In recent years, Mieczyslaw Weinberg has become one of the most recognizable Polish composers of the 20th century, which was significantly influenced by the hundredth anniversary of the composer’s birth in December 2019. The project of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio devoted exclusively to works by Mieczyslaw Weinberg perfectly reflects the peculiar revival related to the interest in the artist in Poland and in the world. This album is another proposal from the Amadeus Orchestra series, this time dedicated to selected symphonies of the Polish artist.

When Giovanni Benedetto Platti was born, Johann Sebastian Bach was already twelve years old, and when he died, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was only two weeks short of his seventh birthday. So far scholars have not been able to unearth any significant information about this composer’s childhood and youth, and his dates make it easy to understand why posterity has assigned him to one of those perilous »transitional gap periods« from which many composers like him never reemerge. However, especially since the beginning of the new millennium Platti by exception has enjoyed something of a renaissance. From 1722 until his death in 1763 Platti served the Würzburg Prince Archbishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn and his hardly less renowned brothers. He was a highly regarded virtuoso and composer who as a productive musician not only was diligent but also and above all very imaginative and even fond of experimentation. The writing style of his harpsichord and cello sonatas, trios, and concertos is often so highly original that they practically had to be rediscovered sooner or later. The selection of works recorded here also shows that this Italian-in-Franconia was an artist who in particular expertly negotiated oscillating harmonic boundaries, never reached his limits with the means of expression available to him at the time, and formulated astonishing solutions to meet the needs of instrumental virtuosos.

The Swedish recorder virtuoso Dan Laurin has demonstrated his remarkable versatility on some thirty recordings for BIS, ranging from a nine-disc set with 17th-century composer Jacob van Eyck's complete Der Fluyten Lust-hof to the recent Rock that Flute, with music for recorder and strings written in 2013 by the Dutch composer Chiel Meijering. During a recording career that stretches over almost 30 years, Laurin keeps returning to one particular set of works, however: the concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Three of the works (the Concertos RV 441, 443 and 444) included on his latest release he has recorded more than once before, with ensembles such as the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, Bach Collegium Japan and Arte dei Suonatori. For his latest 'take' on these favourites Laurin has joined forces with the young and vibrant Norwegian string ensemble 1B1 (shorthand for Ensemble Bjergsted 1). As he explains in his own liner notes for the present disc, he was inspired by his work on transcribing and performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: ‘A close reading of RV441 and RV443–445 reveals great similarities between these works and The Four Seasons: sudden changes of moods, turbulent emotions, burlesque whims mixed with sublime beauty and elegance… My aim here is to explore the recorder concertos with the same freedom and spontaneity that characterize the modern-day approach to the Seasons.’ Laurin’s recording of the Seasons has been called ‘undoubtedly the best transcription to date’ (Diapason) and ‘never hackneyed, but instead invigoratingly fresh and vibrant’ (Clarino), verdicts which can only fuel the expectations concerning this his latest version of the recorder concertos.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was more systematic than many of his composer colleagues when it came to keeping track of his own works and made at least two catalogues of his compositions for solo keyboard. At various times he also destroyed manuscripts that remained in his possession, especially those of early works. But even so, there are a number of pieces that slipped through the net, and several of them can be found on this album. A few of them were included anonymously into the second Clavierbuchlein for Anna Magdalena Bach, while Emanuel Bach was still living in his father’s home in Leipzig. Among the pieces are some that have been identified as being by Bach only recently, during the ongoing work of producing a printed edition of the composer’s complete works. As devised by Miklos Spanyi, the programme is a colourful mix of brief dance movements and other miniatures, provides both variety and insights into the formative years of the composer. It ends with Bach’s Variations on a Menuet by Locatelli, the most technically demanding of his variation sets composed in 1735 when he was a young man of 21.

On her solo debut album, Muffat Meets Handel, the successful young harpsichordist Flóra Fábri performs harpsichord pieces by precisely these two composers. Although the dates of the two musicians overlap for a period of almost seventy years, the same thing happened in this case as with many of Handel’s contemporaries: the two never met personally. However, unlike Bach and Mattheson, here musical awareness of the other did not operate in accordance with a »one-way-street principle«: it was not only Muffat who admired Handel and arranged his music; the process also functioned the other way around. In contrast to Handel’s Muffat arrangements, in his Handel arrangements Gottlieb Muffat dealt much more gently with the originals and left many parameters unchanged. Something like a relationship of “soul mates” can be detected in their mutual inclination to arrange each other’s works. This in turn forms the essential prerequisite for the dialogue of minds on which the program on this album draws: the adventure of a conversation between two exceptional musical talents without the use of language, without any direct physical contact, and over a distance of at least 1, 593 kilometers (as the crow flies). It is first when the creative production of the one flows into the other’s work that it has the chance to grow beyond itself.

The flutist and researcher Daniele Salvatore, leader of the Armonia delle Sfere ensemble, in this double album presents the most ambitious instrumental work by Francesco Mancini, renowned composer of operas and oratories, typical representative of the Neapolitan tradition. Mancini is also a perfect example of the close cultural and musical connection between ‘Italy’ (a land united solely from a territorial aspect at that time, otherwise made up of several smaller kingdoms with different rulers, laws and economy, and significantly different culture, music and language),and London in that era: he claimed recognition with the opera Idaspe Fedele, played for the first time at the Haymarket Theatre of London on March 23rd in 1710,an opera which, together with Almahide (by anonymous author, debuting in January of the same year) was among the first ones in London to be sung entirely in Italian language. Mancini’s contribution to opera and sacred music is considerable, and his music is easily found all over Europe's many libraries, proving their author's popularity, however, the same can not be said about instrumental pieces of music written by him, of which we know just a few, such as the two toccatas for harpsichord featured on this recording, probably composed to be used for didactic purposes.

Giovanni Picchi (1572-1643) flourished in Venice, notably as the organist at the Scuola di San Rocco. He became renowned as a composer of both secular and sacred music, attested by his presence in the Nobiltà di dame by Fabrizio Caroso, the most important collection of dance music of the time. A collection of his canzone was published in 1625 and his fame spread to England, where a Toccata for harpsichord was transcribed within the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (of which Brilliant has recently released the first-ever complete recording, 95915). Other important sources for his keyboard music include collections published in Venice in 1621 and an undated collection of intablatures (transcriptions and elaborations of music by other composers) which is now held in Turin. Together they amount to some of the most brilliant and appealing music for the harpsichord from 17th-century Italy. Picchi’s harmonic language was especially daring, and his flair as a performer is reflected in the style of his writing, which exploits the full range of the instrument. In complement to Picchi’s work, Simone Stella has chosen other jewels from Venetian composers of the time: toccatas, ricercare and canzone by Annibale Padovano, Claudio Merulo, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and Vincenzo Bellavere. Bellavere is another neglected figure nowadays, but the Toccata recorded here is a gloriously ornate example of the genre, alternating intricate counterpoint with filigree decoration.

Review

Keyboard music was an important genre in Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries. Organists played a major role in music life, and the posts of organist in the main cathedrals and churches were rated highly. Only the top of the bill was good enough to act as such, for instance at St Mark's in Venice. Given that there were so many cathedrals and churches in Italy, it is not suprising that we only know the most famous masters of the time. The two Gabrielis and Claudio Merulo are among the best-known, who worked as organists at St Mark's. The disc under review includes music by some lesser-known organists: Annibale Padovano was organist alongside Merulo, and Vincenzo Bellavere occupied that post only for nine months, being succeeded by Giovanni Gabrieli after his death. Like the Gabrielis and Merulo they figure on this disc probably to fill the empty space, but they also could put the oeuvre of Giovanni Picchi into its historical context.

Picchi is a composer who is pretty well-known by name, if only because one of his works, a Toccata, is included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, one of the main collections of keyboard music from the decades around 1600. His music is far less known and not that often performed. If it is, it is mostly as part of recitals or anthologies. To the best of my knowledge, there was no recording of his complete keyboard works on disc. It was Ton Koopman, who early in his career recorded his keyboard music. That was in the vinyl era, and as far as I know, it has never been released on CD, which is a big shame. Therefore, the recording by Simone Stella fills a gap in the discography.

Picchi's career seems to be a story of hit and (mostly) miss. He was born into a family which included several musicians, and was likely a pupil of Giovanni Croce, who from 1603 until his death in 1609 was maestro di cappella at St Mark's in Venice. From that one may conclude that he received an excellent musical education. He also knew many people from the higher echelons of society, which should have been helpful in assuring a musical position of some importance. In the mid-1590s he became organist at the Basilica dei Frari; he held this position until his death. However, attempts to add posts in other churches failed. In 1606 he applied for the post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, but it was given to a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli. In 1612 he attempted to succeed the latter as organist of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, but lost to Giovanni Battista Grillo. In 1623, Grillo died, and Picchi was given his job. Two further applications failed: in 1623 he tried to be appointed first organist, and in 1624 to become second organist at St Mark's. One may wonder why he suffered so many setbacks. There was undoubtedly a stiff competition from many keyboard players who were just as good as Picchi. His failures may also have been due to his character; who knows? It can't be his music, if what has been left is anything to go by.

In 1619 Picchi published his Intavolatura di balli d'arpicordo, a collection of keyboard music entirely based on then common dances. This kind of music seems to have been his speciality, as in 1600 his likeness appeared at the frontispiece of an important dance treatise. The keyboard dances were reprinted in 1621, but three further books of dances which Picchi promised to publish "when I see that this first book proves pleasing to the public", have never appeared (assuming that they have not been lost). It is rather speculative to conclude from this, as Howard Ferguson does in New Grove, that his music was not that well received. It seems that Picchi was well respected and appreciated by his contemporaries.

The printed edition just mentioned includes only nine pieces. In addition, Stella plays the Toccata from the Fitzwilliam Book and five pieces that have been preserved as part of a manuscript which is today in the National Library of Turin. Whereas many keyboard works of the time can be played on either the organ or a strung keyboard instrument (harpsichord or spinet), Picchi mostly composed dances, which require a harpsichord. Only the pass'e mezzi may be suitable to be played on the organ, but I can't remember ever having heard them on such an instrument. All these pieces are technically brilliant works, with lots of passagework. There are also harmonic peculiarities as well as passages with unusual rhythmic patterns.

The other composers included here have become mainly known as organists, as I already mentioned. Here they are presented with harpsichord pieces, although every piece can also be played on the organ. As Claudio Merulo and the Gabrielis are well-known, it may be useful to give here some information about the two unknown quantities.

Annibale Padovano was from Padua, and seems to have a made a name for himself quite quickly, as in 1552 he was appointed organist at St Mark's without any competition. In 1565 he moved to Graz, where he became organist at the court of Archduke Charles II of Austria; one year later he was promoted to 'chief musician' and a few years later as director of music. His keyboard music consists of two printed editions of ricercares and toccatas. Where Vincenzo Bellavere was born, is not known, but his first post was that of organist of a church in Padua. In 1568 he was appointed organist of the Scuola Grande di S Rocco in Venice. In 1584 he returned to Padua, but in 1586 he was appointed organist at St Mark's in Venice, as successor to Andrea Gabrieli. Nine months later he died, at the age of 46.

Whereas Picchi focused on dance forms, the other composers are represented here with more common genres, such as toccata, ricercare and canzon. Pieces based on vocal models were very popular at the time, and Andrea Gabrieli's Canzon francese detta Frais et Galliard is an example of this; the chanson is from the pen of Jacobus Clemens non Papa. Giovanni Gabrieli's Canzon I detta La Spiritata was conceived as a piece for an instrumental ensemble. The well-known theorist and organist Girolamo Diruta made a transcription for keyboard.

I am still hoping that one day Koopman's recording may become available on CD. However, Simone Stella is a worthy alternative. His interpretation is not fundamentally different from Koopman's, as far as I can remember the latter. The pecularities of Picchi's music come off to the full here, with the help of the splendid harpsichord Stella plays: a copy of an instrument by Carlo Grimaldi. His articulation is excellent, as is his sense of rhythm, which is essential in these dances. The remaining items are played just as well.

This recording of Giovanni Picchi's oeuvre is as good as one may wish.

--MusicWeb International (Johan van Veen)

The year 1685 bestowed mankind with three geniuses with supernatural talents in composition and improvisation, i.e. Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel and Domenico Scarlatti. Only the last two had the opportunity to confront themselves in a direct duel for the title of the winner in the category of the fastest fingers implementing unbridled improvisational ideas. Interestingly, Scarlatti’s sonatas, although deeply rooted in the tradition of the turn of the Baroque and Classicism, are ahead of works of both eras in many respects, while the numerous textural solutions suggested by the composer are a harbinger of harmonically advanced Romantic miniatures. The interpretations featured on this album result from the collaboration of two different, seemingly incompatible worlds. The world of interpretation rooted in early music and that represented by contemporary instruments in relation to the Baroque era. The need for making music together, for dialogue and mutual inspiration as well as for the diversity of perception of performance issues are undoubtedly a great asset of this album.

The decades around 1600 bore witness to the flourishing of a remarkable musical tradition: the art of diminution, in which simple melodies were given exquisitely virtuosic embellishments, effectively creating new works. One such creation, Francesco Rognoni’s ornamentation of Palestrina’s Io son ferito, was captioned ‘con arte e maestria’ – with art and mastery – referring to the consummate craftsmanship displayed in its invention and performance. Giving new life to this tradition was the inspiration for this unique programme: alongside iconic works from the diminution canon, Monteverdi String Band members Oliver Webber and Steven Devine present newly ornamented versions of a selection of sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century works.

Giovanni Bononcini was born in Modena on 18 July 1670, the eldest and best-known son of the composer, violinist and theoretician Giovanni Maria (1642-1678), one of the main exponents of the musical school of Modena in the second half of the seventeenth century. His talent was extremely precocious: in 1685 he published Trattenimenti da camera op. 1, Concerti da camera op. 2 and Sinfonie op. 3. Giovanni Bononcini is known above all for his dramatic and vocal chamber music, whose simple, refined intensity of expression was acknowledged by his contemporaries. The cantatas are formed of the prescribed succession of arias (or duets) and recitativos, and show Bononcini’s outstanding expressive skill and his ability in finely crafting the close relationship between words and music that was required by this genre of chamber music because of the need to “further the feeling of that divine poetry by means of the expression of the harmonious melodies” (as he wrote in a letter to Benedetto Marcello from London on 6 April 1725). This ability of his made it possible for him, through his perfect knowledge of counterpoint, to tastefully adjust “the exact observation of the different moods produced in the soul by the different modulations of the sound, so as to be able to adapt them suitably to the needs of the words”. Within this world premiere recording the Aurata Fonte ensemble is performing the manuscripts of a composer whose talent was recognized and affirmed by a great career throughout Europe.

Swedish Baroque composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758) has been called both “the father of Swedish music” and “the Swedish Handel.” He led the Swedish Opera throughout Sweden’s Age of Liberty, and enjoyed a successful compositional career. During Roman’s lifetime, the most common wind instrument in Stockholm was the recorder. The instrument was utilized in every aspect of musical life. The transverse flute, however, was reserved for the noble and upper classes. While Roman’s sonatas were originally composed for a bourgeoisie performance on transverse flute, Dan Laurin performs these beautiful works on the recorder. In his liner notes, he describes his affection for Roman’s music: “complex emotional contexts are contrasted with folk music forms such as the villanelle or piva - the music is asymmetrical, irregular and full of unexpected twists, sudden pauses and cadences.”

The city of Modena, under the rule of the Este family, was the capital of the Dukedom of Modena e Reggio. Thanks to Duke Francesco ii’s fondness for the violin, music became an essential element in the most important events at the Este court, such as receptions, weddings and official visits of foreign sovereigns. These were the occasions in which the Duke displayed all his magnificence. Modena stands out for the abundance of its collection of musical documents in the Biblioteca Estense: the library is a real mine, largely unexplored so far. This consideration gave rise to the idea of making this beautiful, extraordinarily modern music available to those who are “pursuing” culture and art. So our goal is to promote a rediscovery of the enormous heritage preserved in the Biblioteca Estense, by carrying out a meticulous study of the sources of the works of the composers who were active at the Este Court in Modena, transcribing them into modern notation and critical editions, and producing monographic recordings of them. The first step consisted in the study and recording of the instrumental works of Giovanni Battista Vitali. The twelve sonatas op. 9 from 1684, for two violins and basso continuo, typically meant to be performed in a church, unfortunately have not survived in print, but only in manuscript form. Moreover the manuscript is not very well preserved, and in some points the paper has been irreparably damaged by time, so some passages are illegible. We have carried out a painstaking work of checking and reconstructing – only where we considered it indispensable – and in some points, even if the result is not particularly harmonious or formally correct, we have chosen to accept what history has handed down to us: loose scores, sometimes not devoid of certain mistakes that typically occur in versions that have not yet been printed by some publisher.