The figure of George Frideric Handel cast a long shadow over musical London in the first half of the eighteenth century; casting many of his contemporaries – fine composers themselves – into centuries of obscurity. This recording throws light into forgotten corners and discovers some glittering gems; some of them demanding dazzling vocal fireworks from their performers. Several of these composers set scenes from Classical mythology or Old Testament narratives – but they also explore the underside of the Baroque psyche in one of David’s darkest psalms and in a representation of Arcadian madness.

Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) continues a celebrated project to record Mozart’s complete works for keyboard and orchestra, with this tenth volume of the series. Together with renowned scholar-pianist Robert Levin, and directed by Laurence Cummings and Bojan Cicic, AAM presents the Church Sonata No. 17 alongside the Piano Concerto No. 5 – Mozart’s first original keyboard concerto – both for orchestra and organ. The three K107 concertos are joined
by a concerto movement from the music book of Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, believed to have been drafted by Mozart as a young child, and completed here by Robert Levin. The hardback CD package is accompanied by comprehensive notes commissioned specially for the album.

While for the most celebrated instrumentalists who defined the period straddling the seventeenth century and the eighteenth, the subsequent interest in the magnificence of late Baroque music promoted their relaying and study, this fate was not shared by Martino Bitti. After having been relegated on the fringe of the history of music, and perfunctorily accused, in the earliest, scanty biographic notes, of lacking in originality and innovative qualities, only in recent times did he begin to be the object of in-depth investigations and writings on the analysis and cataloguing of his works (see Michael Talbot’s ground-breaking essays).

In any case, what emerges from an examination of the sources relevant to Bitti’s biography is the figure of a musician who was fully integrated in one of the contexts that were most lively and stimulating for the Italian musical production between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth: the court of Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici (Florence 1663-1713), eldest son of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de’ Medici.

The recording of the Sonatas presented here is the final stage of a work of in-depth research that began with the study of the first editions and the experimentation of timbres and interpretations on copies of the early instruments, leading to the creation of a historically informed product.

Though Frederick II of Prussia, better known as “the Great” (1712–1786), was one of the greatest strategists of history; he found a way of reconciling his army life, his battles, and his political determination with his passion for the flute and for music in general. He played every day, even when he was at war, and in the course of his life he composed, among other things, 121 sonatas and 4 concertos for flute, annotating some of these works with the phrase ‘Frederick composed [it] amidst torments’.

In Potsdam Frederick had teachers of extraordinary skill, ranging from Johann Joachim Quantz to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and while he was certainly influenced by their style, he also proposed a style of his own that was not only closely associated with forms of ‘recitative’ influenced by vocal music, but also inspired – in certain respects – by his masonic faith. In fact, in his music one finds interesting esoteric symbolisms associated with numerology, masonic keys and the concept of the initiatory journey. Almost all the sonatas for flute and continuo are in three movements in an ascending progression of tempos: Adagio, Allegro, Presto. Of particular interest is the Sonata in C minor (King’s Catalogue No.190) in which an introductory Recitativo and an Andante cantabile lead to the closing movement, which is a Fugue (the only example of this genre of composition in all his works). Moreover, the subject of the fugue includes an evident reference to the ‘Thema Regium’, the famous theme that the King gave to Johann Sebastian Bach during their meeting in Potsdam in 1747, which formed the basis of the Musical Offering BWV1079.

Igor Ruhadze’s Brilliant Classics recording of sonatas by Locatelli (94736) won warm praise from Gramophone. ‘The playing is elegantly supple, the string tone warm, and the architecture of individual movements thoughtfully worked out. All this makes for a pleasant mood and enjoyable listening. The more exuberant pieces are brilliantly and at times breathtakingly performed.’ With his latest Brilliant Classics album, the Russian Baroque-specialist violinist and director turns to another pivotal figure in Baroque-era violin culture, Francesco Geminiani.

Taught first by his violinist father and then by both Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome, Geminiani was already a leading figure in north Italian courts in his 20s, before he undertook the move to London that made his name and fortune. Geminiani dedicated the Op.1 Sonatas (1716) to Baron Johann Adolf Kielmansegge, his first London patron. According to Hawkins, Kielmansegge favored the composer by arranging a performance before the king in which Geminiani was accompanied on the harpsichord by Handel. With these sonatas, which clearly stem from Corelli, Geminiani presented himself to the public as Corelli's pupil. Many imitation editions followed the first printing, but the commentator Charles Burney maintained that only the composer himself could do them full justice. Apparently designed as a calling card for Geminiani’s talents as a violinist-composer, the Op.1 Sonatas still make strenuous technical but also expressive demands on any interpreter. Their genteel surface and polished dialogue between parts conceals an array of sophisticated contrasts between moods and demonstration of a violinist’s credentials as an artist as well as a technician.

For this new recording, Igor Ruhadze is joined not by his colleagues in the Violini Capricciosi ensemble but the Russian-born harpsichordist Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya. Having pursued graduate studies with early-music luminaries such as Richard Egarr and Menno van Delft, she too evinces intense sympathy with Geminiani’s idiom.

Among the musical genres that were most appreciated and cultivated in Vienna in the early eighteenth century, one that stands out decidedly is the chamber cantata. The Italian cantatas, which were favourite compositions for the cultivated entertainment of the court, were abundantly circulated in manuscript form and collected in a great quantity of books that made chiefly between the eighteen-tens and the eighteen-forties. Now these cantatas are scattered in collections and libraries that have been the object of important musicological studies.

The six cantatas presented in this recording are all drawn from the Mus.Hs.17567 manuscript in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek of Vienna, and were quite probably all composed there around 1710-1712. It is an extremely interesting handwritten-copy collection formed of twelve compositions that are attributed with certainty to Giovanni Bononcini (three), Francesco Conti (three), Antonio Caldara (three), Emanuele d’Astorga (two), and Andrea Stefano Fioré (one). The two symphonies by Caldara (for solo cello) and Giovanni Bononcini are completing the listening of this cd by the Aurata Fonte ensemble, already protagonist of the recording of some great Italian Baroque music discovery (TC670202, TC611990).

Diogenio Bigaglia, a composer who at present is unknown to most people, was active in Venice in the first half of the eighteenth century, so he was a contemporary of the much better known Tomaso Albinoni, Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello, and, above all, Antonio Vivaldi, whose work shows several evident– and more or less explicit – references to Bigaglia’s production. So he turns out to be a composer who is worthy of interest not only for the intrinsic musical worth of his works, but also for the influence his activity may have had on musicians with whom we are more familiar; this is why musicologists have recently started showing an increasing interest in him.

The selection of cantatas presented here is performed by the voice of soprano Tullia Pedersoli that skillfully interprets the musical ‘affetti’ proposed by the simple and elegant style of the composer, who in some points even seems to have provided some cues to Johann Sebastian Bach that, as known, deeply studied Italian and Venetian. All the cantate are about love, and frequently resort to the literary topoi that are typical of this genre.

Volume 70 of the Vivaldi Edition revives a serenade by the “Red Priest” led with brio by Andrea Buccarella, his Abchordis Ensemble and a triad of vibrant soloists. In spite of the warning from her friend Nice, the nymph Eurilla is in love with the shepherd Alcindo, and, to punish him for his lack of enthusiasm, tries to trick him into loving her. The story is simple, the trio of characters borrowed from Arcadia and the playful tone, as befits this type of open-air cantata composed for political, dynastic or private celebrations. The Serenata a tre RV 690, under Vivaldi’s pen, nevertheless possesses all the qualities of an exquisitely polished miniature opera that is also light-hearted. Only three manuscripts have reached us today of the eight serenades we know Vivaldi composed. The Serenata a tre, preserved in the Turin library, the source used by the Vivaldi Edition for its publications, fired the enthusiasm of the conductor and harpsichordist Andrea Buccarella and a larger than usual Abchordis Ensemble.

This album is dedicated to Tomaso Pegolotti, a character who held the double role of notary public and musician in the land of the Estense dukedom between Modena and Reggio Emilia. In fact, his father Livio initiated him into both the study of music and law, and thanks to his commitment and his talent, Tomaso had a brilliant career in both professions. The collection of the "Trattenimenti armonici da camera [...] opera prima", dedicated to Prince Foresto d'Este in 1698, includes his entire instrumental production, as the planned second work was finally never terminated due to Pegolotti's involvement in some unexpected political clash also connected to one of his judicial publications.

The collection consists of twelve sonatas from which can be deduced that the author possessed considerable technical skills on the violin. The Opera Quinta ensemble led by Fabrizio Longo (former protagonist of other important productions by Tactus: tc.630201, tc.670290 and tc.621602) is a solid reference in the musical practice of early and Baroque music.