Mertz: Fantasias for Solo Guitar

Featuring

Giuseppe Chiaramonte
Johann Kaspar Mertz

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Johann Kaspar Mertz, the composer, aimed to adapt piano technical virtuosity to the guitar, despite the guitar's fewer possibilities compared to the piano.

Interpretation

Giuseppe Chiaramonte, the guitarist on this album, and his teacher Angelo Capistrano, spent 15 years experimenting with and refining a singular right-hand technique for Mertz's music.

Composer Biography

Mertz's wife, Josephine, recounted that a customs official once suspected Mertz of selling music supplies due to his two guitars and substantial quantity of strings.

Instruments

The entire album was recorded using a 6-string guitar named 'La antiqua', made by luthier Mario Grimaldi in 2016, which is a Torres-inspired instrument constructed with exceptionally old wood.

Compositional Technique

Mertz developed techniques to create sostenuto effects on the guitar, such as rapid accompaniment figures and tremolo patterns in an inner voice, to compensate for the instrument's rapid decay.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Mertz chose not to publish some of his most demanding works during his lifetime, explaining that publishers would find them too difficult and that he preferred to keep them for his own concerts.

Compositional Technique

Mertz's Fantasias are technically demanding, featuring rapid chord changes, octaves to high frets, elaborate arpeggio patterns, and various tremolo passages.