Matiegka Complete Music for Solo Guitar - Tampalini Giulio 7 CD

Composer unfairly neglected

Most people who buy classical guitar CDs will be familiar with the name of Fernando Sor (1778-1839). Matiegka was an almost exact contemporary of Sor's (1773-1830) but is much less well-known, in fact hardly known at all. This is a tragedy, as he is a rather better composer than Sor, and his works deserve a much wider audience.
His style is much like Sor's, with many minuets for instance, but the pieces are longer and much richer. One of his specialities is the composition of sets of variations, of which Sor was also very fond, and fully 25% of the individual tracks on these seven CDs are variations. But while Sor's variations were predictable (some would say inevitable) Matiegka's are far more varied, complex and satisfying.
Sor had the great advantage of living in Paris, where early nineteenth century musical innovation was at its most exciting, while Matiegka spent most of his working life in Vienna, which was appreciative of his gifts but not quite as important a musical centre as Paris.
This set of CDs may be very warmly recommended indeed to any lover of classical (i.e. from the classical period) guitar music.Read full review

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