Claudio Giuliani - Molino: Complete Guitar Sonatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Francesco Molino (1768-1847) was born into a family of violinists in Ivrea, near Turin. There, and for a time in Genoa as well, he made a career as a virtuoso violinist himself, until at the age of 50, he moved permanently to Paris.Once in the French capital, Molino began a new phase of his musical career, which coincided with a significant increase in the number of works he published - almost all of which were dedicated to the guitar, both as a solo instrument and as part of chamber formations.Molino made a significant impact on the Parisian musical world, as is demonstrated by the huge success of the first edition of his Nouvelle Methode pour la Guitare, which had some 400 subscribers both in France and in other European countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy). Over the years Molino revised and added to the methos, and various editions of it were published in a number of languages, with a Spanish version even reaching Mexico and Havana.The works presented in this recording were all published as 'sonatas' by Molino, who explicitly stated that they were intended for performance by solo guitar. He uses three main structural types for these sonatas.The first has a romance as a first movement, followed by a rondo (Sonatas Op.1 No.1, Op.15 No.2 and Op.51). The second begins with a short maestoso introduction that is characterised by initial chords and octaves in succession, evoking the orchestral colour of certain operatic overtures. This movement ends with an interrupted cadence and is followed by a theme with variations, before a final rondo (Sonatas Op.1 No.2, Op.15 No.1 and No.3). The third type begins with an allegro first movement in sonata form (in bipartite 18th-century style, featuring two distinct themes with a tonic-dominant relationship) that is followed immediately by a final rondo (Sonatas Op.1 No.3, Op.6No.1 and No.2). All the sonatas reflec