In 1706, 21-year-old Handel arrived in Italy as a prodigious celebrity, already having caught the eye and won the patronage of the Medici family in Florence. Further honors and rewards were heaped on him when he moved to Rome the following year and came under the sponsorship of the most cultured and influential of the city’s noble families. It was for them that he wrote a string of secular cantatas, on time-honored and popular themes of arcadian and amorous bliss. These Roman cantatas have received more attention from scholars and performers in recent years, but the four presented here are still relatively unfamiliar, beginning with the brief, hunting-themed Diana cacciatrice HWV79. This cantata’s striking feature is an aria with echo soprano and trumpet solo, while Alpestre monte is an anguished tale of betrayal and suicide, including a pair of ravishing arias (again for soprano). Faithfulness is once more the vexed question posed by the album’s best-known cantata, Tu fedel? Tu costante? The searing purity of Carlotta Colombo’s soprano makes her a worthy successor to distinguished early-music specialists who have taken on the work, including Emma Kirkby. Conceived on a grander scale, Olinto pastore arcade alle glorie del Tebro is scored for three solo singers, to present an allegorical discussion between the shepherd Olinto, the river Tiber and the embodiment of Glory, concerning how the humble shepherd (a veiled allusion to Handel’s patron at the time) will restore Rome to her ancient greatness. The singer and conductor Roberto Balconi founded Fantazyas in 2000 as a flexible ensemble of instruments and voices specialising in Italian music of the 17th and 18th centuries. They have toured across Europe and Japan, and here they make their debut on Brilliant Classics.

Around a quarter of a century ago, scholars embarked upon fruitful research into composers active between the mid-19th century and the lead-up to World War One, many largely hitherto ignored by all but music historians, consisting of at least two generations who focused either on ‘absolute’ music (in central Europe) or music for the theatre (in Italy and France). Philipp Scharwenka (1847–1917) was one such figure. Born to a family with ancient Bohemian roots but determinedly German in its culture, Philipp and his concert pianist brother Xaver attended Berlin’s Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, where Philipp would eventually also teach theory. He began composing in earnest in 1874 and the following year founded his own school with his brother, where he would teach composition for the rest of his life. Philipp Scharwenka’s chamber works, which date mostly from the turn of the century, are some of his most notable compositions and include three piano trios (the first two, recorded here, with violin and cello; the third with violin and viola). The Trio Op.100 in C sharp minor, published by Breitkopf in 1897, unfolds in flowing, measured writing across three movements with a clearly defined formal range. The composition feels like a well-oiled machine, including all the expressive techniques developed over the years in expertly dosed quantities, and sometimes achieving intense – and never long-winded – lyricism. The subsequent Trio in G Op.112, published in 1902, again by Breitkopf, is also in three movements. The work’s tonal regions, while very clear and based on sonata form in both the first and third movements, deviate slightly from the traditional relationships by including the relative minor keys too. This is nothing out of the ordinary: it is simply a way to keep the form compact and flowing while testing out slightly more unusual tonality.

In 2020, Giuseppe Chiaramonte starred in a SKY TV documentary about the solo-guitar fantasias of the 19th-century Hungarian composer Johann Kaspar Mertz. These pieces formed the subject of his debut in Brilliant Classics (95722), for an album which won acclaim in the specialist-guitar press for the warmth of Chiaramonte’s sound, the palette of his tonal colors and his adventurousness in reviving the music of a composer deservedly once known as the ‘Liszt of the guitar’. Mertz’s 16th-century equivalent was undoubtedly Luys Milán (1500-1560), who referred to himself without false modesty as ‘El Maestro’ and a second Orpheus. Published under his name in 1536, El maestro is the first printed collection of music for the vihuela; the earliest Spanish collection of solo instrumental music and accompanied songs; and the first printed example of guitar tablature in Spain. The six pavans in Milán’s collection resemble the dances of the same name from further north in Europe, though less afflicted by melancholy. They illuminate in turn the more intricate polyphony of the fantasias and tientos composed by a shorter-lived contemporary, Luys de Narváez, who died in 1550, barely into his mid-20s. Thus deprived of further experience, Narváez was still writing in a more restrained idiom than Milán, though no less affecting in its way. It was largely thanks to these two composers that the vihuela attained such popularity in 16th-century Spain, and modern audiences may appreciate the poetry of their music once more thanks to the inspired advocacy of Giuseppe Chiaramonte, who introduces the life and work of both composers in a detailed booklet essay accompanying the album.

REVIEW

This CD concentrates...on music for the vihuela and the good news is that, while the music is played on the modern guitar (common, though not universal, practice today), it is played with real insight and sympathy. The programme is made up of pieces by two major composers for (and players of) the vihuela. Indeed, the contents are taken from the first two books of music for the vihuela to be printed in Spain: Milán’s Libro de música de vilhuela de mano intitulado El Maestro, printed in Valencia in 1536 and Narváez’s Los seys libros de Délphin de música de cifras para tañer vihuela, published in Valladolid in 1538.

Part of the appeal of this new CD is that we are able to hear a substantial number of pieces by both composers (18 by Milán and 9 by Narváez), enough to get a fuller idea of each composer and, perhaps to make a preliminary comparison of the two.

[Chiaramonte] is clearly a guitarist with the ability to produce fine (in some ways revelatory) performances of music well beyond the usual guitar repertoire, with intelligence, perception and skill – which is not to say that he cannot play the instrument’s ‘mainstream’ repertoire to a very high standard too. I look forward to hearing more of his work.

--MusicWeb International (Glyn Pursglove)

The influential critic Eduard Hanslick was shocked by the discovery that ‘Brahms the serious, the taciturn, the North German, the Protestant, the man who detests the world writes waltzes!’ In this regard he underestimated Brahms just as he did Liszt and Wagner, the composers of opera and symphonic poems whom he detested. Brahms always retained a connection with and affection for all forms of amateur music-making, and indeed had been a well-loved conductor of an amateur choral society, of the kind for which the Liebeslieder waltzes were written. The Liebeslieder-Walzer are a brilliant tribute to the musical tradition of the Habsburg capital, that tradition of popular dances that traced back its composed heritage to Schubert and later the Strauss dynasty (Brahms was inordinately fond of Strauss waltzes). He composed them for a mixed vocal quartet (solo or choral) with piano accompaniment for four hands, according to a model already adopted by Schumann in several collections. In fact the first of the two sets was already designed for performance without voices, inspired by Brahms's somewhat awkward infatuation with Julie Schumann, and intended as a piano duo for the composer with Clara Schumann. Brahms made the arrangements of both sets of Liebeslieder himself, and they proved a commercial hit for the publisher Simrock. Prevailed upon for a sequel, Brahms wrote the Zigeunerlieder (Gypsy Songs) in 1874, and in a more allusive, concise style, experimenting with form and producing a set of more unpredictable, changeable pieces. This time he left the piano-duo arrangement to a trusted colleague, Theodor Kirchner, who had already produced several similar transcriptions of his music.

In 1641, the collection Selva morale e spirituale was published in Venice by Bartolomeo Magni. The set raises a number of questions. Was it compiled by Monteverdi himself or were commercial interests at play? Was it a musical testament or another’s tribute to the great composer? The title, literally ‘moral and spiritual forest’, is also puzzling. We should bear in mind that Monteverdi, in his mid-70s at the time of publication, was very elderly for that time in history. He had already served for three decades as Maestro di Cappella of San Marco in Venice, during which time he constantly wrote new music for all kinds of liturgical and semi-liturgical celebrations. And indeed, many of the pieces in the ‘Selva’ appear to have originated from the liturgy of the vespers and the high mass – psalms, hymns, a complete mass, Marian antiphons – pieces we would expect to find in a collection of spiritual music from that time. Surprisingly, however, we also find pieces on secular texts, in the composer’s mother tongue even. Though they can be categorised as morale (moralistic), they would in all likelihood not have been performed in liturgical celebrations but may have accompanied the many semi-liturgical festivities held in Venice. Also remarkable is that Monteverdi dedicates the Selva to Eleonora Gonzaga, reminding us that despite his sudden departure from the court at Mantua in 1610, Monteverdi maintained strong ties with his former employer, for whom he wrote his seminal operas Orfeo and L’Arianna, the latter almost completely lost save for the Lamento d’Arianna, which he gives in the Selva as the contrafact Pianto della Madonna. Mantua marked his heyday, the time of his books of madrigals and the opera premieres.

The figure of Ferdinand Ries (1784–1838) enjoys a peripheral familiarity among music-lovers as the friend and amanuensis of Beethoven. A bond had formed when Ries’s father Franz taught Beethoven in Bonn. While Beethoven doubtless cast his eye over his friend and student’s pieces from time to time, he sent Ries to his own teacher Johann Albrechtsberger for lessons in composition. The Sonata Sentimentale appears to mark the high-point of the composer’s writing for the flute, which extended to several ‘earlier’-sounding sonatas and lighter fantasias as well as flute-centric chamber music such as six quartets for flute and string trio. Here, to a degree unprecedented in the rest of his work, the flautist is the star of the show. The three Sonatas Op.86, on the other hand, are evidently designed for performers of more modest talents: ‘Sonates faciles’ as they were designated on the title page of their first publication in 1839. This set dates with fair certainty from London in 1819, and Ries appears to have composed it with the profitable market of proficient amateurs in mind. According to manuscript dates the Sonatinas Op.5 were the last works on this album to be composed, in London in 1821, published two years later there by Muzio Clementi. The rippling ‘Alberti bass’ sequences in the left hand, the preponderance of moderate tempi and straightforward two- and three-part textures, lying well under the fingers, indicate that Ries had in mind the same public market for these attractively sunny pieces as the Op.86 sonatas.

Born in 1892, Giorgio Federico Ghedini was among those Italian composers – like Martucci and Casella – who elected to devote most of their energies to music for the concert hall rather than the stage. Initially writing in a relatively conservative neoclassical idiom, Ghedini began to take his place in the front rank of modern Italian composers during the late 1930s, with a terse, boldly sculptured series of ‘edifici sonori’ (as the composer called them), in which Stravinsky’s influence is unmistakable. After the war his style continued to evolve through engagement with the concerto genre and the concerto grosso ensemble with its roots in the Italian Baroque. The private, reflective, plaintive characters of both solo instruments are well matched to Ghedini’s idiom by this point in his career. Dating from 1953, the Musica da concerto for viola and string orchestra is cast in a single span which disguises a traditional fast-slow-fast arch, though the viola’s powerful presence frequently draws the pulse of the music away from convention and into earnest dialogue with the strings. Neoclassical counterpoint briefly surfaces near the beginning of the final section, but otherwise the Musica da concerto is remarkable for its sustained lyric intensity around the soloist’s almost ubiquitous presence. Composed in 1962, the Musica concertante for cello and string orchestra is emphatically late music – Ghedini died three years later – which has attained a measure of serenity compared to the earlier viola work. Here the string orchestra and soloist engage in overlapping waves of melody and rhapsody, rising and falling across a continuous 16-minute span, comparable to but distinct from contemporary concertante works by Henze and William Schuman. These valuable and underrated mid-century concertos are intriguingly separated by Hindemith’s condensed set of Op.44 pieces for string orchestra, characteristically knotty, chromatic and incisive.

Though the music of Ernst Gottlieb Baron (1696–1760) is scarcely known to the wider public, the complete edition of his surviving compositions presented by Jan W.J. Burgers in 2005 offers an excellent opportunity to study and perform the works of this late Baroque master and restore them to the status they deserve. Though it can be assumed a large portion of his work was lost, with around a dozen suites for solo lute and ten ensemble pieces with obbligato lute, Baron’s extant oeuvre is nonetheless substantial. In the solo compositions, we predominantly find short, mostly two-part pieces in a late Baroque idiom. While these ‘simple’ suites, likely intended for pupils, offer little justification for Baron’s contemporaries having ranked him among the most important German composers of his day, the solo compositions also include works of a very different quality. The first four movements of the Suite [Partie] in F recorded here draw on wide-ranging melodic arcs and expressive modulations. The Suite [Sonata] in B flat is attributed by the original copyist to Silvius Leopold Weiss, and to Baron only by a later copyist. But it has been rightly pointed out that the presumed authorship of Weiss does not stand up to a stylistic comparison. Baron’s ensemble works include eight suites or sonatas for lute and melody instrument with a cello at times added as a bass part. In some of these works the treatment of the lute part is particularly virtuosic, assigning the lute an important role in the melodic composition. Baron’s surviving chamber music shows him as a master of the ‘galant’ style and offers attractive and original music from a time in which the lute was already losing ground before disappearing completely from concert life in the second half of the 18th century, soon after Baron’s death.

Piano concertos from Beethoven to Brahms to Busoni and beyond are all indebted to the example of Bach in his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and its liberation of the harpsichord from continuo support to virtuoso soloist, in both the spectacular first-movement cadenza and the one-against-many dramatic narrative which marks a revolutionary break with the concerto-grosso model of collegiate co-operation. Bach wrote the six Brandenburgs in his early 30s, while the majority of the works here were either written or compiled once he had moved to Leipzig in 1723. Taking charge of the music at a popular café, he adapted cantata movements and earlier concertos for other instruments, producing seven intricately worked pieces which traverse an expressive range from the high drama of the D minor BWV1052, to the equable dialogue of the D major BWV1054 (a reworking of the E major Violin Concerto) to the tightly wound pathos of the F minor BWV1056. As both a harpsichordist and music director, Pieter-Jan Belder has been recording Bach’s music for more than two decades with Brilliant Classics and the period-instrument Musica Amphion ensemble which he founded in the tradition of distinguished Dutch early-music groups such as Frans Bruggen’s Orchestra of the 18th Century. He and his colleagues play together with a tightly knit sympathy borne of long familiarity and a comprehensive grasp of Bach’s output across every field of his music. Filling out the album to well over two and a half hours of music is the A minor Concerto BWV1044 scored for the same combination of flute, violin and keyboard soloists as the Fifth Brandenburg, and in which the keyboard also takes the starring role, though with certain features which suggest it was either put together late in Bach’s life or possibly by one of his pupils or sons.

Christian Rummel (1787-1849) was born in Gollachostheim, Bavaria. He received his musical instruction in Mannheim under the kapellmeister Karl Jakob Wagner when the latter was living at Wuerzburg and the violinist Heinrich Ritter. Then he travelled for some years, first as a band military director to the Peninsular War (on the side of Spain), and later as a fighting soldier at Waterloo. After leaving the army he settled, with his Spanish wife, in Wiesbaden, where he came to be employed by the Duke of Nassau in 1806, and from whence he also made a number of tours after forming an orchestra under the commission of the Duke of Nassau for his court, which became one of the best in Germany. Rummel was a famous clarinetist in his time, concertizing in several European countries. About his compositions for the clarinet Robert Schumann wrote: “What he lacks in French finesse he replaces with a German good nature and ‘Gemütlichkeit’ that is natural to him, which is why I always like him." This recording presents Rummel’s works for clarinet and piano, mainly Fantasies and Variations on famous opera melodies of the time, attractive and melodious works full of instrumental brilliance. Played by Luigi Magistrelli, one of the foremost clarinet players of Italy. He made many recordings for Brilliant Classics with works by C.P.E. Bach (95307), Giuliani (95541), Kummer (94472), Archduke Rudolph (94952), Rebay (94171) and Fuchs (96305). ‘Luigi Magistrelli is a skilled artist, with the fingers and the enthusiasm for Weber.’ (Gramophone)

The second half of the 19th century witnessed a proliferation of significant works for strings alone including the Serenades for Strings by Dvorák (1875) and Tchaikovsky (1880) and Grieg’s Holberg Suite (1884), followed by a trio of works for strings in 1892 from Suk, Wolf and Elgar. Tchaikovsky’s music for string instruments is notable for its range and consistency – and this culminates in the magnificent Violin Concerto and one of the greatest works ever conceived for string orchestra, his Serenade of 1880. Earlier, in 1873, Tchaikovsky wrote incidental music to Ostrovsky’s three-act drama The Snow Maiden. Though he abandoned the idea of adapting it into an opera, when Rimsky-Korsakov composed one on the same subject, he retained affection for this little-known work. Judging by the beautiful Melodrama of Act II, its neglect is unjustified. Eight years before that, as a 25-year-old student at the St Petersburg Conservatory he composed a String Quartet in B flat. If, as some authorities believe, it had four movements, only one has survived. Such is the inner power of the music that it takes on a more expressive hue when performed by a full string orchestra as on this recording.

Towards the end of 1884, the Moscow Society of Artists wished to honor veteran actor Ivan Samarin’s 50-year artistic career, and Tchaikovsky enthusiastically contributed a musical entr’acte. Tchaikovsky’s publisher Jurgenson persuaded the composer the music was worthy of publication, under the title Elegy, as Samarin died the year after the celebrations. When Tchaikovsky suddenly died near the end of 1893, the slow movement of his Third String Quartet was arranged for string orchestra by Glazunov for performance at his funeral service. Glazunov’s subtle and sympathetic arrangement of this fine music for full string orchestra honors his friend, the great composer, in truly noble fashion.

REVIEW:

This attractive program includes Tchaikovsky’s familiar Serenade for Strings along with four shorter works, the last of which, the Glazounov-arranged Andante Funebre e Doloroso from the Third Quartet, was played at Tchaikovsky’s funeral in 1893.

The chamber orchestra's playing is full and warm, rich in vibrato and expression. If you like Russian music played by native musicians (I’m thinking here of the old Leningrad Philharmonic, which became the St Petersburg Philharmonic in 1991) you’ll enjoy this. It’s some of Tchaikovsky’s most attractive music, richly played and beautifully recorded.

-- American Record Guide

Born in the northern port city of Trieste in 1912, the Italian composer Giulio Viozzi worked and lived in the region throughout his life before his death in Verona in 1984. He composed in a modal, melodic, diatonic language inflected by Bartok but essentially shaped by native traditions of cantabile writing whether for instruments or voices. Viozzi’s music for the theatre won success and performances throughout his lifetime, notably the opera Il sasso pagano (1964), which makes the modern neglect of his output all the more surprising: this is the only modern album available which is dedicated to his music, and it should introduce many listeners to a distinctive voice in the musical landscape of 20th-century Italy.

As he explains in his booklet introduction, Andrea Gallo was astonished when he first encountered Viozzi’s music for guitar, through the Fantasia (1964), which itself reworks two shorter earlier works, a Gavotte and Brasileira both indebted to the folk tradition. He finds a magical, surreal quality to Viozzi’s repetitions and his evocation of mood in a piece such as the Chromatic Study of 1982. While Viozzi wrote several fantasias for three guitars, his solo output for the instrument centers around the more Classical forms of the Suite variata (1978) and the Sonata (1984), also in three movements. Two works of the mid-70s, the Itinerario and Racconto, are more experimental in technique and impressionistic in mood. This album introduces the names of both Viozzi and Andrea Gallo to the ever-growing library of guitar music on Brilliant Classics. Born in 1990, Gallo studied at the conservatoire in Milan and is based there while giving recitals and appearances across Italy and farther afield.

Like football (soccer) and coffee, the guitar is inextricably linked with Brazil in the collective imagination. Yet despite its significance to the country’s musical identity, the major class divide in the colonial period saw the guitar dismissed as an instrument of the common, uneducated populace, in contrast to the piano, which represented the aspirations of the wealthier middle classes. Things changed in the early 20th century, however. In 1916 a performance by Italian-Brazilian guitarist Canhoto won over both media and Brazilian elite, heralding the start of a new era for the guitar, and various Italian luthiers moved to the New World, taking advantage of the great market opportunities Brazil offered to turn their craft production into a more industrial enterprise. The guitar’s status as a national symbol rests on an identity-building process combining various elements, and that mix of cultural influences can be seen in the compositions of Radamés Gnattali (1906–1988).

Gnattali used elements of popular music in his supposedly high-brow compositions, blurring the boundary between the two styles. He fought relentlessly to break down the barriers between classical and popular music, becoming the most important – and most prolific – Brazilian composer in the guitar repertoire of the 1950s. His music has its own unique sound, featuring magnificent writing for the instrument, unexpected harmonic solutions and boundless inspiration. The Brazilian composer, pianist and conductor Francisco Mignone (1897–1986) – another musician of Italian heritage – was considered a ‘nationalist’ by scholars and ‘high-brow’ by those from the world of popular music. His vast oeuvre for guitar includes two large cycles – the Estudos (recorded here) and the Valsas – which showcase exceptional technical flair and impressive stylistic versatility, delving into everything from popular music to serialism.

A capacious library of Baroque-era works bears the name of the Italian cellist Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) as an assiduous and pioneering editor, arranger and promoter of music for his instrument. Much less familiar are Piatti’s own original pieces. This is the first modern recording and the only available collection on record of all six sonatas by a man hailed by Liszt as ‘the Paganini of the cello’. Ever true to his word and generous, Liszt presented Piatti with a replacement instrument after the Italian had been forced to sell his cello, having fallen into reduced circumstances. Piatti played with him in concert, as he did with Joseph Joachim and many other luminaries of mid-19th-century Europe. Of all his own music, Piatti was apparently proudest of the sonatas. They were written over an eleven-year period begun in 1885, during the last part of Piatti’s creative life, long established as a celebrity of musical life in Victorian London. He gave the first performances of each one at the series of Popular Concerts, and to huge acclaim. While many virtuosos have written for their own instruments, the cello sonatas of Piatti stand out for their artistic confidence, their balance of extroversion and well-wrought sensitivity to form.

All the Sonatas embody qualities associated with Piatti, especially in the handling of melody, which is distinctly operatic in its lyricism. The slow movements share the passion that Verdi put into the lead characters of his operas. In terms of construction they are also highly varied, while remaining true to the traditions of cantabile and display which underpin his Italian heritage. Born in 1987 in Piacenza, the cellist Lamberto Curtoni introduces this new recording of Piatti’s sonatas with an invaluable survey of the works within the context of their times and their place in the composer’s career.

The music of Johann Speth (1664-1719) has featured here and there on many compilations of instrumental music from mid-17th century Germany. However, until now there has never been a complete recording of the sole collection which carries his name down to us today. Published in 1693, this volume of keyboard toccatas, partitas and Magnificats takes its title from an influential treatise on the science and aesthetics of music from 1650 by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. Kircher attempted to show how the balance of dissonance with consonance in harmony mirrored the presence of good and evil in the universe. There is in turn something attractively compendious about Speth’s musical response, which Speth appears to have produced as a bona fide for his successful application to become organist of the cathedral in Augsburg. Very little is known of his life until that point in 1692, and not much after, save that in 1719 he was still living and active in the city which at the time was politically significant and prosperous as a seat of the Hapsburgs Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni opens with a sequence of 10 toccatas, quite brief and owing something to the influence of contemporary southern German composers such as Georg Muffat and Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer. There follows the more Italianate strains of three ‘partitas.’ The remainder of Speth’s collection synthesizes Italian and German styles in eight Magnficats. Each of the Magnificats takes its tonal base – the equivalent of its key signature – from a different musical mode, each starting on their own note. The collection as a whole adds up to a colorful snapshot of the invention and variety of German keyboard music beyond Bach, and as a notable predecessor to the compendious ambitions of The Well-Tempered Clavier.