Serendipia Ensemble, Rita Rógar, and Moisés Maroto, together with their ensemble of musicians—Darío Tamayo on the harpsichord, Calia Álvarez on the viola da gamba, José Arsenio Rueda on the baroque bassoon, and Jon Wasserman exchanging his plucked string instruments (theorbo and baroque guitar)—have recorded the complete sonatas. Premiering worldwide with the record label IBS Classical.

With this large continuo group, Serendipia Ensemble seeks a unique musical approach to the concept of the triosonata, finding the common ground between the concerto form conceived by Corelli and the sonata form arranged by Schickhardt. We are now able to hear, with layering of different instruments, the triosonatas approach the concerti in sections such as the tutti-soli that we appreciate in the Corellian originals.

Few musicians were as versatile as the humble Brother Martini, who insisted on being called that way in spite of all the honors rendered to him in Bologna and everywhere. He is celebrated in our time as an extraordinary keeper of books, scores and paintings; in his time, he was quite famous also as an erudite musician, an expert writer of treatises, a pioneering historian, and an authentic “maestro” of music. And as a composer, obviously; but of what? Of everything that pertained to a Kapellmeister and an organist: masses, motets, psalms, hymns, organ sonatas, and so on; and also harpsichord sonatas, concertos, cantatas, duets and profane arias. The Euridice Choir conducted by Pier Paolo Scattolin and the soloists Giacomo Contro, Angela Troilo, and Vincenzo Di Donato are the protagonists of the reconstruction (seen the several gaps found on the original score) of the intermezzo ”Azione Teatrale” of 1726, and of the realization of the “Calls of the street vendors at the Bologna market,” including 13 amongst the countless vocal canons composed by Padre Martini that, once for all is offering to us a lively cross-section of eighteenth-century Bologna in its most daily and popular aspects.

The term division refers to a particular type of improvisation or composition that flourished in England in the middle of the seventeenth century. Simply put, division music involves splitting longer notes into shorter ones and larger intervals into smaller ones. In order to ‘divide’ you need a subject, or theme, and this was most often a pre-existing vocal melody or a repeating ground-bass. Following on from his critically acclaimed recording of solo English viola da gamba works (Tickle the Minikin), founder member of Fantascus, Robert Smith, is joined by the prolific and celebrated viola da gambist, Paolo Pandolfo, for this album of English duos for the instrument. Featuring a selection of seventeenth-century repertoire from Christopher Simpson, John Jenkins and Simon Ives, this album is packed with divisions for duo, which are often intensely virtuosic. Also featured are a selecon of preludes from Christopher Simpson’s The Division Viol and an addional prelude by Smith himself.

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.

Hamburger Ratsmusik: an ensemble with a 500-year-old history. This contrast prompts a creative dialogue between tradition and the present day, about Early Music and vivid interpretation. The origins of Hamburg‘s “municipal music” go back to the 16th century. Under the motto “in praise of God and for the pleasure, delight and edification of Hamburg”, the city created an elite ensemble of eight city musicians, which was to be the equal of the princely court ensembles (Hofkapellen) to be found elsewhere. The Ratsmusik attained early excellence in the 17th and 18th centuries under such eminent musicians as William Brade, Johann Schop, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Revived in 1991 by gambist Simone Eckert, the ensemble now performs in Germany, many European countries, the USA and China. More than 30 albums (largely with world premiere recordings of Early Music) and recordings for all German public radio stations and Austrian broadcaster ORF document its rediscoveries of music from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. The ensemble received the Echo Klassik award in 2006 and 2010, and was awarded the 2016 RITTER Prize by the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation in Hamburg. The musicians will be responding to renewed invitations to China in 2021. Hamburger Ratsmusik is the Ensemble in Residence in the Komponisten-Quartier museum complex in Hamburg.

Within this new album the Armonia delle Sfere ensemble is delivering to us the complete Produzioni Armoniche work by Antonia Bembo, a collection of 41 motets dedicated in 1701 to Louis XIV, in whose court she landed after a series of vicissitudes occurred in Venice, her hometown, including the failure of a marriage and important family disputes, for which she was deprived of her paternal inheritance. After being trained under the musical guidance of Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), organist of the ducal chapel of San Marco, Antonia secretly married Lorenzo Bembo, a Venetian nobleman, from whom she had two children, and from whom in 1672 she herself asked divorce, due to the continuing absence of her husband, whom she also accused of continuing abuse and betrayal. She then moved to Paris, perhaps following the guitarist Francesco Corbetta, where she concentrated on music and composition, and where she had the opportunity to perform in the presence of Louis xiv, at the court of which she would find acceptance and protection until the end of her life. It is the fascinating story of a strong personality that sought and found its way overcoming the difficult condition of a seventeenth century woman artist.

Attilio Ariosti (1666-1729) was a singer and organist, as well as a cellist and composer. When his name appears today, however, it is usually in connection with the viola d'amore. Ariosti was famous as a virtuoso performer on this instrument, but he also composed for it. The chamber works for viola d'amore which have survived are his Collection of Lessons and the Recueil de Pièces pour la Viol d'Amour, comprising 21 solos - really sonatas in all but name. Together they form the largest single set of baroque works for the viola d'amore. During Ariosti's lifetime these works probably circulated in manuscript copies. That the solos of the Recueil survive at all is thanks to a young music student, Johan Helmich Roman, later known as the father of Swedish music, who copied them in the late 1710s and brought them home with him to Stockholm. In his initiated liner notes, Thomas Georgi, one of today's finest exponents of the viola d'amore, gives an interesting introduction to Ariosti and the instrument, including the various tunings and notational system that are associated with it. This disc, the first of three, contains the six Lessons of the Collection, produced by Ariosti in order to promote the viola d'amore in England, his new home. Five of them appear as in the original, whereas Thomas Georgi has combined the sixth with four movements from the Recueil de Pièces, to form two sonatas - 'Stockholm Sonatas'. A fascinating opportunity to enjoy a rarely heard instrument, expertly supported by Lucas Harris and Joëlle Morton, two of North America's finest baroque instrumentalists.