Michal Stanikowski - Vienna Guitar Recital. - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In 1800-1860 the guitar enjoyed high popularity in the Vienna bourgeois salons. Guitar virtuosos such as Mauro Galiani or Johann Kaspar Mertz were at the peak of their success and fame.  It is not certain whether Franz Schubert played the guitar as well, however, it is beyond doubt that he owned a guitar. In 1824, at the initiative of his , his song cycle InchDie Schöne MüllerinInch was transcribed for the guitar and also published.  It marked the beginning of numerous guitar arrangements of Schubert's music that were made by his contemporaries as well as by musicians of later generations.   Manuel Maria Ponce (born in 1882) has followed quite a different route. He composed his InchSonata RomanticaInch as a tribute to InchFranz Schubert, who loved the guitarInch, thereby filling a poignant chasm in the instrument's repertoire. It's third part, InchMoment MusicalInch, constitutes a reminiscence of the famous InchSerenadeInch by Schubert. Even though Ponce mostly refrained from using Schubertian themes and motifs throughout this four-part masterpiece, he managed to retain an emanating spirit of Schubert's songs, Impromptus and Moments Musicaux, achieved through his song themes, dramatic expressions and typical modulations.   Schubert's InchSerenadeInch happens to be one of the songs transcribed for solo guitar by Johann Kaspar Mertz, a Viennese of his own choice. His InchFantaisie HongroiseInch, in harmony with the spirit of the epoch, combines masterly rhapsodic passages with hungarian folk themes. This concerto masterpiece is a gesture of respect towards the composer's hungarian roots.   In 1840, around the time when Mertz settled in Vienna, the InchGran Sonata EroicaInch by Mauro Giuliani was published post-mortem. Giuliani, an acclaimed guitar virtuoso, fled the city in 1819 in most mysterious circumstances. The authenticity of the masterpiece, published so late, l