1770–1841 · Classical
Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841) was an Italian guitarist, composer and teacher, among the first to perform solo on the classical guitar. The author of the first complete guitar method in history, he spent most of his life in Paris. He wrote more than 400 works, some of which are still part of guitarists' repertoire and teaching practice today.
Carulli was born on 9 February 1770 in Naples, into a wealthy family. As a boy he learned the cello from a local priest. Later he turned to the guitar and taught himself to play it: Naples had no professional guitar teachers back then, which pushed him to work out his own manner of playing.
In time he achieved notable success and took to performing in concerts around Naples, earning a reputation as the best guitarist in Italy.
In 1801 Carulli married Marie-Josephine Boyer, a French woman, and the couple had a son. After the wedding the musician moved to Paris and went on with an active career there as a performer and composer. He never left the city again; Paris in those years had the reputation of being the world's centre for music.
According to critics, Carulli was the first musician to reveal to the Paris public that the guitar could be taken seriously as a concert instrument. Through the 1800s and 1810s he composed prolifically, mostly for guitar; demand for his scores was strong, and they came out in print in Augsburg, Vienna, Hamburg, Milan and a number of other cities.
In Paris Carulli also taught the guitar extensively, and in time he became a publisher of his own scores. Besides his own works, he also published the works of other guitarists, including Filippo Gragnani, with whom he was friends: Gragnani would in turn dedicate to Carulli a set of three duets for guitar.
In 1811 Carulli finished his Complete Guitar Method — the first major textbook of its kind in history. The book was reprinted both in France and abroad, spread widely, and is still picked up today by people just starting out on the guitar.
As a performer Carulli had virtually no rivals except Matteo Carcassi, who was well received by audiences but did not reach the same popularity. Carulli's leading position held until the mid-1820s, when Fernando Sor began to gain recognition.
In 1826 Carulli, working with the Parisian instrument maker René Lacôte, put together an unconventional ten-stringed guitar and secured a patent for it, also producing a separate teaching method for the new instrument.
Carulli died in Paris on 17 February 1841.
As a composer Carulli wrote more than 400 works in the spirit of early Italian Romanticism — lively, elegant and graceful; some of them belong to the repertoire of performers around the world. In them he uses techniques typical of the violinists and pianists of his time — fast arpeggios and ascending and descending passages.
Some of Carulli's works carry a programme: a pastoral, mythological or political storyline fixed in advance — the sonata 'The Great Napoleon' and the piece on the storming of Algiers are built this way. Another strand of his legacy is chamber music involving the guitar: duets, trios, quartets, and songs and romances for voice with guitar. Beyond the Method itself, Carulli left études, study pieces and a guide, 'Harmony Applied to the Guitar', on how to arrange music correctly for the instrument.
The site currently holds 2 Carulli editions — Duet in G and Fughetta, both for solo guitar, at the intermediate level.