Complete Guitar

Composer and novelist, Anthony Burgess, was a unique creative artist whose dual mastery of music and literature resulted in a career strewn with an output of remarkable diversity. Burgess came into contact with the Aighetta Guitar Quartet while living in Monte Carlo in 1986, and the sublime arrangements and original works in this recording were all composed for this ensemble. The three guitar quartets range from the well-crafted First Quartet intended as a homage to Ravel, while the Second and Third Quartets explore virtuoso technique alongside adventurous and at times haunting harmonies and polytonality.

An acclaimed Italian guitar virtuoso and composer, Mauro Giuliani, along with Fernando Sor, was one of the last great classical proponents of his instrument until its revival in the early twentieth century. He studied counterpoint and the cello, but on the six-string guitar he was entirely self-taught, and that became his principal instrument early on. Italy abounded with fine guitarists at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Carulli remains the most familiar today), but few of them could make a living because of the public's preoccupation with opera. So Giuliani embarked on a successful tour of Europe when he was 19, and in 1806 he settled in Vienna, where he entered the musical circle of Diabelli, Moscheles, and Hummel. He solidified his reputation with the 1808 premiere of his Guitar Concerto in A major, Op. 30, and was soon heralded as the greatest living guitar virtuoso. Even Beethoven noticed Giuliani, and wrote of his admiration for him. Perhaps to return the favor, Giuliani played cello in the 1813 premiere of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

The magic and mystery of Mexico make a welcome return on this recording, as the expert skills of Gerard Abiton explore Manuel Ponces complete works for guitar. There is a wealth of treasures to be enjoyed here, as Ponces vast career led him to explore a number of different styles. His time in Paris exerted a French influence on his music, heard in the wonderfully lyrical song-without-words motif in the second movement of his Sonata III.

In Raffaele Calace’s considerable musical production – approximately 200 opus numbers – 9 pieces are for solo guitar, obviously not including his single composition for Hawaiian guitar, Piccolo fiore op. 168. This statistical datum takes on a greater importance if we consider that Calace’s other solo pieces were all for the two main instruments to which he devoted his existence, the mandolin and the cantabile lute: for these instruments he composed respectively 30 and 26 works, in addition to his handbooks, which are a fundamental point of reference for the modern teaching of these instruments. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to consider this production unworthy of interest: it shows us the taste and charm of a period, and offers us compositions that are refined and far from commonplace. These pieces convey the emotions and intimacy of the romanticism that could be felt in drawing-room music, during the so-called “periodiche”, the musical gatherings in the Neapolitan middle-class homes. The young guitarist Roberto Guarnieri plays Calace's music on a precious 1936 "Mozzani” guitar part of the collection of the Modenese luthier Lorenzo Frignani.

Heitor Villa-Lobos is widely recognised as Brazil’s most important composer, whose style reflects his country and his era: rooted in 20-th century European modernism, he developed his own unique style, blending all colours, smells and sounds of his homeland into his rich, exuberant and vibrant music. Villa-Lobos wrote an immense oeuvre. An important place hold his guitar works, the perfect instrument to present his own style, fusing Latin-American folk-inspired elements with more “learned” European forms, like Etudes and Preludes. The complete guitar works of Villa Lobos, played by one of the best classical guitarists of today, Frédéric Zigante.