The Italian guitarist-composer
Mauro Giuliani spent the years from
1806 to 1819 in Vienna, mixing in the
highest musical circles. Viennese contemporaries
certainly admired his work and felt
that he had had a considerable impact
on the musical landscape of the city.
His fellow guitarist and composer Simon
Molitor sang his praises effusively
in the Versuch einer Vollständigen
methodischen anleitung zum Guitare-Spielen
which he published (jointly with R.
Klinger) in Vienna in 1812:
Then Herr Mauro Giuliani, a Neapolitan, came to
us - a man who from his youth had been led in the best direction
through a proper sense of harmony and who, as an accomplished
virtuoso, joined to the most correct performance the very greatest
perfection of technique and taste. By means of
his teaching and the spirit of emulation
he has aroused amongst teacher and lovers
of the instrument, he has created amongst
us so many accomplished amateurs that
there can scarcely be any other place
where true guitar playing is so widely
practised as here in our Vienna.
Giuliani's years in Vienna were - for all his
apparent success - cut short by financial difficulties
and mounting debt. He left to return
to Italy, spending some years in Rome
before a final return to Naples (he
was actually born at Bisceglie, on the
Adriatic coast of Italy 'opposite' Naples).
While in Rome in the first half of the
1820s he seems to have spent a good
deal of time in the company of Rossini
and Paganini. It was in these years
that he began the series of six Rossiniane
- fantasias for solo guitar on themes from the operas - which form the core
of this pair of reissued CDs. He had
already written sets of variations on
material by Rossini, such as the Variazioni
brillanti e sulla piu "Di
tanti palpiti" dall'opera
Tancredi which is also recorded
here. But the Rossiniane mark
a considerable advance on these earlier
compositions.
As Frédéric
Zigante puts it in his booklet notes
"the distinct character of the
Rossiniane " is found in Giuliani's
desire to gather not only the exquisitely
melodic essence of Rossini's operas, but also their
theatricality, transforming these pieces into some kind of
miniature opera acts for the guitar with great instrumentational
pertinency and effective organization". Certainly there is a sense
of design - quite large-scale design - to each of the six pieces,
each drawing on a variety of operatic
materials and treating them with considerable
freedom and invention. The first draws
largely on Otello and L'Italiana
in Algeri, the fifth on Il barbiere
di Siviglia, Tancredi,
Cenerentola and La gazza ladra,
and so on. There is an emotional shape,
a rhythmic variety, to the resultant
works; the Rossiniane have often
been described as "pot-pourris"
of Rossinian ideas, but I think that
underestimates the care with which they
have been put together and just how
many of the ideas are actually Giuliani's. Maybe there are
places where in a sense neither can take the credit - some of
the ways in which Giuliani elaborates
Rossinian motifs surely owe something
to the practices of contemporary singers
whom he had doubtless heard. There is
a very interesting study of this, and
other aspects of the Rossiniane in a
substantial article by Stefano Castelvecchi,
"Le Rossiniane di Mauro Giuliani",
in the Bolletino del Centro Rossiniano
di Studi, nos.1-3, 1986, pp.33-72.
Frédéric
Zigante plays the Rossiniane with
obvious affection and understanding
and with the necessary technical assurance.
He is particularly good at the clarification
of the larger design of individual pieces
but perhaps sometimes a little lacking
in full-blooded lyricism. Still, he
certainly sustains one's interest over two CDs of solo guitar - no mean feat.
The control of dynamics is excellent
and, along with well-judged and sensitive
phrasing, makes for some very agreeable
listening. The recorded sound is satisfactory
without being especially vivid.
The sets of Variations
are pleasant but less remarkable than
the Rossiniane. Giuliani seems
to have been adding to the Rossiniane
till quite close to the time of his
death in May 1829. The Giornale delle
Due Sicilie reported his death in
its issue of 14 May, 1829:
On the morning
of the eighth of this month the
famous guitarist Mauro Giuliani
died in this capital city [i.e.
Naples]. The guitar was transformed
in his hands into an instrument
akin to the harp, soothing men's
hearts with sweetness. He is succeeded
by a young daughter, who shows herself
to be heir to his unusual ability.
I wonder what happened
to her?
Glyn Pursglove
Frédéric Zigante (guitar) 
for
details
