Diabelli's claim to fame has rested largely on his activities in the family publishing firm and, by association, Beethoven's variations on one of his little waltzes. Less well remembered is his teaching of the piano and guitar, for which latter he wrote three sonatas. Those in A and C are in the usual four movements but that in F lacks a minuet, and in 1969 Julian Bream published a 'reconstituted' sonata consisting of the last two movements of the Sonata in A, preceded by the first two of the Sonata in F, transposed into A, and it is mainly in this hybridized form that these works have since been represented in performance, though a complete edition has been available for more than 60 years. Though they are small beer by the overall compositional standards of the time, and modest by comparison with the sonatas of Sor and Giuliani, they are well written for the instrument and not without their moments of charm, for example in the playful Minuet and Trio of the Sonata in A, not great music but perhaps not deserving of oblivion.
Anthony Glise, a name new to me, is a properly stylish player, who adds his own cadenzas to the last movements of the Sonatas in A and C. He uses a guitar by Staufer, made c. 1818, close to where the publishing house of Diabelli stood; it has gut strings, tuned to the lower pitch of the day and, unless my ears deceive me, Glise plays without right-hand nails; the sound is softer and smaller than that of today's instruments and the microphone is placed just close enough to avoid making it obtrusively larger than life. Who might like to buy this album? It will appeal to anyone, guitarist or not, interested in hearing what this Biedermeier salon music probably sounded like in its own time. R1 '9507091'