Duet No. 1, Op. 27 (Carulli): A Song History

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Ferdinando Carulli was born in Naples in 1770 and died in Paris in 1841.[1][2] According to Philip J. Bone's 1914 survey of guitarists, he first trained on the cello, then turned to the guitar and taught himself, and he was teaching and performing in Leghorn by 1797 and touring as a virtuoso around 1800 before arriving in Paris in the spring of 1808.[2] He made Paris his home for the rest of his life, teaching and composing, and Bone credits him with more than four hundred published works, calls him a prolific writer for two guitars, and praises his duos for guitar with violin or flute.[2]

Wooden lyre guitar with two curved arms joined by a crossbar at the top and a fretted neck in the center

M. C. Mousset, Lyre Guitar or Lirachitara, varnished wood, c. 1800–1825. A guitar of Carulli's time, shown for its subject; it has no connection to this piece.

The opus number in this title is not a simple matter, because IMSLP catalogs two different Carulli works as Op. 27.[3][4] One is a Duo concertant for violin and guitar, dedicated to his pupil Julie Pain, which IMSLP dates to 1811 and lists in editions by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig and Meissonnier in Paris.[3] The other is his Méthode complète for guitar or lyre, dedicated to his son Gustave and first published in Paris by Carli, with IMSLP tentatively dating it to 1811; IMSLP's typeset selections from the method include a set of twenty-four duos.[2][4] Bone, by contrast, dates the method to 1810 and numbers it Op. 241, calling it the standard guitar tutor of its day and saying it ran through five editions before an enlarged sixth, so the sources differ on its date and opus number.[2][4] The sources consulted here do not say which of these works, if either, the dulcimer arrangement comes from.[3][4][5]

Dana Gruber includes "Carulli Duet #1, Opus 27" in Classical Melodies For Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer, a collection of thirteen classical melodies for chromatic dulcimer in DAD tuning that mixes solos with duets for two dulcimers, published by Fingers Of Steel.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Duet No. 1, Op. 27 (Carulli)"

Sources

  1. IMSLP: "Category: Carulli, Ferdinando".
  2. Internet Archive: "Philip J. Bone, The Guitar and Mandolin: Biographies of Celebrated Players and Composers (1914)".
  3. IMSLP: "Duo concertant, Op.27 (Carulli, Ferdinando)".
  4. IMSLP: "Méthode complète, Op.27 (Carulli, Ferdinando)".
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, Classical Melodies For Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer".
  6. Image: M. C. Mousset, Lyre Guitar or Lirachitara, varnished wood, c. 1800–1825. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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