Research and Literature

Knowledge about the Brahms Guitar is dispersed across interviews, instrument documentation, recordings, scores, dissertations and practice-based research. This page brings those materials together and distinguishes between published scholarship, public documentation and archival sources.

Direct Studies of the Brahms Guitar

Giacomo Copiello, The Eight-String Brahms Guitar: New Solo Repertoire and Instrumental Identity (PhD thesis, University of Surrey, 2026).
A practice-based study of the instrument’s history, design, identity, repertoire, transcription practice and emerging community. It provides the principal research framework for this archive. [to be published]

Paul Galbraith in conversation with Graham Wade (1994).
An early public account of the instrument’s conception, its relationship with David Rubio and Galbraith’s developing performance practice.

Julia Crowe, “Letter from New York: Paul Galbraith’s Eight-String Brahms Guitar” (2011).
A journalistic profile situating the instrument within Galbraith’s concert practice and public reception.

Redmond O’Toole, J. S. Bach: Sonata No. 2, BWV 1003 (2004) and The 8-String Brahms Guitar (2016).
An arrangement and a public presentation documenting the instrument through performance and repertoire.

Spyros Kaniaris, “La Guitarra Brahms” (2017).
A Spanish-language study of the instrument and its playing practice.

Wilson Burnham, “Building an Eight String ‘Brahms’ Classical Guitar” (2018).
A maker’s account of construction decisions and technical solutions.

Related Scholarship

Luiz Mantovani (2020) examines editorial strategies for instrumentation issues in Ferdinand Rebay’s Großes Duo in A minor. Katalin Koltai (2023) studies altered guitar space, arrangement and new technology. Stephen Goss (2000) considers transcription and the guitar’s relationship with the musical canon.

Further studies by Adkins, Betancourt, Clark, Fabrikant, Fierens, de Souza and Mermikides provide wider contexts for extended-range guitars, transcription, notation, physical setup and contemporary practice. These works are included when they help explain the musical and technical questions raised by the Brahms Guitar.

Giacomo Copiello’s Doctoral Research

The Eight-String Brahms Guitar: New Solo Repertoire and Instrumental Identity
PhD in Music, University of Surrey, 2026. Supervised by Professor Stephen Goss.

This practice-based research examines the Brahms Guitar through its history and design, instrumental identity, transcription and performance practice, extended register, and the development of new repertoire. Directly related outcomes include dedicated works by Giorgio Colombo Taccani, Elvira Muratore and Rafael Marino Arcaro, the Schubert LIEDER editions for eight-string Brahms Guitar and the 2023 Stradivarius recording LIEDER.

A stable repository link will be added after institutional deposit.