BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, November 24, 1822

Today marks the third and last of a series of concerts by Italian guitar virtuoso Luigi Legnani (1790-1877) in Vienna. Legnani took the city by storm, and the musical advertisements in the Wiener Zeitung over the last month have frequently offered various pieces and instructional works for guitar composed by Legnani. Undeservedly relegated to obscurity today, he is perhaps best known for his Caprices op.20. This video is a compilation of five of Legnani’s works for classical guitar, performed by Alexandra Whittingham, Nejc Kuhar, Alexander Kryuchkov, and Peter Graneis.

The Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr. 98 for December 7 at 780-781 will include a short review of this final concert, which commended the use of a slightly larger auditorium than for his first two concerts. The reviewer commended Legnani as a virtuoso with tremendous skill, met with extraordinary applause con furore. Dlle. Wilhelmine Schröder, who had recently sung Leonore in the revival of Beethoven’s Fidelio also sang to Legnani’s accompaniment.