Naxos just released the first volume in what looks to be a series of discs of Wenzel Thomas Matiegka's solo guitar sonatas.
Track listing as follows:
Grande Sonate No. 1 for Guitar in D Major
1 I. Maestoso 07:47
2 II. Andante molto 03:47
3 III. Rondo capriccioso: Allegro non molto 08:46
Guitar Sonata in B Minor, Op. 23
4 I. Presto. Fugato 04:25
5 II. Menuetto - Trio 04:31
6 III. Rondo: Allegro non tanto 07:03
Grande Sonate No. 2 for Guitar in A Major
7 I. Moderato 09:09
8 II. Andante con espressione 05:38
9 III. Variations sur l'air allemande par Haydn 08:58
Sonate progressive for Guitar in G Major, Op. 17
10 I. Cantabile 07:05
11 II. Andante 02:58
12 III. Rondo: Moderato 06:06
This is a fun release and I recommend it. If you have never heard Matiegka's guitar sonatas before and would like to hear them I think this is probably the best introduction disc you could ask for. There have been several other releases of Matiegka's guitar sonatas in the past and they each have their good points but I like that this release puts Op. 23 between Grand Sonata I and Grand Sonata II. It allows the shorter Haydn-based sonata to interrupt the flow of the grandness so it isn't all "grand" across the board. I like all of Matiegka's guitar sonatas but alternating them across Op. 23 and Op. 17 is a good programming decision.
Grand Sonata I is understandably the opener because it's arguably Matiegka's best known work and one of his strongest pieces. Following up with the Op. 23 Haydn arrangement is a good move, too. I like that Dragos Ilie introduced embellishments in the repeats across the dance forms and even in the sonata forms. Knowing that early 19th century composer performers would do this kind of thing adds to the performance. Fastidious note-for-note performances were more, dare I say so, post-cult-of-Beethoven norms than what would apply to performing something by a Bohemian guitarist composer (who did, it must be said, arrange some Beethoven). If you know the score like the back of your hand you can hear where the embellishments happen but if you don't they're pleasing.
Grand Sonata II comes off very well. Ilie brings out a lot of contrasts in loud and soft passages that helps accentuate the humor of the music. If I could zero in on something specific to this recording it's that Ilie gets that Matiegka was heavily influenced by Haydn and peppered his music with musical jokes--maybe these were all jokes that only fellow musicians might recognize as jokes but they are there and Dragos Ilie does a good job of bringing those out.
I admit I prefer Massimo Agostinelli's take on Op. 17 a tiny bit more because he accentuated the contrasting tempi between Themes 1 and 2 in the opening sonata movement, but Ilie conveys pretty well how Theme 2 bursts in before Theme 1 can finish its full expositional form from the exposition within the recapitulation. Ilie also gets the long-form joke in the closing Rondo of Op. 17 where it ends like a sonata recapitulation despite being called "Rondo".
Many of Matiegka's jokes come from the way he slices up or slices off large sections of his themes where you would expect his recapitulations to be "textbook". By now we have enough theoretical treatments of 18th century and early 19th century sonata forms the very idea of a "textbook" sonata is pretty misleading. Steeping myself in Matiegka's sonatas over the last ten years has helped me appreciate how true it is that the idea of a "textbook sonata form" is a scholarly fantasy.
Every Matiegka sonata form is different and features some formal quirk. Grand Sonata I kicks off the recapitulation in the subdominant key and doesn't course-correct into the tonic until half-way through. Op. 23's first movement is a Haydn transcription that blurs the boundary between sonata and fugato (because that's what Haydn did). Grand Sonata II only brings back the second half of Theme 1 in the recapitulation of its sonata form and when it seems Theme 1 is going to come back for real it's grand gesture only kicks off a non-modulating transition that leads to Theme 2 and Theme 3 (Theme 3 itself comes from one of Haydn's E-flat major piano trios). Op. 17 has a sonata form where Theme 2 cuts off Theme 1 half-way through and forces the recapitulation into an earlier end, and the closing Rondo, as I mentioned before, concludes like a sonata form and dispenses with what should have been the final refrain if Matiegka were really going to go full rondo.
Dragos Ilie is clearly aware of all of these abstract but still very real musical jokes in the way he interprets Matiegka's music so it makes for funny and enjoyable listening. Years ago I saw a disc that had a title that described Matiegka as the Beethoven of the Guitar. That title need not detain us too long in 2026 and, in my ten years of studying the composer's work I would say it's more accurate to suggest Matiegka was the Haydn of the guitar, not least because quoting and repurposing Haydn's musical ideas turns out to have been central to two of the works featured on this disc.
I'm not going to get so detailed as to mention phrase-by-phrase decisions but I like that Ilie accentuates and contrasts phrases and sub-phrases by using ponticello and tasto in several places across the sonatas. He's also good at keeping track of the contrapuntal strands in Matiegka's music.
Since I've been blogging through Matiegka's guitar sonatas for years, and since the Matiegka 2023 project is still slowly ongoing I am going to re-link to my earlier work discussing the sonatas because it doesn't just so happen this disc features the sonatas I've already discussed in some detail!
For Grand Sonata I go here.
For Op. 23, I go here.
For Grand Sonata II go here.
For a more specialized discussion of Matiegka's use of the V7/V to V to IV chord progression go here.
For Op. 17 go here.
If Ilie is in for the rest of the Matiegka sonatas then I'm definitely on board getting the future discs. I certainly agree that the time has come to revisit and evaluate Matiegka's music as part of the guitar literature since I've written maybe 128 pages worth of material on it and am only half-way done.
I still have to get to discussing movements 2 and 3 of Op. 23 later this year. Then on to all six of Op. 31. For regular readers I probably don't have to tell you that blogging through the Matiegka sonatas has been a long and intense project. It's good to interrupt things a bit because life happens and because, along the way, I get to listen to a release like this new Naxos disc to let me know that other guitarists have gone back and found that Matiegka's work is fun enough to bring to life on disc.
