Mauro Giuliani was one of the great guitar virtuosos of the early 19th century who also wrote outstanding music for the instrument, including three guitar concertos. Although born in southern Italy in 1781, he got around quite a bit.
Moving to Vienna put him in contact with important musicians and composers of the time, including Beethoven. Giuliani also played the cello, and it's said that he played in the orchestra at the first performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony in December of 1813.
Mauro Giuliani brings his experience of the late classicism of the early 19th century Vienna and his fine sense of Italian melody to bear in the Guitar Concerto No. 1 in A. On the next Fretworks, I'll have a performance of that piece with John Williams playing on a historic guitar of the period with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He recorded the most popular of Giuliani's concertos with a Gaetano Guadagnini guitar made in Turin in 1814.
Also on the program, Paul Galbraith plays his unusual 8-string guitar for a musical evocation of Spain with Songs of La Mancha by Federico Moreno Torroba. Lutenist Ronn McFarlane has a prelude by Bach, David Russell plays a piece by Manuel Ponce, and the Brasil Guitar Duo performs Micro piezas (Homage to Darius Milhaud) by Leo Brouwer from their new Naxos CD.
That's all on the next Fretworks Saturday and Wednesday evenings at 7 on Classical 101.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAKUIFVUPoQ