Early Music Performer

Abstract

Plucked strings had a strong presence in private music-making in Portugal, reaching a wide audience that at the end of the Ancien regime was increasing greatly. This same audience, which played viola or guitar (leaving aside for the moment organological detail) would, indeed, be renewed with the commercial exploitation of the piano, amongst other consumer and entertainment goods, and their repertoires. The processes of appropriation of resources that distinguished the high aristocracy and the recognition of the reach of the cosmopolitan salon even conferred a certain civilizing power on certain instruments, as noted by Charles Burney, when he observed that “there is hardly a private family in a civilized nation without its flute, its fiddle, its harpsichord, or guitar?” As well as its consistent presence among the aristocracy, and especially female society, as we shall see further on, it is also the case that the guitar was viewed as an important means of being fashionable.