Johann Sebastian Bach hardly ever left his native Saxony; yet he was always up to date on what was going on elsewhere in Europe. Naturally; he paid close attention to innovations from Italy; the cradle of the concertante style; and instilled transalpine sparkle in his brilliant counterpoint; especially in his keyboard works. Proof of this may be found in the pieces based on originals by the Venetians Antonio Vivaldi and Benedetto Marcello; in which Bach transcends everything with his polyphonic genius. In the large-scale Italian Concerto; the future composer of the Goldberg Variations revisits Corelli and; once again; Vivaldi. After several solo recordings devoted to musical dynasties (La Famille Forqueray; La Famille Rameau and Les Frères Francoeur); Justin Taylor sets off on a voyage of exploration of Bach and Italy.

Among the motivations of this disc, the most important one is the wish to present the various styles and periods in a clear, simple way, endeavoring to avoid superabundance and the accumulation of crossover deposits that are often heard where it seems that the music of the past cannot be self-sufficient and needs an extra chromatic and rhythmic shove in order to catch the listeners’ attention, inducing them to compare it with the commercial, repetitive entertainment repertoire. In this musical journey between Italy and Spain of the Baroque era, Paolo Rigano on the archlute and baroque guitar and Cinzia Guarino on the harpsichord are interpreting a singular anthology of pieces enriching the playing through the practice of the basso continuo that marked the entire musical period from the Renaissance to the late Baroque.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Naples’ fame as a musical center attracted travelers, composers, instrumentalists and virtuoso singers alike. Among the aspiring musicians, the most highly-trained and sought-after were the castrati, promising boys aged between 8 and 12 who were subjected to an operation intended to preserve the exceptionally pure timbre of their treble voice. Forever virginal beings whose superhuman voices mesmerized their listeners, they were nicknamed angiolilli, ‘little angels’, and sang in the most important churches and theatres of ‘Castrapolis’, a term coined to describe the southern capital and its high concentration of castrato sopranos.

Nicolò Balducci is one of the rapidly rising countertenors and sopranists of his generation. Together with the ensemble Dolci Affetti, directed by the renowned recorder player Dan Laurin, he here performs arias and cantatas by Hasse, Porsile, Sarro and Alessandro Scarlatti. All four composers were associated with Naples and knew how to highlight these extraordinary voices, at a time when opera and the chamber cantata represented the most fashionable musical genres both in Italy and abroad. The program is completed with a concerto for harpsichord by Domenico Auletta, with Anna Paradiso performing the solo part.

The program takes you on a wonderful journey through Baroque Italy, illuminating compositions of different colors written for recorder and basso continuo. Some of the great music centers of the time – Milan, Venice and Naples – are visited and the listener can immerse themselves in a bygone era. Various styles emerged in these centers, which are known today as the "Venetian school" and the "Neapolitan school", and which ultimately lead to the "gallant style". Major influences from Arcangelo Corelli's compositional style can also be heard in some of the sonatas in the program. As soon as the instrument recorder appears, one always asks oneself whether this was a marginal instrument or whether it could have been of great importance within the music scene. What is certain is that there are numerous sonatas composed specifically for this instrument, as well as extensive contemporary transcriptions of the oboe and violin repertoire for recorder. Influenced by the great popularity of the recorder, composers such as the German-speaking oboe virtuoso Sieber also decided to travel to Italy in order to become respected masters of this instrument.

The present program therefore consists exclusively of works that exist in an original historical manuscript. The manuscripts are now scattered in numerous libraries from Europe to the USA - and yet they all have one thing in common: they contain wonderful sonatas for recorder and basso continuo, all of which were composed in Italy within 30 years. And the deeper you finally delve into this program, the more amazed you can be about the variety and also about some mysteries that suddenly open up...

Italian instrumental music was at its zenith when the works of these ten composers were written and each of those selected was a significant figure in the expansion of music for the harpsichord. Frescobaldi, represented by two athletic Toccatas, was influential across Germany while Merula’s beautiful Capriccio and Zipoli’s gracefully austere Sonata in C major reveal the breadth and variety to be found in Italian keyboard music of the period. The Venetian-born Pescetti draws the music from the Baroque onward to the new galant style.