Music by the Ducat: Giuliani's Guitar and Vienna's Musical Markets, 1806-1819

Amidst ambivalent attitudes held toward the guitar, Italian-born guitar virtuoso Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) composed and performed in Vienna from 1806 to1819. Giuliani’s time in the city was punctuated by his participation in the market for goods related to the Congress of Vienna. He entered this market by gearing his performances and publications towards representing the Congress’s mandate of cooperation and conversation, as well as the recent interest in Austrian folk songs alongside patriotic sentiments for an emerging Austrian state. Giuliani’s solo guitar performances were defined by his unique ability to overcome what critics regarded as the guitar’s seemingly unsurmountable deficiencies. His active participation in the virtuoso concert culture of Vienna—a market that was removed from a growing “serious” concert culture—was defined by his increasing involvement in the commercially-driven subscription concert. Underlying Giuliani’s participation in the Congress of Vienna and the popular virtuoso concert was his interest in the burgeoning folk music movement. Related to Austrian patriotic sentiments, Giuliani’s folk-inspired Ländler and variation sets reveal his preoccupation with a more quotation-based approach to folk song composition, an approach that—while attractive in terms of print music sales—jeopardized the longevity of his folk-inspired works by obscuring his authorial ingenuity. The early nineteenth century is regarded by guitar scholars as the “Golden Age of the Guitar,” and Giuliani is often positioned as one of the foremost contributors to the development of classical guitar repertoire during this time. However, I argue that Giuliani’s approach to guitar composition and performance reveals not a desire to cultivate a solo classical guitar repertoire, but a concerted effort to present the guitar, and by extension, himself, as a commodity for Viennese markets associated with the Congress of Vienna celebrations, the lucrative virtuoso concert, and the burgeoning folk music movement. Underlying each of these markets was a demand for public and private performances, as well as a desire for printed music. The result of Giuliani’s efforts were performances and works that, while meant for consumption by the wider public, engage with the intimate, easily digestible, and sociable aspects of Vienna’s musical culture.Ph.D