Mauro Giuliani was both a virtuoso performer on the guitar and one of the great figures in early 19th-century composition for the instrument. His variations, studies, sonatas and other works have entered the repertoires of generations of subsequent performers. The six dazzling Rossiniane for solo guitar are fantasias on themes taken from the great Italian composer's operas. They offer a compendium of the guitar as a miniature orchestra revealing refinements of technique and expressiveness never before achieved on the instrument.