Ludovico Roncalli - Suite for Baroque Guitar

Massimo Lonardi: baroque guitar

The music written for the five course guitar in the 17th and 18th century is some of the most interesting music written in the baroque period.  It is sometimes close to its peasant roots and, not in contrast to that but maybe through that, it also has a decidedly mystical quality to it.   I can't remember his name but one of the composers for the instrument was a bishop who said something along the line that his guitar music was a prayer and a sermon.  For an instrument that is sometimes dismissed as a lesser vehicle for music I have to say that listening to the music played on the instrument it was written for played by musicians who try to reproduce the very individual performance practices of the various composers, it sounds pretty elevated to me.   Composers as great as Francois Couperin and J. S. Bach would seem to have been influenced by the style, their harpsichord suites and passacaglias are certainly derived from the guitar style.