Mauro Giuliani was known throughout the music world as the “Mozart of the guitar”. The vocal works recorded on this recording testify to Giuliani’s preference for Italian songs. Especially in the Sei Ariette or “Little Arias”, a more modest form of the opera aria, the resemblance to the Italian bel canto aria is unmistakable. The selection presented here was published in 1818 in Vienna. In contrast to this, Giuliani’s Sechs Lieder, or “Six Songs”, with their German texts by Goethe, Schiller, Matthisson and others, are clearly more similar to Schubert's Lieder. Published in 1817 in Vienna, these songs bear witness to the birth of the Viennese Biedermeier period. Finally, the Sei Cavatine consist of six Italian arias, in which Giuliani contrasts skillfully brilliant pieces with sensitive melancholic ones, and this in a clearly opera-like format.
