A welcome reintroduction to the Glossa catalogue of Marcello Gatti’s interpretations of transverse flute Sonatas by J.Ch.F. Bach. These sonatas were composed around the time of his visit to see his brother Johann Christian in London in 1778 and combine the Italian galante style with the sensitivity of the Empfindsamer Stil. Elegantly performed by Gatti and Giovanni Togni, fortepiano, with cellist Giovanna Barbati joining for a Trio in D major (from the middle of the 1780s)

With Motets, Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix conclude their innovative exploration of musical worlds comparable to that of 13th c. Northern French artist Villard de Honnecourt. + Graindelavoix’s director Björn Schmelzer contributes his usual striking, iconoclastic essays, presenting the development of the 13th c. motet in France in a radical new light. + Schmelzer underlines the importance of the Villard’s work in our modern-day understanding of how 13th c. music was constructed and perhaps performed. + The same such ideas inform the vocal (and instrumental) textures and delivery.

When I first looked at this CD, my initial reaction was not the most enthusiastic, I must say. Good Lord, one more arrangement of these poor mistreated works! And, to boot, a rather weird one. After all, in most minds the Baroque cello and the gamba are very similar instruments. In fact, many people think of the gamba as a second-class instrument, some sort of watered-down cello, a ghost of ancient times. So why bother? Transposing the cello suites to the gamba might seem as extravagant and ineffective as playing the Chopin études on a virginal.



On the other hand these works have been played by every possible (and even impossible!) instrument, including the recorder. So why not the gamba? The truth is that the gamba and cello are quite different, really. Still, it is hard to imagine that a gamba could convincingly replace a cello. The surprising thing is that this is a remarkable CD, although it is very likely that it will not please everyone. I began listening with a certitude that I knew how these works were supposed to sound. But after a few minutes, I had forgotten my initial expectations regarding timbre, volume, or musical gestures. Moreover, I did not find myself pining for the cello at all. The performance swept me into its own world, and managed to keep me there, track after track.


Paolo Pandolfo is an outstanding gambist, with enviable technical skills. More important, though, is the fact that he is an extremely intelligent musician, full of ideas and displaying a unique musical personality. He plays with elegance and vigor, and shapes his phrases with gentle expressiveness. He is also smart enough not to try to mimic the heavier, more solemn instrument. He opts instead for an interpretation that forgets some of the original vocabulary, but incorporates the language of the gamba—so the pieces sound a lot more French than would seem imaginable, reminding one in places of Marin Marais. At the same time, paradoxically, the music leans toward the galant style. However, if the suites lose some important characteristics, they also gain a few.


The sound of the gamba is in general less assertive than that of the cello, more ethereal, and much less ponderous. Some of the harmonies seem more resonant than in the original, some of the melodic passages seem sparer. In this new guise, the suites disclose some unsuspected glimpses of Spain, distant hints of harps and lutes, buried melodies. These changes could certainly upset the diehard fans of the cello suites, or the purists who loathe any kind of transposition or arrangement. Granted, they radically transform these works. Someone looking for the cuisine to which they are accustomed might take a while to get used to this exotic fare.


The present CD is, musically speaking, the equivalent of a diet version of some traditionally filling dessert, prepared by a very good chef. Although not as satisfying (in the heavy cream sense!) as the cello version, I find it intellectually challenging and emotionally engaging, and it is certainly easier to digest. Sometimes the notes fail to touch the right chord (oops!) in one's memory, and one feels as if the ground disappeared under one's feet. Pandolfo's phrasing is occasionally so free as to seem excessively fanciful, too fluffy, or too weird. However, that is a fleeting impression. This is an utterly convincing and accomplished performance.


For soul-searching, moving pathos, the cello is still the winner. But if you love these works enough to buy more than one version, you should consider these CDs. They reveal a sensitive, original performer, unafraid to experiment; one with a healthy penchant toward the unconventional. On second thought, you should consider them anyway, even if you already have many recordings of these works. Since I got them, I find myself enjoying them more and more. Each time I discover some new magical twist of interpretation, some treasure that was hidden in the score, and that Pandolfo's playing seems to expose in a flattering, spontaneous light.

The double CD case includes excellent liner notes (by Pandolfo himself) and a little booklet containing a rather curious imaginary dialog between gamba and cello, again written by the artist. An eccentric idea, but he manages to pull it off. The recorded sound is very nice, round and present, with a natural bounce to it. In these days of technological wizardry, it has the further advantage of allowing us to hear the little extraneous sounds that are frequently erased from recordings, such as the noise of fingers hitting the strings or the breathing of the artist. This adds a human dimension to it that is part of the music and makes it even more exciting. It is too bad that such a careful production did not include an equally creative graphic artist. The cover art (?) is completely lacking in imagination, and the unhappy choice of colors hampers legibility. Considering how well Pandolfo fulfills the many tasks he undertakes, maybe he should have designed the cover as well.

FANFARE: Laura Rónai

Dmitry Sinkovsky is one of the most exciting artists of the young generation. He had began his career working with prestigious Early Music ensembles (Il giardino armonico, Accademia Bizantina). He is closely tied to the Belgian ensemble B’Rock, but works now primarily with his ensemble La Voce Strumentale, founded by him in 2011. Complementing his activities in Baroque music, Dmitry maintains an active profile as a conductor and classical violinist, with a wide repertoire ranging from Mozart to Berg, from Beethoven to Bartók. On his debut release with Glossa, Dmitry Sinkovsky presents himself as violinist with giant works of the classical music: the violin concerto and triple concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven. His illustrious companions are the Russian piano legend Alexei Lubimov and Alexander Rudin, cellist and conductor of the Moscow based orchestra "Musica Viva", which plays on period instruments.

With Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau, György Vashegyi – along with his Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir – makes a further dazzling addition to their Glossa series of French dramatic masterpieces from the Baroque, and in the company of a luxurious line-up of vocal soloists. The version of this ballet heroïque – supplied with an anti-colonial, anti-clerical manifesto by librettist Louis Fuzelier – selected by Vashegyi is the 1761 revision, a mere decade or so before the irruption onto the Parisian musical scene of the likes of Gluck and Grétry. Rameau’s score had undergone frequent adjustments and improvements since its première a quarter of a century earlier, and the performing edition for this recording, prepared for the Rameau Opera omnia by Sylvie Bouissou (who also provides a booklet essay here), offers a vision of this work which is more theatrical, fluid and concise than hitherto. Just in themselves, the names of Chantal Santon- Jeffery, Katherine Watson, Véronique Gens, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Jean-Sébastien Bou and Thomas Dolié (sharing out the dozen solo roles) augur well for a glorious exploration of the prologue and three entrées ahead. Recently, they have also, in conjunction with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, been working on questions of tempo and how to perform Rameau’s sequences as the composer intended. Vashegyi brings a consummate understanding of Rameau’s galante style to the proceedings, following two previous Ramellian Glossa outings (Naïs and Les Fêtes de Polymnie).

It was but a few years after founding the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in 1981 that Frans Br�ggen first turned his attention to the music of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies. He returned to immerse himself anew in this glorious music with a 2011 complete cycle which saw release by Glossa in 2012. From that survey, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies now reappear on Glossa Cabinet.

The so-called “Anna Maria Partbook” consists of an elegantly bound volume in red leather containing the violin parts of 31 violin concertos, of which 26 are by Antonio Vivaldi. It was the personal repertoire of Vivaldi's most gifted pupil, the famous “Anna Maria della Pietà”, who played also the viola d'amore, the mandolin, the theorbo, and the harpsichord. Anna Maria's partbook represents an extraordinary collection of violin concerts of high virtuosity. 20 of the 26 Vivaldi concerts are also known from other manuscript sources. The remaining 6 are known only from the source of Anna Maria, and therefore incomplete: they are divided into 3 concerts for violin and 3 concerts for violin and organ, a pair of instruments widely used by Vivaldi and the Pietà. Of these 6 concerts left out of the Vivaldi repertoire due to their incompleteness, Federico Maria Sardelli carried out a reconstruction based on many authentic concordant sources: this serious philological work allows us to enjoy 6 new concerts of Vivaldi, performed by leading Vivaldi interpreters of our days: violinist Federico Guglielmo and the ensemble Modo Antiquo under the direction of Sardelli, who give their debut on Glossa with this recording.

With The Melancholic Bach, Emilio Moreno delves pensively and wistfully into the realms of the music that Bach might have written for the viola. This new Glossa album is in fact, by turns, a reflective but also an uplifting treat from beginning to end. Moreno, of course, is a violinist as well as a violist: with the former he has been directing his ensembles La Real Cámara and El Concierto Español, whilst with the latter instrument for many years he has been leading the violas of Orchestra of the 18th Century. Knowing the Johann Sebastian Bach of concertos, sonatas, partitas and of many other pieces Moreno has yearned for there to be parallel repertory from the great master playable on the viola – and it is recorded that Bach himself excelled on the viola and was fully aware of its soloistic potential as well as its gently melancholic timbre (so suitable for those crucial Bachian inner harmonies). Aside from established obbligato viola pieces Bach’s copious oeuvre did not bear much fruit, so with harpsichordist Aarón Zapico (who has previously accompanied Moreno on Boccherini and Castro albums), Moreno set about creating a representative demonstration of pieces which he could play on a 1751 Sympertus Niggel viola da braccio. For The Melancholic Bach Moreno adapted movements from a range of Bach’s trio sonatas, cantatas and organ chorales, with the viola taking the melody line and the harpsichord the other two parts.

Since the early 1990 s, Antonio Vivaldi and Fabio Biondi have become an inseparable pair for many music lovers around the world. In his latest recording for Glossa, Mr. Biondi offers further proof of Vivaldi's astonishing imaginative powers as a composer of violin concertos, matched by Biondi's own dynamic and cultured virtuosity as a violinist (and director). with these Farewell Concertos, Biondi - leading Europa Galante - turns to works written by a Vivaldi very near the end of his life as he traveled to Vienna in a desperate search for creative opportunities. I concerti Dell' -Addio sees the composer in a Vienna in mourning for it's recently deceased emperor and himself more attuned to the now fashionable gallant style, bearing witness to Vivaldi's late style as it headed in the direction of Tartini and Locatelli.

There is something deeply troubling and inscrutable in Carlo Gesualdo’s music, something that any listener, even the most inexpert one, will unfailingly experience. This most particularly holds for Tenebrae Responsoria (1611), his definitive statement, his monument, his testament. It is as if this work, firmly embedded in the framework of liturgy for the Holy Week and reaching back to the practices of the Gregorian chant, would constantly extend over its boundaries and transgress its time and setting, immediately addressing modernity, disturbing all the rules in a severe tension, reaching into something that borders on chaos and madness, within the very order and religious devotion it fully espouses. Graindelavoix, that groundbreaking ensemble based in Antwerp and directed by Bjorn Schmelzer, are the ideal performers for this disquieting repertoire which originally was sung at Gesualdo’s castle and with probably only one listener in the audience: Gesualdo himself... In a tour de force lasting over three hours, recorded over ten days in summer 2019, the singers fully display all the features which, after 16 albums(all on Glossa) and hundreds of concerts, have made their sound a truly trademark one. In words of Schmelzer, “this is our most important recording to date”. A fascinating essay especially commissioned to Lithuanian philosopher and cultural theorist Mladen Dolar puts the music of Gesualdo into perspective, avoiding the cliches that are so often found in texts about the composer.

Violinist Fabio Biondi has a singular capacity for finding something new and exciting in the music of Antonio Vivaldi whenever he considers it, a prodigious feat which he demonstrates with Concerti per La Pietà, a new collection of works calling for a variety of demanding solo challenges, superbly met by Biondi and his colleagues from Europa Galante. In his Venetian years the well-spring of Vivaldi an inventiveness was fed by the composer working with one of the leading orchestras of early eighteenth-century Europe: the one at the Ospedale della Pietà, the charitable institution which took in, cared for –and educated – girls who had been orphaned or abandoned. Within the ospedale were nurtured instrumental virtuosos – known today only by their “sporting nicknames”: Bettina della viola, Margherita del arpa doppia, Lucieta della tromba, etc.

Calling variously for solo violin, two violins, lute, cello, organ, or viola d’amore (Biondi plays an unreconstructed 1758 Vinaccia instrument), the concertos recorded here are drawn from across the thirty years in which Vivaldi worked at the ospedale. The freshness and personalness of Fabio Biondi’s musicmaking with Europa Galante has itself now been in evidence for a remarkable three decades and this new recording won’t disappoint listeners ready to have their preconceptions challenged yet be stimulated by consummate musicianship. An added attraction with this new Glossa release comes with the discussion of the programme, written by Pierre Élie Mamou, which succeeds in uniting Titian, Paul Verlaine, Rembrandt and Mathias Énard in a celebration of the music of Antonio Vivaldi!

With Ninna Nanna the haunting tones, dramatic intensity and richly characterized singing of Pino De Vittorio once again grace a recording project led by Franco Pavan. Call it Wiegenlied, berceuse, nana, ninna nanna – or countless other terms from around the world – the lullaby, with the rocking of the child’s cradle, is possessed of a captivating charm, all neatly captured in this new collection with the lulling of De Vittorio’s hypnotic voice. A potent attraction of Ninna Nanna is that the pieces – from the Baroque era – mainly originate from the Mezzogiorno, the southern part of Italy – including the Apulian area from which hails Pino De Vittorio. Seeking to sidestep the well-known and frequently-played, Franco Pavan, who plays the theorbo and the Southern Italian chitarra battente as well as directing Laboratorio ’600, has delved into the popular culture of these regions for inspiration, additionally adding instrumental pieces such as the Tarantella del Presepe by Cristofaro Caresana or the traditional Pastorale calabrese. By way of the lullaby texts selected here, Pavan conjures up an atmosphere populated by fireflies, the powerful Greek mythological gods of Sleep and Death, Hypnos and Thanatos, Federico García Lorca lecturing on lullabies and referring to the acute sadness of the cradle song, as well as the Virgin Mary and sundry saints being corralled into underpinning the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

With a capaciously-filled set of a dozen albums made up of attractive individual programmes and entitled The Spanish Guitar, Glossa reintroduces the superb playing of José Miguel Moreno. And with recordings from 1991-2004 which still sound fresh and vivid today. A new essay and all the sung texts are included in the physical booklet that completes this limited-edition set. José Miguel Moreno’s multi-century guided tour of Spanish instrumental music encompasses a magisterial pair of albums tracing the history of the Spanish guitar: compositions by Narváez, Mudarra, Murcia, Sanz, Sor, Tárrega and Llobet are all accorded their rightful places. A sizeable portion of the collection is dedicated to celebrating the Renaissance and Baroque eras with either the vihuela or the Baroque guitar. To discs of music by Luys Milán and Gaspar Sanz comes a clutch of albums adding vocal gems from Spain’s musical Siglo de Oro and bearing titles such as Claros y frescos ríos or Al alva venid. Moving onwards from Spain’s Classical era, the set ends with another of Moreno’s legendary albums, Las mujeres y cuerdas. As well as being joined by instrumental colleagues from Orphénica Lyra and La Romanesca, Moreno’s dexterous playing is also called upon in the service of accompanying a group of early music Spanish singers in their time: Nuria Rial, Marta Almajano, Raquel Andueza and Carlos Mena among them.

In 1516 Ludovico Ariosto published his powerful epic “Orlando furioso”, a sequence of intertwined heroic adventures. The story of the knight Orlando, driven mad by a disappointed love for the princess Angelica, serves the entire range of emotions and quickly achieved great success throughout Europe. Dozens of operas were created around Orlando and other characters from Ariosto‘s epic. Countertenor Filippo Mineccia has put together a varied programme of arias from operas by Steffani, Porpora, Vivaldi, Handel, Mele, Wagenseil and Millico around the figure of “Raging Roland“, in which he brilliantly displays all the creative facets of his voice.

The “Folia” was a popular dance born in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. The meaning of “folia” being “madness”, it is documented that in its early days it was a fast, ecstatic dance. Both a harmonic structure and a melody (developed a bit later), the “Folia” evolved until in the Baroque it was formalized into a standard chord progression and melodic line, often developed in the form of variations. In this 2-album set, we present many versions of the “Folia” recorded over the years by artists belonging to the Note 1 group of labels: Paolo Pandolfo, Jose Miguel Moreno, Lina Tur Bonet, Enrico Gatti, Leila Schayegh or Sigiswald Kuijken all make their appearance in music from the Renaissance and Baroque. Among the represented composers we can find Marin Marais, Arcangelo Corelli, Gaspar Sanz or Antonio Vivaldi. Have a lot of fun with these 140 minutes of madness!