Mark Marrington’s new book, Recording the Classical Guitar (Routledge 2021), charts the evolution of classical guitar recording practice from the early twentieth century to the present day, encompassing the careers of many of the instrument’s most influential practitioners from the acoustic era to the advent of the CD. A key focus is on the ways in which guitarists’ recorded repertoire programs have shaped the identity of the instrument, particularly where national allegiances and musical aesthetics are concerned. The book also considers the ways in which changing approaches to recording practice have conditioned guitarists’ conceptions of the instrument’s ideal representation in recorded form and situates these in relation to the development of classical music recording aesthetics more generally. An important addition to the growing body of literature in the field of phonomusicology, the book will be of interest to both guitarists and producers as well as students of record production and historians of classical music recording.
Recording the Classical Guitar is the winner of Best History in the category Best Historical Research on Recorded Classical Music in the 2022 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence. Begun in 1991, the ARSC Awards are given to authors of books, articles or recording liner notes to recognize those publishing the very best work today in recorded sound research.
The book can be purchased on Amazon.