Francesco Corti
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J. S. Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord
$29.99CDArcana
Nov 28, 2025A583 -
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Couperin, L.: Suites in C Major / E Minor / A Minor / F Majo
Little Books / Francesco Corti

A world renowned international soloist and harpsichord teacher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Francesco Corti embarks a collaboration with Arcana with a musical journey through the manuscripts of the Bach family, beginning with the two books belonging to Johann Sebastian’s brother (the Moller and Andreas Bach manuscripts) and leading to the famous Buchleine for Anna Magdalena and Wilhelm Friedemann. The programme presents three major keyboard works by J.S. Bach that are preserved in ‘domestic’ copies. Combined with works by the most important musical figures in Bach’s musical life: Bohm, one of his teachers; Kuhnau, his predecessor as Thomaskantor; Telemann, friend and godfather to Bach’s second son Carl Philipp Emanuel; Hasse and Francois Couperin. The resulting programme is an unconventional Bachian harpsichord recital, a mixture of different genres and composers, that is probably much closer to the ‘home concert’ of the period than to the standard modern recital.
J. S. Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord
W.F. Bach, Benda & C.P.E. Bach: The Age of Extremes
Scarlatti: A Man of Genius
Frescobaldi & the South - Intendami chi puo, che m’intend’io / Corti
In 1594 Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, arrived in Ferrara for his marriage to Donna Eleonora d’Este. His meeting with the musical circles of Ferrara, and in particular with Luzzasco Luzzaschi, was to make an important impact on the musical development of the young Girolamo Frescobaldi. In his maturity Frescobaldi arrived at a deeply personal fusion between the musical forms of North Italian (and more specifically Venetian) derivation and the musical experimentation of the southern school. The aim of this recording project is to explore the reciprocal influences between great keyboard master from Ferrara and his colleagues from the Kingdom of Naples.
Represented here in a dialogue with Frescobaldi’s works are not only the great experimental figures from the years bridging the 16th and 17th centuries (J. De Macque, Rodio, Stella), but also the composers from the following generation who absorbed and built on Frescobaldi’s example (Storace, Salvatore, L. Rossi), as well as contemporaries who adopted a parallel course (M. Rossi). This fertile musical exchange, which culminated in the profoundly distinctive innovations of Frescobaldi himself, fully exemplifies the spirit of experimentation and musical innovation typical of the early 17th century, a period that, like few others, sought out and celebrated aesthetic renewal.
Handel: Winged Hands - The Eight Great Suites & Overtures / Corti
After the album Bach, Little Books, harpsichordist Francesco Corti continues his collaboration with Arcana with a 2-album recording entirely dedicated to George Frideric Handel. At the center of the project are the eight “Great” suites. These masterpieces were the composer’s first published set, and are a clear testimony to his virtuosity at the keyboard. Their characteristically diversified styles reflect not only the mélange of national traditions assimilated by the young composer, but also his phenomenal improvisatory talent. Moreover, the attraction of these pieces lies in their melodic and rhythmic affinity to the world of singing and orchestral writing, Händel’s strongest interests. Arrangements of Handel’s operatic overtures and arias started circulating early in his career in England, and in his later years he was known to perform his overtures on the keyboard himself. Corti designs a program showcasing the composer’s brilliant treatment of the instrument, choosing to complement the “Great” Suites with a selection of transcriptions from Händel’s own hand and from his close musical circle.
REVIEWS:
It’s possible that Francesco Corti’s distinction as a conductor and a collaborative keyboard artist overshadows his considerable gifts as a harpsichord soloist. For example, whoever hears about his 2010 Bach Partitas released by Berlin Classics, a terrific “sleeper” edition if there ever was one? All this is to say that collectors looking for a reference-worthy harpsichord version of Handel’s eight “great” Suites should consider Corti. Although some listeners may take issue with the slightly distant and diffuse engineering, I find the sound quality attractively rounded, resonant, and warm, as if you’re hearing Corti’s 1738 Christian Vater model instrument in an intimate concert venue.
Certainly the sonics enhance Corti’s wonderfully freewheeling way with Suite No. 1’s improvisatory Prelude and excitingly boisterous Gigue. Suite No. 2’s opening Adagio and Suite No. 3’s concluding Air amount to a masterclass in how to organically integrate ornaments. Suite No. 4’s fugal opening Allegro attains bracing clarity due to Corti’s subtle agogic phrasings, while the ubiquitous Suite No. 5 “Harmonious Blacksmith” variations are more about cumulative build than facile virtuosity.
Despite Corti’s headlong pace for Suite No. 6’s Gigue finale, the rapid phrases have plenty of breathing room. And Suite No. 7 ‘s familiar Passacaille manages to convey both pomp and vulnerability at the same time.
Equally inspired performances of overture transcriptions flesh out this release. I especially love the imaginative registration shifts in Teseo’s Allegro section, plus Corti’s varied approaches to arpeggiating chords in Il pastor fido’s adagio opening section. For all of the thought and scholarship informing Corti’s interpretations, they consistently convey vitality, spontaneity, and forward sweep, without the least hint of self-awareness or pedanticism. Without a doubt, the title “Winged Hands” befits this fabulous release.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
Bach: Harpsichord Concertos, Vol. 3 / Corti, Buccarella, Laporte, il pomo d'oro
Francesco Corti and il pomo d’oro continue their acclaimed series of Bach harpsichord concertos, now moving to the works for two harpsichords, BWV 1060-1062, together with Andrea Buccarella. Compared to the previous two instalments, the accompanying ensemble is small, allowing for maximal transparency and focus on the soloists. The greatest discographic asset of this album is Corti’s arrangement of Bach’s unfinished concerto for harpsichord, oboe and strings in D Minor, BWV 1059. In his extensive contribution to the booklet, Corti explains why and how he used parts of Cantata BWV 35 to complete the score. Emmanuel Laporte performs the solo oboe. Francesco Corti belongs to the most established harpsichordists of his generation, and releases his third PENTATONE Bach harpsichord concertos album, after releases in 2020 and 2021. He works together with the multi-award-winning ensemble il pomo d’oro, who also recorded three vocal recital albums with PENTATONE: Carnevale 1729 with Ann Hallenberg (2017), Prologue with Francesca Aspromonte (2018) and Handel – Apollo e Dafne & Armida abbandonata (2021). Andrea Buccarella and Emmanuel Laporte both make their PENTATONE debut.
Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 / Corti, La Morra, Theatro delli Cervelli
This double album accompanies the eponymous book by Anthony M. Cummings, Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London 2023). They are designed to enable readers and listeners to enter the sound world of late-medieval and early-modern Florence. Despite the enviable place Florence occupies in the historical imagination, its music-historical importance is not as well-understood as it should be. Yet if Florence was the city of Dante Alighieri, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Galileo Galilei, it was also the birthplace of the Renaissance madrigal, opera, and the piano.
Our goal in assembling this set of recordings, which survey the principal surviving genres of music in Florence in the half-millennium between c. 1250 and c. 1750, was to provide a “virtual” evocation of the extraordinary musical culture of golden-age Florence, one of unsurpassed importance. Through the integration of the contents of the book and the CDs, and leveraging text, image, musical notation, and sound, we offer our listeners the possibility of a fascinating metaphoric time travel.
