1784–1849 · Spain · Romantic
Dionisio Aguado (1784–1849) was a Spanish guitarist, teacher and composer, one of the founders of the Spanish guitar school alongside Fernando Sor. He wrote guitar pieces in ordinary notation instead of the tablature customary at the time, and left behind a guitar method that was popular throughout the 19th century and was reprinted many times in different languages. For guitarists today he is chiefly interesting for pieces of varying levels — from simple studies to salon dances.
Dionisio Aguado was born in Madrid on 8 April 1784. He learned to play the guitar from Miguel García at a church school. In the early 19th century Aguado began writing down his first guitar pieces in ordinary notation, in treble clef, rather than the tablature customary in Spain at the time.
This shift to ordinary notation was prompted by the Italian Federico Moretti; the guitarist Fernando Sor followed the same path alongside Aguado. Both Aguado and Sor are named among the founders of the Spanish school of guitar playing; Aguado himself belonged to a generation of musicians spanning the late Classical era and the beginnings of Romanticism.
In 1803 Aguado settled in the town of Fuenlabrada and taught there until 1824. In the early 1820s a collection of his guitar studies (Colección de estudios para guitarra) was published in Madrid, and in 1825 his guitar method Escuela de Guitarra came out there too.
Aguado devoted many years to a thorough study of the guitar — both its musical and its structural side; he worked, among other things, on fingering. From this study grew his method Escuela de Guitarra, published in Madrid in 1825. Aguado invented the tripod, a stand that held the guitar so the player's body did less to muffle its resonance.
Aguado's mother died in 1824, and soon afterwards he moved to Paris, where he quickly became known as a performer and teacher. His virtuosity drew the attention of notable musicians of the day — among them Rossini, Paganini and Bellini — and his concerts were very successful.
The French composer and guitarist François de Fossa translated his guitar method into French: Méthode complète pour la guitare appeared in Paris. There too Aguado grew close to the guitarist Fernando Sor — for a while they even lived under one roof and gave concerts together, and Sor wrote a duet for him as a token of their friendship.
Despite their friendship, the two musicians held different views on playing technique: Sor preferred playing with the pads of the right-hand fingers for a softer, fuller sound, while Aguado recommended using the fingernails — he is considered the first guitarist to propose this technique — which produced a brighter, stronger sound.
His creative partnership with Sor lasted more than ten years — until Aguado left Paris in the late 1830s. Aguado returned to Madrid and spent the last ten years of his life there: teaching, and preparing a new edition of his method — Nuevo método para guitarra — which came out in 1843.
Among his students were the guitarists Julián Arcas, Josep Brocà i Codina, Antonio J. Manjón, Manuel Fernández Grajal and Vicente Franco. Aguado died in Madrid in December 1849, at the age of 65.
Two of the guitars Aguado played are now kept in Madrid's Museo Arqueológico Nacional.
No complete catalogue of Aguado's works exists. Among those that have survived are studies, rondos, dance pieces and fantasias, as well as a number of specific opuses: twelve waltzes (Op. 1), the Fandango (Op. 16), the cycle of contredanses Les Favorites (Op. 11), and light pieces such as Morceaux Agréables non difficiles (Op. 13) and Dix Petites Pièces non difficiles (Op. 14).
Many of his pieces are waltzes, minuets and other light salon works, but there are also more extended pieces that demand real virtuosity; in some of them the left-hand stretches were designed for the neck of guitars of his day and are almost impossible on the longer string length of modern instruments. On a 2012 recording his Fandango, Op. 16, appears alongside a Fantasía, Op. 27, by that same Federico Moretti who had earlier prompted Aguado's shift to ordinary notation, and in 2022 his music was included on an album alongside pieces by Julián Arcas and Francisco Tárrega.
Aguado's chief achievement remains his guitar method. It was very popular in the 19th century: the Madrid Escuela de Guitarra (1825) is regarded as a forerunner of 20th-century guitar methods, and Aguado himself is considered one of the most innovative guitar teachers of the 19th century. The book was reprinted many times in different languages and also appeared in a revised form, Nuevo método para guitarra. The site brings together pieces of different levels: Study in A Minor is the most approachable, the Les Favorites cycle and Allegro in G Major are intermediate, the pieces from 8 Petites Pièces for Guitar are upper intermediate, and the pieces from Six Petites Pièces are intermediate to upper intermediate. In total, 26 editions of his works are available on the site.