The common factor that links the works on this recording is, above all, their monumental proportion. They are all grand works, written for special occasions or for special dedicatees, thus each of the four works composed between 1856 and 1976 is of considerable significance in the guitar’s repertoire. The first two are evocative descriptive pieces; the latter two are four-movement sonatas. Only one of these works was composed by a guitarist, Le Départ by Napoléon Coste. The oldest work of the collection, it was created at a time when guitar music was largely produced by virtuoso performers who composed first and foremost for themselves, to provide concert works that would be exclusively theirs, a unique part of their identity as performer-creators. Once each work gained notoriety, publication would follow. Pupils and fans flocked to purchase these new creations which provided more for their domestic pleasure than for the concert hall. By the early twentieth century, this economic model for musical survival had considerably transformed into a new modernity in which guitarists sought out composers of broader renown to create works of higher quality and become their collaborators in producing music innately suited to the guitar’s idiom.