The guitar performance practice in Spanish neoclassicism, focusing on El Grupo de los Ocho

Stylianides, Timotheos (2025) The guitar performance practice in Spanish neoclassicism, focusing on El Grupo de los Ocho. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

As a classical guitar performer for the past two decades, I have encountered a diverse range of repertoire from various periods. Although each style commands a different musical and technical approach, there is always a need to establish a solid starting point from which the performer can springboard in an objective yet flexible way. Examining the history of the guitar, I became convinced that the best place to search for this foundation would be the “Big Bang” from which the modern guitar has evolved. The period during which the renaissance of the guitar as a modern instrument took place is none other than Spain’s 1920s and 1930s. Going back to the sources of the period, I realised that there was a field of diverse aesthetic perceptions, many of which contradicted the very qualities of the instrument per se. According to my understanding, these qualities are intimacy, purity, integrity, simplicity, transparency, flexibility, adaptability, dynamism, and the sublime. The established guitar “universe” led most guitarists, as well as luthiers and composers, to strive for grandeur, the colossal, and the flamboyant, going against the very nature of the instrument. However, it seems that there has been a parallel “universe” reflecting the qualities I identify with the guitar, which has disappeared for extramusical reasons, not being able to deploy a monumental guitar canon.

By delving more into that period, I came across a set of pieces by Spanish composers from the so-called El Grupo de los Ocho that seemed to conceal the qualities that I identify with the guitar. They sounded simple yet complex. The compositional style could be likened to the contrapuntal style of Scarlatti, yet they sounded modern. The woven Spanishness was presented discreetly and elegantly. At the same time, different sections, phrases, or even bars within a piece could be attributed to a different era in music history, without disregarding the present. What I realised when I learned those pieces for performance is that their multifaceted musical attributes responded to equally varied technical and theoretical challenges, revealing themselves one by one in my attempt to expose what was beneath the surface of the presumed simple presence. The apparent simplicity, as well as the density and diversity of these concealed elements, sparked my interest in researching how these pieces should be performed. In my pursuit of the ideal performance for these pieces, I had to reform and expand or even regenerate my musical, technical, and intellectual capacity, bringing me closer than ever to the answer to my primordial question, to form a context where the guitarist will operate in accordance with the nature of the instrument.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: M Music and Books on Music > M Music
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Music
• Supervisor's Name: Moreda Rodriguez, Professor Eva and McGuinness, Professor David
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85539
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 24 Oct 2025 13:53
• Last Modified: 24 Oct 2025 13:58
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85539
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85539