GFA Refereed Monograph, Mauro Giuliani: A Life for the Guitar by Thomas Heck Available as E-Book

THE GUITAR FOUNDATION OF AMERICA

is proud to announce the inaugural publication in e-book form of the

latest revised edition of Thomas Heck’s life-long work on Mauro Giuliani

Mauro Giuliani: A Life for the Guitar

(GFA Refereed Monographs, No. 2)

Superseding the well-known printed edition, Mauro Giuliani: Virtuoso Guitarist and Composer (Editions Orphée, 1995), this thoroughly revised and updated e-book not only paints a fuller picture of Giuliani’s life and significance than ever before, but it also takes advantage of the cross-linking and search capabilities of e-publication:

· The 1995 printed edition of this study had about 106,000 words and 440 footnotes. The 2013 e-book version has 121,600 words and 457 endnotes, each of them instantly available as a "click” from within in the text.

· The entire work, for the first time, is key-word searchable using any Kindle e-book reader or software. After April 2013, an ePub version will also be released.

Searching a name like Emilia (the composer’s famous daughter) in the e-book version brings up some thirty hits, including, for example, references to recent published research by Nicoletta Confalone, and a reproduction of a newly discovered portrait of Emilia Giuliani by Franz Nadorp. The 1995/97 edition of this book (out of print), while it had a good index, could point to only eleven pages where Emilia was discussed.

· Much new research on the composer and his world, published in Italian by Marco Riboni in Mauro Giuliani (Palermo: Epos, 2011), is referenced in English in this new e-book version.

· Currently Mauro Giuliani: A Life for the Guitar is exclusively and inexpensively available through Amazon’s Kindle stores worldwide, for $9.99 US (and comparable prices in Euros, GBP, etc.). Free Kindle reader software for PCs, tablets, and smart phones is available from amazon.com.

In his foreword, Thomas Heck acknowledges that Mauro Giuliani: A Life for the Guitar "owes much to a new generation of European guitar scholars who have given considerable time and attention to Giuliani research, and have kindly shared their findings with me. I want to thank in particular Marco Riboni, Andreas Stevens, and Gerhard Penn, whose contributions are signaled frequently in the endnotes and elsewhere. Erik Stenstadvold has likewise done us all a great service by bringing out, in 2010, his Annotated Bibliography of Guitar Methods, 1760-1860, which I frequently consulted in the course of revising this book.”

The GFA, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, respectfully reminds its members and the public that about 65% of the online sales of titles in the GFA Refereed Monograph series go directly toward the support the foundation. Currently one other title is available in the series and recommended for your e-libraries: Sean Ferguson’s The Guitar Before 1900: What the Dictionaries Reveal.

Who Was Mauro Giuliani?

Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), a contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert, was a musician with a mission: to raise the recently invented (but rather quiet) six-string guitar to a level of musical prominence in a world inclined to favor ever-louder operatic, pianistic, and symphonic music. During the years 1806-1819, while he lived in Vienna, Giuliani’s dazzling performances made him the darling of that city, whose press and public hailed him as the greatest guitarist of his generation. His guitar works, rich in chamber music, were published by the foremost Viennese publishers and widely acclaimed. Against all odds, this poor guitarist of modest south-Italian origin made a place in history for himself. He was decisive in launching the classical guitar in central Europe as a versatile instrument capable of moving and enchanting audiences when played with skill and musicianship.