The Virtuosi program is ideally situated within one of the most fascinating periods in the history of the guitar: the early 19th century—an era when the instrument experienced an extraordinary technical and expressive fl owering. Between the end of the 18th century and the fi rst decades of the 19th, the six-string guitar (an evolution of the Baroque model) fi rmly established itself in the major European musical centers. This organological evolution was decisive: the structure became more robust, the fi ngerboard was extended, and string tension increased, allowing for greater projection and new technical possibilities. Cities like Naples, Milan, Vienna, Paris, and London became fundamental hubs for production, publishing, and concertizing. Here, innovative luthiers, enterprising music publishers, and virtuosos worked together to transform the guitar into a true stage instrument.
In particular, the Vienna of the early 1800s—the same city inhabited by Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert—embraced a genuine guitar "craze" that fi t perfectly into the vibrant atmosphere of the Habsburg capital between the Restoration and early Romanticism. Following the Congress of Vienna, the city became an international crossroads for artists, aristocrats, and the bourgeoisie, boasting a dense calendar of Akademien, benefi t concerts, private soirées, and theatrical performances. In this competitive and dynamic environment, the guitar found a surprisingly central place.
The presence of foreign virtuosos, such as the already famous composer-guitarist Mauro Giuliani, contributed decisively to this phenomenon. While the cultured bourgeoisie cultivated the instrument in their salons, virtuosos performed in the city's great halls, participating in Akademien alongside established instrumentalists and opera singers. They shared programs featuring concertos, brilliant variations, and fantasies based on theatrical themes. Giuliani, for instance, took part in celebrated Viennese orchestral concerts and presented his own guitar concertos in high-profi le public settings, helping to redefi ne the instrument's image.
In parallel, music publishing saw signifi cant expansion. Publishers active in Vienna released methods, educational collections, variation sets on hit arias, sonatas, and concertos, fueling a market that rapidly expanded toward Paris, Milan, and London. The guitar repertoire circulated with surprising speed, and the fi gure of the guitarist-composer often overlapped with that of the teacher and music entrepreneur. The methods of Giuliani and other authors met the growing demand of a middle class eager to participate actively in musical life.

The guitar thus assumed a dual identity: an instrument for musical conversation and, simultaneously, the protagonist of a new spectacle centered on virtuosity. Its technical possibilities—circular arpeggios, tremolo, octave passages, rapid scales, campanella effects, Alberti bass, and artifi cial harmonics—were displayed in public with increasing audacity. The writing often emerged directly from the performer's hands in a continuous experimentation with a new musical language. The composer was the performer, and the work was the immediate refl ection of the physical gesture.
The Virtuosi program celebrates this era of Italian music where writing was born from direct contact with the instrument. This is not music intended for the intimacy of the Romantic salon, but a repertoire conceived to amaze, move, and conquer the audience through a combination of technical brilliance and compositional imagination.
The model of the itinerant artist, embodied in those same years by fi gures like Niccolò Paganini, also infl uenced the guitar world: the virtuoso was no longer a mere elegant amateur, but a scenic personality capable of attracting, surprising, and dominating the audience’s attention.
In this cosmopolitan Vienna, the guitar participated in the same aesthetic tension that animated the transition from Classicism to Romanticism. Between formal balance and the search for individuality, between the salon and the theater, the instrument conquered a new space in the musical life of the age.
Italy played a decisive role in this process. In a cultural context dominated by lyric opera and the cult of bel canto, the guitar assimilated a cantabile, theatrical, and highly communicative language. Phrasing was modeled after vocality, ornamentation recalled the art of operatic improvisation, and melody became the absolute expressive core. The so-called "Italian taste"—brilliance, formal clarity, melodic immediacy, and a theatrical sense—exerted a profound infl uence throughout Europe, dialoguing with Viennese classicism and paving the way for early Romantic sensibilities. It is no coincidence that many Italian guitarists found success abroad, contributing to the spread of this sparkling style.
In this landscape, fi gures such as Ferdinando Carulli, Matteo Carcassi, Luigi Legnani, and especially Mauro Giuliani emerged as protagonists of the Viennese scene alongside the great names of the time. Giuliani fully embodied the modern
virtuoso: a charismatic performer, prolifi c composer, teacher, and self-promoter. Emblematic were his celebrated Dukatenkonzerte organized in Vienna, where tickets were priced at one ducat—glamorous and spectacular events that attested to the prestige reached by the guitar.
Giulio Regondi, Mauro Giuliani, and Niccolò Paganini represent the three pinnacles of this tradition: musician-performers who transformed the guitar into a sonic stage.
With Giulio Regondi, the guitar shows a technical refi nement at the service of expression. In Rêverie – Nocturne op. 19, through the use of tremolo, the composer generates two intensely lyrical melodies that intertwine in a dreamy atmosphere. Here, the writing transcends mere display; the control of sound and fl uid melodic lines create a unique sonic magnetism—a Romantic transfi guration of Italian vocality.
Mauro Giuliani embodies the spectacular spirit of the Italian virtuoso. The Grande Ouverture, Op. 61 (c. 1809) expands the guitar’s dimensions toward orchestral dramaturgy with majestic introductions and rhythmic surges. In his Rossiniana n. 5, virtuosic fantasy feeds directly on the theater of Gioachino Rossini, transforming the guitar into a small orchestra capable of evoking celebrated operatic moments.
Though famous as a violinist, Niccolò Paganini practiced the guitar assiduously as both a domestic instrument and a compositional laboratory. In the Grand Sonata for guitar and violin (often performed in the version for solo guitar), the writing alternates between energy, lyricism, and brilliance, revealing a theatrical conception of form: the Allegro asserts a bold and spectacular sonic presence; the Romanza sings with an almost operatic intensity; and the Andantino variato concludes with technical invention and brilliant lightness.
The common thread of this program is the "Aesthetics of Wonder": music born from virtuosity to speak directly to the listener. In this journey, the 19th-century Italian guitar emerges as an instrument of great theatricality, capable of evoking the orchestra, the voice, and the scenic gesture in a single sonic fl ow.
Virtuosi aims to be a portrait of the guitar as a performing art: brilliant, communicative, and surprising—a celebration of an era when Italian taste
conquered Europe through wonder, songfulness, and the magnetic force of the musical gesture.