In the late 19th century, Spanish guitar maker Antonio de Torres established a standard size and form for the classical guitar; in the early 20th century, musicians developed advanced playing techniques that contemporary recitalists refined. By the late 1940s, composers had begun to compose music specifically for the classical guitar, and in the past fifty years there have been over 550 pieces composed expressly for the duo of classical guitar and solo voice.
Each entry includes the composer; title; language in which the work is to be sung; dates of composition and copyright; publisher and catalog number; author and text source; voice type required to sing the song as indicated by the score; range and tessitura; and difficulty of the piece for the singer. The annotations touch on additional matters such as whether the piece is part of a song cycle or a collection, and its duration.
