Keyboardist Steven Devine continues this complete survey of Johann Ludwig Krebs’ significant contribution to the keyboard genre with the third volume in this series dedicated to the composer’s keyboard works. Featuring one of the three surviving Partitas from a presumed set of six, this album also includes the world premiere recording of Krebs’ Six Keyboard Sonatas (Krebs-WV 832-837), that only came to light during the historic restoration of the archive of the Sing-Akademie to Berlin following its removal to Ukraine during the war in 1943. With a compositional style that points to a period later in Krebs’s life, these charming, witty and sometimes quirky works clearly demonstrate the composer’s confident yet straightforward charm.

The instrumental ensemble Opera Quinta, directed by Fabrizio Longo, violin soloist of the team, adds an important element to the inexhaustible rediscovery of the eighteenth- century Italian heritage. The sonatas op. 1 by Angelo Michele Besseghi - composer of which, unfortunately, only few biographical information has reached us - were published in 1710, openly paying homage to the edition of his much more famous countryman who ten years earlier would have marked the course of European violin history: the Opera 5 by Arcangelo Corelli. Period ensemble Opera Quinta is violinist Fabrizio Longo, gambist Rosita Ippolito, lutenist Fabiano Merlante, and keyboardist Valeria Montanari.

Francesco Corti and il pomo d’oro continue their acclaimed series of Bach harpsichord concertos with a recording of the concertos BWV 1044, 1054, 1056 and 1057. This completes the cycle of seven “official” harpsichord concertos that Bach composed. Many of them are masterful reworkings of existing material, either own compositions or works by contemporaries, showing Bach’s exceptional skill to present musical ideas in a different light. For their second Bach recording, Corti and il pomo d’oro have chosen to work with a relatively small ensemble, in order to bring out the individuality of each melodic line. Corti shares the centre stage with recorder players Andres Locatelli and Alessandro Nasello in BWV 1057, while joining forces with violinist Evgenii Sviridov and traverso player Marcello Gatti in the concluding “triple” concerto BWV 1044. Francesco Corti belongs to the most established harpsichordists of his generation, and releases his second PENTATONE Bach harpsichord concertos album, after his debut on the label in 2020. He works together with the multi-award-winning ensemble il pomo d’oro, who also recorded two vocal recital albums with PENTATONE: Carnevale 1729 with Ann Hallenberg (2017), as well as Prologue with Francesca Aspromonte (2018).

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.

These 2004 recordings,, reissued by Oehms Classics, with the renowned Clemencic Consort conducted by René Clemencic include works by the important composers Johann Joseph Fux and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. In the selection of Fux's works, cosmopolitan skill meets French and Italian styles with southern German tradition. Graceful in the graceful pieces by Biber, magnificently representative in the solemn ones, this recording with a varied program offers an authentic portrait of one of the most important masters of baroque music. The Clemencic Consort under the direction of René Clemencic is one of the most renowned ensembles for music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque period with a focus on authentic interpretations. Numerous award-winning recordings bear witness to the work of the ensemble.

REVIEW:

The first CD contains ballets and sonatas for trumpet and strings by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. The highly virtuosic music is heard in opulent and magnificent ensemble playing. Baroque opulence also abounds in the works of Johann Joseph Fux. The works assembled here impressively demonstrate the composer's versatility. The Clemencic Consort emphasizes this with a variety of tonal color and dynamic contrasts, fully exploiting the dance-like element of Fux’s music.

-- Pizzicato

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.

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.

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.

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. This recording presents the complete "12 Sonate a Violino Solo o Sia Flauto e Violoncello o Basso Continuo Opera prima del Signor Bigaglia Padre Benedettino", as this work is called in the title page of the edition published in Amsterdam by Michel Charles Le Cène around 1722 . Davide Belosio solo violin interprets this world premiere recording accompanied by I Solisti Ambrosiani, already protagonists of a previous release dedicated to the rediscovery of the Venetian composer (v. Diogenio Bigaglia, Cantate per soprano e continuo, Tactus, TC670203).

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.

Richard Jones (1680?-1744) was an English composer and violinist of whom lamentably little is known. Jones' first publication appeared in 1720, a solo cantata While in a Lovely Rurall Seat. In 1732 he was associated with the Drury Lane Theater Orchestra in London, succeeding Stefano Carbonelli as the orchestra's leader. He was a stage composer at a time when George Frideric Handel's music dominated the British stage, and much of his music, or what of it survives, shows clear Italianate influence. Like the details of his life, little of Jones's music survives. His pantomime stage works and ballad operas are all lost. His keyboard and violin suites however did survive and are noted for their wide, angular leaps and unconventional structure.

The 6 Harpsichord Suites (or Lessons), possible inspired by the great keyboard suites by Handel, are of a very high quality, beautifully written, original and enormously appealing, with inventive handling of sweeping melodies, unexpected cadenzas and frequent changes of direction. They are also rich in harmony, with some bold inventions and plenty of vigorous rhythm that can be quite challenging from a technical point of view. In other words, they are compositions that on occasion rival those of Purcell and Handel.

Francesco Fornasaro followed master classes with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Giulia Nuti, Bob van Asperen, Pierre Hantaï, Christophe Rousset, Skip Sempé, Menno van Delft, Francesco, while he further improved his skills in baroque ensemble music and baroque instrumental techniques and practices at the Maggio Fiorentino Formazione under the guidance of Alan Curtis, Federico Maria Sardelli and Federico Bardazzi.

Celebrated harpsichordist Steven Devine completes his monumental survey for Resonus Classics of the complete solo keyboard works by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) with this new collection. These seminal works of the French Baroque era are brought to life vividly by Devine, mainly marking the earlier part of Rameau’s career and charting the development of the future prolific opera and ballet composer. The three books of Pieces de Clavecin are joined by the Cinq Pieces (derived from the Pieces de Clavecin en Concert), and the individual work La Dauphine. Also included is the substantial compendium Les Indes Galantes- keyboard transcriptions that Rameau himself made from his own opera-ballet of the same name composed in 1735/36. “[Devine] is authoritative, suave, technically dazzling and delivers immaculately manicured ornaments that lend brilliance and expressive introspection when required.” (BBC Music Magazine)

Luca Guglielmi: “Bach himself did not see the autograph manuscript as a 'definitive' version. He kept it as an 'open manuscript' on the rack of his harpsichord up to his death, using it as a 'textbook' for the lessons he gave to his students, never ceasing to insert a series of corrections, reworkings, improvements, small variants and even performance instructions. Bach's hands-on approach to his work in progress proves just how modern he actually was and remains. Through a truly 'holistic vision' we can embrace artistic parameters inherited from our 18th-century forebears: a profound, venerable legacy that remains unknown to the ones who approach the musical art on 'scientific' methods based on calculation and measurement. For this recording we have had the fortune to use an original Christian Zell 1737 harpsichord, a favorite of Gustav Leonhardt to whose memory this volume 1 is dedicated.”

This release views “French style” from a strictly historic point of view, exploring the musical language of absolutism which reigned in Paris from the time of Louis XIV (1643-1715) and part of the time of Louis XV (1715-1774). Marin Marais was one of the most famous composers of “French-style,” excelling in chamber music. Performing on period instruments are Alberto Rasi on viola da gamba, Patrizia Marisaldi on harpsichord, and Beatrice Pornon on theorbo.

The CDs contained in this box set were conceived and produced as part of the project "Il mandolino a Napoli nel Settecento”, coordinated by the University of Bologna in collaboration with the University of Uppsala and the Neapolitan Mandolin Academy (www.mandolinonapoli700.com). The objective of the project was the recording on period instruments of the 19 compositions for mandolin by Neapolitan composers of the eighteenth century, whose manuscripts are collected in the Gimo collection and preserved in the "Carolina Rediviva" Library of the University of Uppsala. The two CDs include the works by Giovanni Battista Gervasio (CD1), and Emanuele Barbella, Gioacchino Còcchi and an anonymous (CD2). The production aims to offer the listener a new interpretation of this repertoire based on an interpretative concept sensitive to the quality of sound, phrasing and aesthetic and compositional concepts of the time, contributing to a more extensive rediscovery of the Neapolitan and southern Italian instrumental repertoire of the eighteenth century. This CD box was born thanks to the fruitful collaboration between the University of Bologna and the Museum of San Colombano – Tagliavini Collection, that hosted most of the recordings and made available the precious instruments of its collection.