When Performers Were Composers: Improvisation and the Guitar in 19th-Century Scotland

What did it mean to be a guitarist in the nineteenth century? In this second part of our conversation with guitarist and researcher Rob MacKillop, the discussion opens out from individual performers into the wider musical world they inhabited. We talk about improvisation, figured bass, harmony, concert programmes and the player-composer tradition — a time when, as Rob puts it, “every performer was a composer.” The conversation also explores the changing status of the guitar, the relationship between classical and popular music, Regondi and the concertina, nineteenth-century recital culture and the instruments themselves, including Roudhloff guitars, X-bracing and connections with later developments in guitar construction. Along the way, Rob reflects on how musicians learned, performed and created music, and on what may have been lost as improvisation gradually disappeared from classical training. Topics include: • improvisation in nineteenth-century performance • figured bass and practical harmony • the player-composer tradition • concert programmes and recital culture • Regondi and the concertina • the changing status of the guitar • classical and popular musical traditions • nineteenth-century guitar construction • surviving instruments and future avenues for research Rob MacKillop in conversation with Stewart Kelly and Adam Brown. Part 1 explores Felix Horetzky, Stanisław Szczepanowski and Charles Eulenstein — three remarkable musicians whose careers intersected with nineteenth-century Scotland.    • Regondi, Horetzky and Scotland’s 19th-Cent...   https://rmclassicalguitar.com/