Nicolò Paganini (Genoa, 1782 - Nice, 1840) is universally renowned as the greatest violin virtuoso of all times and as a huge innovator of violin technique. But the sources reveal that Paganini, besides being an extraordinary and eccentric virtuoso violinist, able to thrill the first half of the 19th century public in Italy and in the rest of Europe, was also a very skilled guitarist, even though his performances with this instrument happened only in private occasions; in fact, we don’t have any testimony of public guitar executions.

Paganini himself, in his autobiography tells about his relationship with plucked instruments, a relationship that started at a very young age. We are around the year 1795-1796 when Paganini started being interested in the guitar, so from that moment on, until the year 1804, we would compose the main corpus of his guitar works, consisting in 37 sonatas for guitars (M.S. 84) and the 5 sonatinas (M.S. 85) that are the object of the present recording in which the Italian guitarist Massimiliano Filippini plays a wonderful guitar made by Gaetano Guadagnini in Turin in 1823.

Paganini wrote these words to his friend Luigi Guglielmo Germi, on January 7th, 1824: “I’m writing to you because a lady is looking for a beautiful, but most importantly, fine guitar. If she finds it here, let me know, otherwise, ask my brother, meaning to demand him to inquire from my copyist where or in which village of Piemonte lives that fellow whose name I don’t recall, but who is an excellent artist for guitars, and commission him a good instrument, well refined and well-sounding. Please take care of this.” Therefore, Paganini knew about a great Piedmontese artisan, an “excellent artist for the guitar”; he perhaps heard about the fantastic acoustic results of the new model of guitar made by the young Gaetano Guadagnini? We don’t know, but this is a suggestive hypothesis that makes even more coherent his choice of using a Guadagnini guitar of the year 1823 to record the Paganini Sonatas for guitar.

Born in Grottkau, a town close to Wroclaw in Lower Silesia (modern day Poland), Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) is for the lute what Johann Sebastian Bach represents for harpsichord and organ. Since 1706, in his hometown, he served Count of Palatinate Charles Philippe, brother of Prince Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, patron of the arts and dedicatee of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerti Grossi, Op VI.

Starting in 1718, he settled permanently in Dresden, refusing the salary offered by the Viennese Court –which was almost twice as much as he was earning in Dresden – and dedicated his efforts to composing more than 600 lute pieces, either solo or with other instruments. In Dresden, he took part in the musical life in court and met numerous musicians; he was particularly friendly with Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Sebastian’s son and organist at Saint Sophia’s Church. In 1739, the two friends travelled to Leipzig where they were hosted by Johann Sebastian for four weeks. We don’t know for sure for the music played by Bach and Weiss during their meeting, but it seems legitimate to think that they played their music on their instruments composing, arringing or improvising together. This programme is meant to witness this precise type of practise, and in some manner aims at recreating the musical atmosphere of these two musicians’ meeting, during which, as reported by Johann Friedrich Reichardt in the Berlinische Musikalische Zeitung,"being aware of the difficulty in performing controlled and elegant phrases on the lute, eyewitnesses ensure that the great lutenist from Dresden, together with the great organist and harpsichordist Bach improvised many fugues and fantasies together".

Cremona 1679 – Antonio Stradivari was in his thirties and, despite his young age, was undoubtedly a renowned maker among the excellent Cremonese craftsmen. He lived with his first wife Francesca Ferraboschi in strada Magistra, in the parish of Sant’Agata. The following year he took an important step as confirmation of his success and wealth: he bought a house with workshop opposite the church of San Domenico, in the quarter that was the heart of the creative activity of the city’s violin makers. Made in the same year, the Hellier violin and the Sabionari guitar reveal Stradivari’s great technical skills and artistic maturity. The Hellier, a violin of large size and vigorous style, was named after its first, lucky owner, a rich gentleman of British origin who presumedly bought the violin directly from Stradivari. The decoration of the ribs and scroll, made with the technique of inlay filled with mastic of wood paste and glue, is characterized by a phytomorphic design of flowers and buds with animals. The elegant ornamentation on the top and back plates consists of a double inlayed purfling enclosing small ivory or bone lozenges and roundels fixed with mastic of wood and glue.

The Sabionari is one of the five Baroque guitars made by Antonio Stradivari that have survived to date. It was made in 1679 based on the same mould used in 1681 for the Giustiniani guitar and in 1688 for the Hill guitar. According to some sources, the instrument was sold by Stradivari’s descendants to Giovanni Sabionari from Ferrara at the end of the eighteenth century. In the early nineteenth century, it was modified to become a six-string guitar, as it happened to many Baroque guitars, by the maker Giuseppe Marconcini. In 2011, the guitar was restored to its original Baroque configuration with five double strings after the replacement of the parts made by Marconcini.

With this CD begins the publication of the complete Bach's organ works by the Italian organist Massimiliano Sanca. The compositions that have been selected for this first CD are pieces of different character: austere and severe nature works – and works that describe the serenity and peace. The Prelude and Fugue BWV 546, Fantasy and Fugue BWV 537, Prelude and Fugue BWV 549, Chorale BWV 658,“represent”, through the music, suffering, pain and difficulties of humanity in a cosmic sense; on the other hand, the Chorales BWV 676 in the Trio and BWV 676 Manualiter, Chorale BWV 668, Fugue on the Magnificat BWV 733 are works that describe the serenity and peace of God’s kingdom with Mary, his mother, and the angels, as expressed in the Holy Scriptures.

As a result in this recording everything converges, once again with the Bach music, into a profound union between human and divine nature, and in fact between Heaven and Earth. Massimiliano Sanca plays on the beautiful organ made by Ilic Colzani in 2007 for of the Sanctuary of the "Madonna of Mangher" in Vallio Terme (Brescia, Italy).

Tarquinio Merula, born in 1595, moved to Cremona at a very early age where he spent the better part of his life. His fame as organist and composer brought him to work in other important Italian cities (he was organist in Bergamo and Lodi and active in Venice and Warsaw), but always with appointments lasting only a few years: evidently the musical climate in Cremona had nothing to envy far more important cultural centers. A highly respected musician, he was a prolific writer of collections of madrigals, organ pieces and instrumental music. The wonderful sonatas of op. XII, some recorded for the first time on this release, are played by Ensemble L’Aura Soave on original instruments.

The ‘Sonate 12 a Violino e Basso intitolate "Pensieri armonici" Opus. 5’ clearly belongs to Andrea Zani's second post-Vivaldian style. Without a dedication, these sonatas are still stylistically tied to the baroque style, but there are hints of the gallant style in them, above all because of the frequent use of appoggiaturas and in the cantabile themes and their development. Each of them having three movements, in the initial and final Allegros the violin, the indisputable protagonist, giving vent, shows off with captivating virtuosity, supported by a precise and well constructed bass. The Adagios are superb, placed as a contrast between the two extreme quick movements where the cantabile nature of the writing for the violin is full of "melos" making these pages quite enjoyable. The quality of the composition of these sonatas makes one consider the unjust oblivion into which the musical work of Zani has fallen. It was previously so respected and is now practically unknown. Violinist Andrea Rognoni and the ensemble L’Aura Soave breathe new life into this forgotten work.

Six Sonatas or Trios for three Violoncellos or two Violins and a Bass, is the title of op. 1, published in London by Giacobo Basevi Cervetto between 1741 and 1745 circa. To the modern ear, it is curious to hear the terms sonata and trio referred to as synonyms: in fact, the genre – which in effect did experience a certain confusion regarding the terminology – is known today as the sonata a tre. As Cervetto was a cello concert musician, it is not surprising that his sonatas were composed for three violoncellos (two cellos and bass); the alternative of playing them with two violins was probably dictated by commercial reasons in order to interest a vaster public. We maintain that it is important to rediscover these sonatas who are little known to the public of today. These wonderful and unusual Sonatas are played on original instruments by Martin Zeller & Marco Frezzato.

Antonio Stradivarius is universally acknowledged as being the greatest violin maker of all time. About 600 of his instruments have survived until the present day, among them violins, violas, and cellos, most of which are still played, studied, and regarded by the most famous and renowned soloists, collectors, art galleries, and museums as the “non plus ultra.” The long life of Stradivarius covers a truly crucial period in the history of music: it stretches from the second half of the seventeenth century, a moment of the definitive triumph of the violin as principal instrument of Baroque instrumental music, to the first part of the eighteenth century, a period of transition toward musical classicism. We maintain that it is important, therefore, to rediscover these musicians who are little known to the public of today, but who were quite well known and respected in the Cremona of their day. They were perhaps great exchangers of concrete ideas and advice with the great violin makers of the time. As it happens today in modern violin making workshops, the exchange of ideas and advice between musicians and instrument makers is the basis for the professional growth of both.