841)

In today's guitar scene, the music of Carulli often goes unnoticed, and even purposely ignored sometimes. With so many available resources online and offline, with so many offers for all musical tastes of each guitarist, some of the music which was once highly regarded, has gradually been moved to the back shelf, while some have placed it in the recycling bin…

It is true that even in Carulli's day there were some guitarists that looked down upon his music. Fernando Sor, a guitarist/composer of the same period, was such an example, and some of his writings indirectly attack the simplicity found in Carulli's and Carcassi's works. This, however, has happened to virtually every composer that ever lived: there have always been critics that surrounded all composers, no matter when they lived and what type of music they wrote. 

The fact that Carulli was very much involved with teaching, and unlike today, there was a great need for creating new didactic materials for the instrument, was clearly part of the motivation for him to write music the way he did. In fact, some of his publishers were known to complain that the music was too complicated - too hard for an amateur to play. 

All criticism aside, it is clear that Carulli's guitar music presents players of his day and ours with great material for learning, developing technique and public performance. His method alone (Opus 27) is a great example. Many self-taught guitarists of the past generation have used this material to learn how to play: it is a great way to study the instrument in an organized, progressive manner. 

There are many great features of the work, but I will mention only two in this article: First, there is a great amount of repertoire for the player, collected in one book. Instead of having to go from publication to publication, the student has easy access to hundreds of pieces, at different playing levels, all in the same publication. Second, the work is very progressive in nature: note reading, techniques, repertoire, position playing, are all presented in a progressive, logical order. 

There are plenty of guitar students today who can make their way through Bach's Boure, but could not read an easy scale in the third position on the instrument. Completing a method like Carulli's presents the student with lots of repertoire, but also with a more complete, a more thorough understanding of how the instrument works. 

Unfortunately, Carulli's reputation for writing 'easy music' is often caused by the fact that many players only look at that: his easy music. When we look at Carulli's entire output, we discover a great variety of works, written for different levels of playing. A great example is his Opus 320, which is a collection of "Six Andantes", dedicated to Matteo Carcassi, one of his contemporaries. While the set is not extremely difficult to play, it clearly could not be classified as 'easy' music. 

So whether you are looking for sight-reading material, some new technical exercises, a fresh look at your fingerboard, or perhaps a new encore piece for your next performance, consider the music of Carruli. There's a little bit for everybody in there!