'We hate the guitar': prejudice and polemic in the music press in early 19th-century Europe

Abstract

During the early 19th century the guitar knew a degree of popularity that has prompted the belief that this was one of the most successful periods in its history. However, despite the apparent success of some individual players, the position of the guitar was uniquely controversial and conflicted. This article examines the guitar’s reception in the specialist music press in Germany, France and England during that period, and the motives behind the frequently negative assessments. Two dominating musical and ideological forces appear to have been particularly influential: the notion of gender-specific instruments and the rise of musical idealism. In 1783 the theorist of bourgeois decorum, Carl Ludwig Junker, described in detail which instruments befitted the respectable bourgeois woman. Such gendering of instruments had massive influence all over Europe, and it placed the guitar in the role of a domestic amateur instrument, first and foremost for women. Being contrary to the demands of the new musical idealism, this was detrimental to the prospect of the guitar finding a permanent place in professional musical life. Thus critics, almost unanimously and irrespectively of national background, took a negative, often outright hostile, stand towards the guitar, in particular when it assumed the role of a concert instrument.