Chapter 14 - Giuliani’s Sound – A Timbral Mystery

Giuliani did not leave any direct information as to his preference in respect to the use of

flesh, nail, or a combination of both, as his preferred method of plucking the strings with

the right hand. There is indirect evidence to suggest what Giuliani’s preference may have

been, including:

1. Similarities in the compositional style of Giuliani, Sor and Aguado and their

idiomatic use of the guitar;

2. The relationship of Giuliani’s compositions and style of playing to the Italian

bel canto style of singing;

3. The performance environments in which Giuliani was heard;

4. Giuliani’s significant activity as a chamber musician and concerto soloist;

5. Contemporary accounts of Giuliani’s playing.

Each of these areas will now be explored to build the evidence necessary to be able to

suggest whether Giuliani would have used flesh or nail to pluck the guitar strings.

1. Similarities in the idiomatic instrumental style of composition of Aguado and

Giuliani

An effective way of determining if Giuliani used flesh or nail to pluck the strings is to

look at interpretive aspects of his music and to see which technique might express these

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most effectively. Both Sor and Aguado left very clear descriptions as to their preference

for plucking with flesh or nail. By looking for stylistic similarities between the music of

Giuliani and that of Sor and Aguado more evidence can be gathered as to which plucking

method may have been favoured by Giuliani. The contrapuntal style of writing used by

Sor is not a dominant characteristic of Giuliani’s music, however, many similarities can

be found between the music of Giuliani and the idiomatic compositional style of Aguado.

The following extract from Aguado’s Op. 2 # 3 can be used to draw attention to these

similarities.

Figure 14-1 – Dionisio Aguado: Op. 2 # 3; Rondo, 54 – 651

1
Dionisio Aguado, Selected Concert Works for Guitar (Heidelberg: Chanterelle Verlag, 1981; reprint,
1990), 17.

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Idiomatic compositional features of this music include:

A. The rapid movement over an extended compass of the fingerboard (bars 56-

58 and bars 60 - 62 in the above example);

B. The need for rapid articulation;

C. The implied need to use the ‘A’ finger of the right hand in bars 2 / 6 / 9-12 if

any degree of fluency is to be achieved;

D. The often harmonically static and rapidly arpeggiated passages creating a

homophonic texture;

E. Un-harmonised, single note runs / flourishes.

The following passage from Giuliani’s Le Rossiniane Op. 120 # 2 (Andantino Sostenuto

bar 19 piu mosso) contains a similar range of idiomatic techniques including rapidly

articulated right hand arpeggios, combined with rapid left hand position shifts. The use of

the ‘A’ finger on the right hand would have been essential if any degree of fluency was to

be achieved.

The extract below is annotated using the alphabetic key used above for Aguado’s Rondo

Op. 2 # 3.so as to allow a direct comparison.

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Figure 14-2 - Mauro Giuliani: Le Rossiniane Op. 120 # 2; Andantino Sostenuto /19 Piu
mosso2

Sor’s recommendation to his readers supports the suitability of Aguado’s right hand

technique in facilitating such passages:

Should the reader wish to learn to detach notes with rapidity in a difficult passage, I
cannot do better than to refer him to the Method of Mr. Aguado, who, excelling in this
kind of execution, is prepared to establish the best rules respecting it.3

The first, third and fifth of Sor’s twelve maxims outlined in his Method would however

have put him in conflict with the aesthetic of the above passage.

First – To regard the effect of the music more than the praise of the performer
Third – To be sparing of the operations called barring and shifting

2
Mauro Giuliani, Mauro Giuliani - the Complete Works in Facsimiles of the Original Editions, ed. Brian
Jeffery, vol. 39 (London: Tecla Editions, 1986).
3
Ferdinand Sor, Method for the Spanish Guitar, trans. A. Merrick (London: R. Cocks, 1832; reprint, Da
Capo Press), 22.

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 Fifth – Never to make any ostentation of difficulty in my playing, for by doing so, I
should render difficult what is the least so.4

The passage from Aguado’s Op. 2 # 3 is virtuosic and specifically composed to

demonstrate the skill and agility of the player, running foul of Sor’s maxims numbers one

and five. The ostentatious position shifts are contrary to Sor’s maxim three.

2. The relationship of Giuliani’s compositions and style of playing to the Italian bel

canto style of singing

The nature of Giuliani’s music and its close relationship to the Italian bel canto style of

singing is one of the defining elements of Giuliani’s technique, with tone production

being a key element. Chapter thirteen gave an overview of the significant characteristic of

the bel canto and it was noted that the bel canto required:

… a style of singing that called for agility, flexibility, nuance, and a pellucid and
languorous tone5.

With Celletti noting:

By now the goals and the components of the bel canto are all known to us and can be
itemized. The aim is to evoke a sense of wonder through unusual quality of timbre,
variety of colour and delicacy, virtuosic complexity of vocal display, and ecstatic lyrical
abandon.6

I would suggest that the virtuosic abandon required by the bel canto could be admirably

captured through the ‘Aguado’ technique. The purest bel canto can be observed in the

entry of the guitar in Giuliani’s second Concerto Op. 36 where we see Giuliani at his

4
Ibid., 48.
5
Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, trans. Frederick Fuller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983),
8.
6
Ibid., 9.

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most operatic. Thomas Heck notes that this concerto is ‘clearly the most lyrical of the

three concertos’7, flaunting its bel canto origins.

7
Thomas F Heck, Mauro Giuliani: Virtuoso Guitarist and Composer (Columbus: Editions Orphée, 1995),
172.

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Figure 14-3 – Operatic like entry of the soloist -Mauro Giuliani: Concerto Op. 36; I / 96
– 1248

Recording 14-1 (Track 37) - Mauro Giuliani: Concerto Op. 36; I / 96 – 124

8
Giuliani, Mauro Giuliani - the Complete Works in Facsimiles of the Original Editions, Vol.28.

371
The soloist makes a grand and dramatic entry, and as Robert Levin notes in relation to the

entry of the soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 K 219, completely ignoring the

thematic material that the orchestra has so carefully laid out.

In instrumental terms is rather remarkable, in vocal terms, in operatic terms, it’s

absolutely standard. The moment of personal privilege of the diva is shown by saying “I
bow to no one not even this orchestra. If I feel like being grand, or being melancholy, the
9
fact you have done this splendid thing is of no importance to me.”

In the opening twenty-eight bars of the guitar solo Giuliani weaves a solo line of

‘virtuosic complexity, ecstatic lyrical abandon requiring a varied and languorous tone.’

[Emphasis added]

3. The performance environments in which Giuliani was heard

From the accounts given by Thomas Heck it is clear that Giuliani performed in a diverse

range of venues ranging from the intimate and favoured venue of Giuliani’s, Vienna’s

small Redoutensaal, to outdoor venues with all their associated acoustical problems.

Giuliani presented an equally diverse range of compositions, including solo works and

chamber works, with some of the leading instrumentalists of the period, and concerti with

full orchestral accompaniment.

4. Giuliani’s significant activity as a chamber musician and concerto soloist

To continually present himself in such diverse venues, performing equally diverse

repertoire, Giuliani would have needed to be able to be heard, to project his sound so as

9
Robert Levin, Mozart (London: BBC / NVC Arts, 1997).

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to effectively ‘balance’ with other musicians in the ensembles in which he performed. It

would not be unreasonable to assume that if the results had been musically ineffective,

that musicians of the standing of Hummel, Moscheles and Mayseder would not have

continued to perform with him.

5. Contemporary accounts of Giuliani’s playing.

References to the guitar’s lack of volume and inferiority as a musical instrument were

not infrequent in the press of the period, but surprisingly few of these in respect to

volume and projection are found in relation to Giuliani. Press reports attest to the strength

of Giuliani’s sound:

He truly handles the guitar with unusual grace, skill and power.10

It is impossible to describe with what harmony, precision, agility, and sweetness he

[Giuliani] is able to draw forth any sound, loud or delicate, or robust or tender, from an
instrument… combining modern caprice with the ancient rules of harmony, travels the
path of true refinement.11

Aguado’s earlier recommendation in his Escuela de Guitarra of 1825 to use the nails

again suggests a technique that would well suit the virtuoso performer needing to project

his/her sound in often unfavourable venues.

The Guitarists do not agree about whether it should be played with fingernails or not. I
myself am of the opinion that in order to achieve more [emphasis added] and better
quality of tone, that is to say more and better sound, it is convenient to play with the
fingernails …12

10
Heck, Mauro Giuliani: Virtuoso Guitarist and Composer, 38.
11
Ibid., 107.
12
Quoted from Paul Wathen Cox, Classic Guitar Technique and Its Evolution as Reflected in the Method
Books Ca. 1770 - 1850, (PhD, Indiana University, 1978), 138.

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Conclusion

Aguado’s right hand technique with its capacity to produce ‘clean, metallic, and sweet’13

sounds, appears ready made for the expressive demands of the bel canto. It is therefore

reasonable to infer that to effectively perform the music of Giuliani a similar technical approach

to that recommended by Aguado would be interpretively appropriate. By inference it can

therefore be assumed that Giuliani would have also performed with a combination of flesh and

nail as recommended by Aguado.

13
Dionisio Aguado, New Guitar Method, ed. Brian Jeffery, trans. Louise Bigwood (Madrid: Tecla Editions,
1843; reprint, 1981), 10.

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