In 1800-1860 the guitar enjoyed high popularity in the Vienna bourgeois salons. Guitar virtuosos such as Mauro Galiani or Johann Kaspar Mertz were at the peak of their success and fame.  It is not certain whether Franz Schubert played the guitar as well, however, it is beyond doubt that he owned a guitar. In 1824, at the initiative of his publisher, his song cycle "Die Schöne Müllerin" was transcribed for the guitar and also published.  It marked the beginning of numerous guitar arrangements of Schubert's music that were made by his contemporaries as well as by musicians of later generations.   Manuel Maria Ponce (born in 1882) has followed quite a different route. He composed his "Sonata Romantica" as a tribute to "Franz Schubert, who loved the guitar", thereby filling a poignant chasm in the instrument's repertoire. It's third part, "Moment Musical", constitutes a reminiscence of the famous "Serenade" by Schubert. Even though Ponce mostly refrained from using Schubertian themes and motifs throughout this four-part masterpiece, he managed to retain an emanating spirit of Schubert's songs, Impromptus and Moments Musicaux, achieved through his song themes, dramatic expressions and typical modulations.   Schubert's "Serenade" happens to be one of the songs transcribed for solo guitar by Johann Kaspar Mertz, a Viennese of his own choice. His "Fantaisie Hongroise", in harmony with the spirit of the epoch, combines masterly rhapsodic passages with hungarian folk themes. This concerto masterpiece is a gesture of respect towards the composer's hungarian roots.   In 1840, around the time when Mertz settled in Vienna, the "Gran Sonata Eroica" by Mauro Giuliani was published post-mortem. Giuliani, an acclaimed guitar virtuoso, fled the city in 1819 in most mysterious circumstances. The authenticity of the masterpiece, published so late, lacking an autograph and with it's peculiar stylistic aspects, was often questioned. However, Giuliani himself announced the masterpiece to his publisher as great and genuinely innovative already in 1821. Regardless of the vague circumstances of the sonata's origins, guitar interpreters had already delivered an unanimous verdict, deeming it one of the greatest works of Mauro Giuliani.  The only guitar composition "Homenaje" by Manuel de Falla performed by Michal Stanikowski serves as an introduction to his next CD that will contain 20th century guitar music. This short piece, dedicated to Debussy, is considered a breakthrough masterpiece that is a window on the 20th century guitar repertoire world.   Album notes by Prof. Michael R. Hampel The creators of this record would like to express their grateful thanks to the Seminary of Paradyz and Rev. Boguslaw Grzebien, PhD for hospitality and making it possible to record in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Paradyz.