*** Guitar Time Line - Start Here *** 1500 BC - Persian Tanbur (Pronunciation: tän-boor'... Persia is an old name for the country of Iran). The word guitar is derived from two old Persian words, "Tar" meaning string, and "Char" meaning four. ~ Guitar Time Line ~ 1400 BC - Hittite Guitar The Hittite guitar had a long fretted neck, a flat top, a flat back, and concave sides. ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Birth of Christ - Greek Tanbur The Tanbour has remained popular since medieval times. Its derivatives include the Greek buzuki, the Romanian tamburitza, and the Indian sitar and tambura. ~ Guitar Time Line ~ 400 AD - Roman Tanbur ~ Guitar Time Line ~ 1200 AD - Guitarra Morisca and Guitarra Latina ~ Guitar Time Line ~ 1500 - Vihuela and Four Course Guitar ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Luis de Narvaez Born 1490, Died 1547 Vihuelist born in Granada at the end of the Fifteenth Century. He was a court musician of the Comendador of León and then of the later ascending Felipe II... ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Luis Milan - Born Circa 1500, Died 1562 - Luis Milan was a spanish composer and vihuela player who wrote the earliest collection of accompanied solo songs of the renaissance period. He also wrote fantasia's and pavanes for the vihuela. ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Alonso Mudarra Born 1508, died 1580 - Alonso Mudarra was a Spanish composer and player of the vihuela. Brought up in a noble household, he travelled in Italy before becoming a canon of Seville cathedral in 1547... ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Adrien Le Roy Born 1520, Died 1598 - Adrien Le Roy was a French publisher/printer, composer, lutenist and writer ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Antony Holborne Born 1545, Died 1602 - We know almost nothing of the life of Antony Holborne : the first documented date is 1562 when we now know he entered Cambridge University. ~ Guitar Time Line ~ John Dowland Born 1563, Died 1626 - Dowland was the composer of some of the most exquisitely melancholic music that has ever been written for the lute (and by default - the guitar) of all time... ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Francis Cutting Born 1583, Died 1603 - Francis Cutting remains the most obscure figure among the great Elizabethan lutenist composers... ~ Guitar Time Line ~ Gaspar Sanz Born 1640, Died 1710 - Gaspar Sanz studied and taught at the University of Salamanca as a professor of music. He was the organist of the viceroy of Naples... ~ Guitar Time Lin e~ Jan Antonin Losy Born 1645, Died 1721 - Jan Antonin Losy von Losimthal, known to his contemporaries as Comte Logy was the most celebrated German baroque lutenist before Weiss... ~Guitar Time Line~ Robert de Visee Born 1650, Died 1725 - Robert de Visee was a guitarist, theorbo and viol player, singer, and composer. He may have studied with Corbetta... ~Guitar Time Line~ Santiago de Murcia Born 1682, Died 1740 - Santiago de Murcia was a Spanish composer, theorist and guitarist. Probably born in Madrid and is believed to have died in Mexico... ~Guitar Time Line~ Johann Sebastian Bach Born 1685, Died 1750 - Johann Sebastian Bach's life and career were confined to a very limited geographical space. Born and raised in Thuringia, he never went farther north than Hamburg and Lübeck, or farther south than Carlsbad... ~Guitar Time Line~ Domenico Scarlatti Born 1685, Died 1757 - Domenico Scarlatti was appointed organist and composer of the vice-regal court at Naples, where his father was maestro di cappella... ~Guitar Time Line~ Silvius Leopold Weiss Born 1686, Died 1750 - Silvius Leopold Weiss was responsible for leaving the largest, both qualitatively and quantitatively, number of compositions for the solo lute of any composer in history... ~Guitar Time Line~ Luigi Boccherini Born 1743, Died 1805 - Luigi Boccherini Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy, in a musical family. At a young age his father, a cellist and double bass player, sent Luigi to study in Rome... ~Guitar Time Line~ Ferdinando Carulli - Born 1770, Died 1841 - Carulli became one of the most popular and loved classical guitar composers and players of his time... ~Guitar Time Line~ Francesco Molino Born 1775, Died 1847 - Francesco Molino was born in Florence. He often travelled to Spain to give concerts. In 1820 he settled in Paris, where he lived out the remainder of his life... ~Guitar Time Line~ Fernando Sor - Born 1778, Died 1839 - Sor was one of the most influential classical guitarists of all time writing beautiful studies and didactic works of great importance. A seminal mind who produced one of the best guitar methods of all time... ~Guitar Time Line~ Anton Diabelli Born 1781, Died 1858 - Anton Diabelli was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations... ~Guitar Time Line~ Mauro Giuliani Born 1781, Died 1828 - Mauro Giuliani , despite being self-taught on guitar, rose above his "station" to become one of the greatest guitar virtuoso's of all time... ~Guitar Time Line~ Niccolo Paganini Born 1782, Died 1840 - Niccolo Paganini was one of the most famous violin virtuosi, and is considered one of the greatest violinists who ever lived, with perfect intonation and innovative techniques. His influence in violin music, and the musical world in general was unequalled... ~Guitar Time Line~ Dionisio Aguado Born 1784, Died 1849 - They probably said about Dionisio Aguado ... "It's the quiet one's you have to watch out for!" For although it was said he was shy and modest by nature, he certainly played with the fire of a gypsy, more akin to Andalusia than his hometown of Madrid... ~Guitar Time Line~ Luigi Legnani Born 1790, Died 1877 - Luigi Legnani was an Italian guitarist, singer and composer. He started studying music at the age of eight. Made his debut at the theatre of Ravenne at 17 years age... ~Guitar Time Line~ Matteo Carcassi - Born 1792, Died 1853 - Carcassi began to play the guitar at a very early age in his homeland of Italy. He was also receiving tuition on the piano and it is apparent his musical education was very comprehensive and well rounded... ~Guitar Time Line~ Zani de Ferranti Born 1801, Died 1878 - Zani De Ferranti wrote some of the best 19th Century works written for guitar and was the Court Guitarist to King Leopold of Belgium in 1834. He toured all of Europe and spoke 4 languages... ~Guitar Time Line~ Napoleon Coste Born 1806, Died 1883 - Napoleon Coste was born in the provinces, he rose to be the greatest guitarist/composer France ever produced... ~Guitar Time Line~ Johann Kaspar Mertz Born 1806, Died 1856 - Johann Kaspar Mertz was an Austrian-based guitarist and composer, born in Pressburg, now Bratislava, Slovakia. He was active in Vienna, which had been home to various important figures in the guitar world, including Anton Diabelli, Mauro Giuliani, Wenceslaus Matiegka and Simon Franz Molitor... ~Guitar Time Line~ Madame sidney Pratten Born 1821, died 1895 - Madame Sidney Pratten was born Catherina Josepha Pelzer in Mulheim, on the Rhine. She was the daughter of Ferdinand Pelzer, a leading German guitarist during the early part of the 19th Century. 1854 Catherina Pelzer married a renowned flautist and composer, and took the name by which she is more commonly remembered - Madame Sidney Pratten... ~Guitar Time Line~ Julian Arcas Born 1832, Died 1882 - Julian Arcas was a Spanish guitarist and composer. His career as a concert performer between 1860-70 took him all over Spain and the rest of Europe... ~Guitar Time Line~ Francisco Tarrega Born 1852, Died 1909 - Francisco Tarrega played both piano and guitar, it was the guitar that really captured his heart and mind and to which he dedicated himself to from a young age... ~Guitar Time Line~ Manuel De Falla Born 1876, Died 1946 - Manuel De Falla was a student of Felipe Pedrell and only wrote one piece of music for guitar (Homage to Debussy)but many of his works were transcribed for the guitar as they were "admirably and temperamentally well suited"... ~Guitar Time Line~ Daniel Fortea Born 1878, Died 1953 - Daniel Fortea was born at Benlloch, Castellon de la Plana, Spain. He commenced the study of guitar at an early age and eventually became a popular concert artist appearing in Madrid, Barcelona and other important cities in Spain... ~Guitar Time Line~ Miguel Llobet Born 1878, Died 1938 - Miguel Llobet was renowned as a great virtuoso and toured Europe and America extensively. His music seems to be enjoying a revival and there have been several CDs published recently. Both Stefano Grondona and Lorenzo Michelli have recorded his works... ~Guitar Time Line~ Augustin Barrios Mangore Born 1885, Died 1944 - Augustin Barrios Mangore was famed for his phenomenal performances, both live and on his gramophone-recordings, the first classical guitar music ever committed to disk. For a period of some years, it was his habit to perform in concert in traditional 'native' Paraguayan dress (he was partly of Guarani origin)... ~Guitar Time Line~ Emilio Pujol Born 1886, Died 1980 - Emilio Pujol was the last of Tarrega's disciples, he set about to document the pedagogical principles of his master teacher... ~Guitar Time Line~ Heitor Villa-Lobos Born 1887, Died 1959 - Heitor Villa-Lobos a Brazilian master, was both a popular and important composer in the overall scheme of things in the "musical firmament." Indeed, he was the first South American composer to become internationally famous whose fame and popularity has continued unabated to the present day... ~Guitar Time Line~ Andres Segovia Born 1893, Died 1987 - It is a generally accepted notion that Andres Segovia is the most popular and important figure in the whole history of classical guitar.