Little is known about the Italian guitarist-composer Filippo Gragnani, but he had a reputation as a 'skilled concert player', and composed his Duos for Two Guitars in the troubled post-revolutionary city of Paris. Aimed at professional players, the Duos stand as a testament to Gragnani's virtuoso technique and vivid imagination while presenting the utmost in stylistic taste and refinement. He gave both players concertante importance in these works, combining fin de siècle Viennese rigor with a fresh Latin temperament, and using contemporary musical conventions with assurance to craft evocative cameos of time and place.