Bartolomeo Bortolazzi (1772-1846)

Bortolazzi was first a renowned mandolin player and then took up the guitar at age 28. He’s an excellent example for any late-starters: within one year he was giving recitals and lessons in London. One of his most notable guitar students was the Duchess of York.¹ In 1803 he left London to tour Germany and Vienna, where in 1804 he published his Guitarre-Schule, in which he wrote that the guitar

‘is played with the fingers of the right hand, but in such a way that only the soft parts of the fingers, but not the nails, touch the strings.’²

His Guitarre-Schule went through at least eight editions, into the 1830s.

For a while, it was not known what happened to Bortolazzi. A 1968 book states that he was not heard about after 1805.³ However, more information has come to light in recent years. Bortolazzi returned to London in 1805, where he published more compositions, as well as a magazine. Then in 1809 he went to Brazil with his family, where he continued to perform, teach, and publish.⁴ He may well have been one of the earliest exponents of the six-string guitar in Brazil. (He may also, I should add, be one of the earliest in London — predating Fernando Sor by twelve years.)

1. A. P. Sharpe, The Story of the Spanish Guitar (Clifford Essex Music Co. Ltd., 1968), p. 36. ↩︎
2. Bartolomeo Bortolazzi, Neue theoretische und practische Guitarre-Schule, p. 6. https://imslp.org/wiki/Nuova_ed_esatta_Scuola_per_la_Chitarra_(Bortolazzi,_Bartolomeo) ↩︎
3. Sharpe, p. 36. ↩︎
4. https://biedermeiergitarre.jimdofree.com/gitarristen/bartolomeo-bortolazzi/ ↩︎