Mauro Giuliani

Mauro Giuliani reached Vienna in 1806. Born at Bisceglie on the Adriatic and raised in Barletta, he had studied bowed strings first, and played cello at the first performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. He wrote three guitar concertos; the six Rossiniane are based on music from Rossini's operas, and the Studio per la chitarra, Op. 1, includes exercises for right-hand technique. He left Vienna in 1819 and spent his last decade in Rome and Naples. He died in 1829. In 1815 he joined Hummel, the violinist Joseph Mayseder and the cellist Joseph Merk in the Dukaten Concerte in the gardens of Schönbrunn, and played for the festivities of the Congress of Vienna; the Beethoven premiere had fallen on 8 December 1813. Leaving the city he passed through Trieste and Venice before settling in Rome, and in Naples he gave duo recitals with his daughter Emilia, a guitarist herself. He died there in May 1829.