Over the years of tracing the seams of music for the guitar, lute and vihuela, moments arose to pause, reflect, hesitate and take stock. At such times I was drawn to call on the erudition of players and writers specializing in various branches of the repertoires for these instruments.
For his enduring encouragement, commentaries and corrections I am most indebted to the Finnish musicologist concert guitarist Jukka Savijoki. His knowledge the guitar repertoire and its history has proved to be of inestimable value to these readings. I am equally grateful to Monica Hall for her observations on my coverage of the Baroque guitar. In particular Dr Hall drawn my attention to the intricacies implied rather than stated in the tablatures of its music. For its breadth of investigation, the dissertation by Linda Sayce on the theorbo, large lutes of the 17th century has been a revelation. Her accounts of these instruments and their music across the borders of Europe leave little of their presence untouched. Most informative too have been my exchanges with the American musicologist Jocelyn Nelson whose devotion to the Renaissance guitar shed further light into my investigations of this little-known forerunner. A long-term member of the English Lute Society, Stewart McCoy responded to my requests with his erudition on the Renaissance lute. Observations from him prompted answers met in the following exposition of the lute from this period. I am also grateful to the Norwegian Erik Stenstadvold for his advice, and the information I have received from his writings on guitars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In gathering material for these volumes I express my appreciation of the courtesy conveyed by the staff at the British Library, and for the ease of access to its treasury of literature. The touch or an original page from its archives is gilt to the labour of learning. I am grateful to the Petrucci Music Library for its voluminous online facsimiles; to which must be added the Boije collection of 19th century guitar prints held in The Music Library of Sweden; and those of Rischel & Birket-Smith from the Royal Library of Copenhagen. Also invaluable have been selections from countless books available free of charge by Internet Archives. As for the presentation of these pages I am grateful to William Sharp for his guidance on digital mattters word and image processing. In this regard I owe especial thanks Dr. Christopher Sharpe for meeting the challenges posed by the installation of pictures and sound clips within the narratives. Then for tidying up typos and those miscast sentences my gratitude to Judy Norwell for her editorial assistance. For his translations I wish to credit Nigel Bonham-Carter. Finally for their friendship and encouragement I my thanks to former editor Vernon Robinson, researcher Adrian Hawley and lasting companions Judith Loffman, Fiona Harrington and Judith Hale.