Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829)
- Grand Concerto pour la Guitarre, Op.36 (c.1812)
Performers: Pepe Romero (guitar); Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner (1924-2016, conductor)
Further info: Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) - Ariette & Lieder
---
Italian guitar virtuoso and composer. He studied the cello and
counterpoint, but the six-string guitar became his principal instrument
early in life. As there were many fine guitarists in Italy at the
beginning of the 19th century (Agliati, Carulli, Gragnani, Nava etc.),
but little public interest in music other than opera, Giuliani, like
many skilled Italian instrumentalists, moved north to make a living. He
settled in Vienna in 1806 and quickly became famous as the greatest
living guitarist and also as a notable composer, to the chagrin of
resident Viennese talents such as Simon Molitor and Alois Wolf. In April
1808 Giuliani gave the première of his guitar concerto with full
orchestral accompaniment, op.30, to great public acclaim. Thereafter he
led the classical guitar movement in Vienna, teaching, performing and
composing a rich repertory for the guitar (nearly 150 works with opus
number, 70 without). His guitar compositions were notated on the treble
clef in the new manner which, unlike violin notation, always
distinguished the parts of the music – melody, bass, inner voices –
through the careful use of note stem directions and rests. Giuliani
played the cello in the première of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (8
December 1813) in the company of Vienna’s most famous artists, including
Hummel, Mayseder and Spohr, with whom he appeared publicly on many
subsequent occasions. He became a ‘virtuoso onorario di camera’ to
Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s second wife, in about 1814. He returned
to Italy in 1819, heavily in debt, living first in Rome (c.1820-23) and
finally in Naples, where he was patronized by the nobility at the court
of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until his death. Towards the end of
his life he was renowned for performances on the lyre guitar. Giuliani
had two talented children, Michel Giuliani (1801-1867), who became a
noted ‘professeur de chant’, succeeding Manuel Garcia at the Paris
Conservatoire, and Emilia Giuliani (1813-c.1840), a famous guitar
virtuoso who wrote a well-known set of preludes for guitar op.46.
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada