Rondo (Carulli): A Song History

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Ferdinando Carulli was born in Naples in 1770 and died in Paris in 1841.[1][2] He made Paris his home from April 1808, arriving at a moment when, according to the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, the guitar was winning back the favor it had enjoyed in earlier centuries.[1] Counts of his output vary: the Dizionario Biografico credits him with more than 300 published works, arrangements included, while ItalianOpera puts his opus numbers above 400, so sources differ.[1][3] He taught many pupils, among them Filippo Gragnani and Victor Magnien, and alongside his Méthode complète, Op. 27, he wrote graded teaching collections such as L'Anti-Méthode and Un peu de tout.[1]

Etching of a bearded man in shirtsleeves, seated and playing a guitar as he looks upward

François Bonvin, Guitar Player, etching, 1861. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to Carulli.

A rondo is built around a main theme that keeps coming back, with contrasting sections in between, and Britannica notes that the form was a favorite way to end sonatas and other works from the second half of the eighteenth century into the early nineteenth.[4] Carulli turned to it again and again: IMSLP's catalog of his music lists rondeaux under Opp. 53, 63, 172 and 237 (the last a set of six on themes of Rossini), along with Opp. 290 and 302, each a rondeau for two guitars.[2] The Dizionario Biografico also lists a rondo for two guitars without an opus number and an Andante with variations and rondo after Beethoven, Op. 155.[1] One of the duets, the Rondeau with introduction in A major, Op. 290, appeared from the Offenbach publisher Johann André in an undated edition that IMSLP places around 1838.[5] Rondos also found their way into his teaching books: IMSLP tentatively dates his Op. 241 method to about 1825, describes it as a reworking of Op. 27, and lists a Rondo among its numbered pieces as No. 34.[6] Writing in 1977, the Dizionario Biografico judged that his teaching music remained fully useful for learning the guitar.[1]

The dulcimer book's listing gives the composer and his dates but no opus number, and the sources consulted here do not identify which of Carulli's many rondos the arrangement comes from.[7] Dana Gruber includes "Rondo" as a duet in Classical Melodies For Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer, a book of thirteen classical pieces arranged for chromatic mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, four of them duets, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Rondo (Carulli)"

Sources

  1. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani: "CARULLI, Ferdinando" (Alessandra Ascarelli, 1977).
  2. IMSLP: "Category: Carulli, Ferdinando".
  3. ItalianOpera: "Ferdinando Carulli".
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Rondo".
  5. IMSLP: "Rondeau avec Introduction pour 2 Guitarres, Op.290 (Carulli, Ferdinando)".
  6. IMSLP: "École de guitare, Op.241 (Carulli, Ferdinando)".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, Classical Melodies For Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer".
  8. Image: François Bonvin, Guitar Player, etching, 1861. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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