The MVcremona label, which has always been committed to enhancing the musical heritage of the city of Cremona, presents this CD dedicated to the precious Maineri-Acerbi organ of the church of San Sigismondo, a wonderful church located just outside the city. The first documented news of the construction of this monumental organ dates back to 1567 but the organ only began service in 1572. After an eighteenth-century intervention which partially modified it's phonic structure, a restoration which took place in 1860 by the organ builder Luigi Vincenzo Acerbis, he configured the current phonic structure, where all the original sixteenth-century pipes both in metal and wood are still present. This makes the instrument very versatile and suitable for performing a wide musical repertoire. The Cremonese organist Paolo Bottini, already a protagonist in the valorization of other historical organs of Cremona through numerous recordings for various record labels, presents in this CD a series of pieces by composers who worked in the Cremona area, starting from himself and going to back in time to Claudio Monteverdi, born in Cremona in 1567, the year in which construction of the organ began. The church and monastery of San Sigismondo in Cremona are governed by an order of cloistered nuns and therefore the Maineri-Acerbi organ is used only for liturgical purposes: this makes this CD even more precious because it allows you to listen to the voice of this historic organ in a repertoire of exceptional stylistic variety.

The Italian organist Massimiliano Sanca proposes in this CD (Vol.2 of a project of five cds of Bach complete Organ works) the famos Triosonatas. 1733). In 1727 Johann Sebastian Bach started drafting a manuscript of organ music which included the Leipzig Chorales and the Canonical Variations BWV 769, as well as the six trio sonatas for organ (BWV 525/530). "Trio sonatas" in this case refers to the fact that the two manuals and the pedal are handled independently, though closely related to each other, in "a musical discourse, as if they were three different instruments dialoguing between each other through notes and figures" (N. Harnoncourt). We ought not to forget that in Bach's time, "to play" in the German language was not expressed through the verb spielen, as it is today, but through vortragen, whose translation means "to deliver a speech" through the organ, violin, and so on. Bach did not name the whole work, but he titled each sonata instead, such as "Sonata a 2 Clav. And Pedal by J. S. Bach". According to his biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the trio sonatas might have been composed between 1727 and 1732, in order to introduce Bach's oldest son Wilhelm Friedemann (who was, from Johann Sebastian point of view, the most gifted of his sons) to the organ practice. As a result, my own interpretation is aimed at highlighting every technical, discoursive and sound detail that Bach teaches us through the use of rhetorical musical figures. The choice of registers in the recording and interpretation performed here is meant to "paint through sounds" the "colour" and feeling into the movement of each sonata, also expressed through "affections" in the different tonalities in a very crystal clear way. Massimiliano Sanca plays on the organ made by Ilic Colzani (2007) for the Sanctuary of Vallio Terme (BS). It is made with mechanical transmission, is strongly inspired by the production of the famous organ builder Gottfried Silbermann, who worked in Germany in the first half of the 18th century in close contact with Johann Sebastian Bach. But this is not a copy, but a totally original project that combines the particular sounds of the pipes made according to the construction specifications and the measures adopted by Silbermann.

This CD offers a beautiful live performance of the Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 64 from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with the Italian violinist Christian Joseph Saccon and the prestigious Orchestra of Padua and Veneto conducted by Maffeo Scarpis. Saccon trained at the great Venetian school of Luigi Ferro, then continued his studies by attending masterclasses with the most important European masters: Tibor Varga, Corrado Romano, Franco Gulli, Uto Ughi and Giuliano Carmignola. He plays a Marino Capicchioni violin from 1942 that belonged to Maestro Salvatore Accardo. It was the famous violinist Ferdinand David who commissioned the Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 64 from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The first performance took place at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on 13 March 1845 with David as soloist. The performance was conducted by the Danish composer Niels Gade as Mendelssohn was in poor health at the time. The concerto, performed again in October of that year, with David as soloist under the baton of Mendelssohn himself, was a resounding success. Since then, the concerto has become a staple in concert programmes. In June 1846, the concerto was performed at the Philharmonic Society in London. Mendelssohn personally selected the Genoese violinist Camillo Sivori, a pupil of Paganini, as soloist. On 3 October 1847, it was performed by a young protege of Mendelssohn, the young Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, who would go on to become a favourite collaborator of Brahms. The concerto is an elegant and skilfully crafted composition, where brilliance and buoyancy conceal the work's constructive genius. The Orchestra of Padua and Veneto conducted by Maffeo Scarpis interprets also the Symphony n.4 "Italiana" op.90 by Mendelssohn with fresh vigor in a brilliant live performance. It is surely one of the most celebrated compositions by Mendelssohn. The CD is completed by a precious bonus track with the pieces played by Saccon as an encore of the live concert: Capricci n.11 and n.24 by Niccolo Paganini, in which Saccon show all his virtuoso skills.

The Italian organist Marco Ruggeri offers in this CD a compilation of pieces by various author, chosen to enhance the acoustic qualities of the wonderful historical organ of the church of SS. Faustino and Giovita in Bienno. It dates back to around 1630. At that period Graziadio IV Antegnati (1608-1657) creates a 16-foot organ with an enharmonic keyboard with certainly 4 and possibly 5 broken keys for the Benedictine monks running the parish. In 1750 the instrument is restored, moreover, the organ choirs are replaced with others of a typically Baroque style while the organ case is preserved. Antegnati's organ still exists in 1822 when the scholarly Giacomo Simoni sends one of the Serassi brothers to Bienno recommending that all recoverable Antegnati material must be preserved, yet no agreement is reached. A few years later, an unknown organ builder adds typically 19th-century stops. Finally in 1891, according to the 1881 project, the organ builder Giovanni Manzoni of Bergamo, who had previously worked with Bossi and for a short time with Perolini brothers, restores and expands the organ. He initially works out a two-manual project, later he reduces the instrument to a single keyboard with 47 stops and 1823 pipes. The new structure includes also the 155 Antegnati pipes scattered in different stops, as well as 18 Principale pipes in an almost perfect succession and they confirm the original division. The latter group is moved to the 'organetti morti' (pipes placed in the upper part of the facade). The seventeenth-century case is totally preserved. In 1943 Armando Maccarinelli from Brescia carries out an extraordinary maintenance and remixes some stops. In 1961 Emilio Piccinelli of Ponteranica - without knowing Manzoni's project, found in the parish archive only years later - makes a radical restoration yet very respectful of the 1891 physiognomy. In 2017/2018 the Piccinelli family carries out a philological restoration bringing back the instrument to the exact conditions of 1891, on the precise indications from the Milan 'Servizio Tutela Organi'. The intervention is completed for the larger part by rearranging the pipes, recovering the material set aside and only with the reconstruction of 12 pipes of Cello.

This release of soloistic sonatas for bassoon represents only a small part of the Italian pre-Classical repertoire. It is music that many performers today are still quite unfamiliar with and much has yet to be discovered from both a musicological as well as performing standpoint. With this collection, MVC hopes to have contributeed to bringing to light a production that is by no means secondary from a qualitative point of view and which is of fundamental importance for it's role in connecting to the late Baroque with the mature Classical style.

What little information we have concerning Pietro Migali is derived from his will, kept at the State Archives in Lecce. The document states that he was ''approximately 22'' when his father Angelo died. He took charge of the entire family, including his mother Francesca Redesi, and his seven siblings. We have no information regarding migali's musical education - documents or other information that could shed light on this period of his life have not been uncovered. This collection of sonatas attests to Migali's high level of compositional skill, a unique case in the musical scene of the late seventeenth-century Apulia. It is unlikely that his musical education was limited to his native city - it almost certainly extended to Naples or more probably to Rome. His ''lucrative profession as Maestro di Cappella and Music Composer'' is confirmed by his only surviving printed work. We have no information regarding other compositions of manuscripts. The collection of Trio Sonatas was published in Rome in 1969, when the composer was roughly 61; it is the work of a mature musician with considerable knowledge of the ''Roman'' style of the late seventeenth century. Assuming Migali was in Rome when he was around 23 (in approximately 1655) a meeting with Corelli would have been unlikely, as the presence of the latter in the Eternal City can be attested starting in 1675; moreover, at that time the 40-year-old Migali would have already been well known and established. In recent years, musicologists have identified and defined a Roman style of instrumental music, with Corelli as its most notable representative. Violinist Enrico Gatti comments that ''Corelli introduced a new formal model, which wa spure, balanced, and full of musical substance; at the same time he pursued the Roman style, endorsing and incorporating the significant inventions of his illustrious predecessors, among whom Alessandro Stradella''. Migali's works could belong to the ''Roman style'', though his idea is not supported by any evidence.

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.

The musical 1600's represent a period of particular ferment: the birth of opera in music, the practice of continuo playing, solo singing with instrumental accompaniment. Musical settings change as well, they are no longer small chambers for ''musica reservata'' but great rooms and theaters calling for powerful voices capable of filling them. The harp and the chitarrone are two striking examples of how ancient instruments, still nearly renaissance models, become modernized if not designed ex novo to adapt the power of their sound to these large speces.

Organist and composer Fausto Caporali, organist in Cremona’s Cathedral, presents this release of music by composers who were also organists and “Maestri di Cappella” in Cremona’s Cathedral from the Sixteenth century onward. All of the music is played on the magnificent Mascioni organ in Cremona’s Cathedral, and several of these works are receiving here their world premiere recordings. Fausto Caporali received his diploma in Organ and Organ Composition in 1981 at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan where he studied with Gianfranco Spinelli, and in 1983 he attained the title of Maestro of Gregorian Chant at the Pontificio Instituto Ambrosiano di Musica Sacra. He was a prize-winner at the Competition of Organ Improvisation of Biarritz in 1995 and 1997 and a semi-finalist at the International Competition of Improvisation in Harlem in 1996. As a composer he has to his credit Third Prize at the AGIMUS Competition in Varenna in 1996. He is a writer of sacred cantatas, concerti and chamber music all of which have been successful with audiences and critics alike. He is active as a solo performer and accompanist of vocal and instrumental groups. He has performed in Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Lithuania, and has recorded for Prominence, Syrius, MV, and Fugatto.

Mozart himself held the Divertimento K. 563 in great esteem and performed it personally on several occasions. One of these performances took place at a private concert he gave at the Hotel de Pologne in Dresden on 13 April 1789, while on his way to Berlin. This is a work of profound meaning and intrinsic musical worth; indeed, it was written only a few weeks after the last symphonies, and it must be ranked next to the best quartets and quintets of the last period. "The entire work is not only one of his most mature chamber works, but constitutes an unsurpassed achievement of its genre" (Herman Abert). Just as in the field of baroque music, music from the classical period is now being recorded more often on "original instruments". The less romanticized sound does not only render the "classicism" in the pieces' structures clear; here, it also superbly brings out the elegance of Mozart's melodic writing. The ALEA Ensemble is a chamber music group that was founded in Graz in 1988. The group primarily focuses on contemporary music, but ventures into historical performance practice as well.

The Amatis were Cremonese violin makers universally recognized as those who perfected the morphology of the violin by defining the form considered “classic” today. They worked in Cremona for 300 years from the first half of the 16th Century until the end of the 17th Century. In particular the head of the family, Andrea Amati, and his sons Antonio and Girolamo, brought about an actual revolution in construction and form that contributed in a predominant way to attributing the violin a real soloistic role. But what music were these instruments built for? Which composers? What use of violins considering that the orchestra as we know it today was a long time in coming? With this release, the ensemble hope to contribute to bringing to light many still obscure aspects tied to violin repertory of Lombardy during the 1500’s and 1600’s. They believe that only through meticulous research of the repertory and its execution with historically informed performance practice will it be possible to correctly frame Andrea Amati and his sons, rediscovering, in addition to their renowned exceptional qualities as craftsmen, their influence and their innovative contribution to music history and to the emancipation of the soloistic instrument.

Dante Caifa was born in Vescovato (Cremona) on 22 December 1920. After having been ordained a priest, he studied choral music in Piacenza and composition in Parma, attaining diplomas in both in 1949 and 1951 respectively. From 1964 he was organist and Chapel Master in the Cremona Cathedral. Talented composer and choral director, he contributed notably to the diffusion of a knowledge of classic polyphony in Cremona where, in 1992, he once again founded the chapel music of the Cathedral giving it a stable institutional physiognomy. He died 4 August 2003. In his music everything flows naturally and authentically, albeit in simplicity. Everything originates in the understanding of the sacred text and in it's musical thought, which are then expressed through a safe technique. Caifa is also capable of daring and surprising: a sudden change of rhythm, a harmony that you do not expect. This is what is defined with the word 'personality,' and is evident in the beautiful works recorded here by the Coro "M.A. Ingegneri."

This outstanding album of Italian Renaissance songs is beautifully performed with expert performance practice by soprano Jessica Gould and lute and chitarrone player Diego Cantalupi. Works by Benedetto Ferrari, Tanquinio Merula, Giovanni Felice Sances, and others are featured. Jessica Gould has wowed audiences and critics across the globe with her impressive interpretations of early music. “A dramatic intensity that honored the texts.” (The New York Times) “Dazzling… expansive range, coloratura facility, and multi-hued, powerful sound” (Seen and Heard International) “Astonishing passage and ornaments, executed to perfection” (Lute News, UK) Diego Cantalupi was born in Milano and studied at the Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano, and the Conservatorio di Parma. He holds a degree in lute performance.

Giovanni Battista Serini is a composer all but forgotten today, known exclusively by harpsichordists and pianists thanks only to the three sonatas presented in this recording. In actuality, these works already enjoyed considerable renown at the time of their first publication and were then revised and adapted for the piano and, successively, various new modern editions. Nevertheless, the thorough study of Serini in recent years has revealed him to be quite a unique musical figure of remarkable grandeur. His biography still contains many unknown aspects but thanks to recent discoveries it is being enriched with new elements little by little. These three sonatas were composed by Serini during his Bückeburg period and, like all of his musical output, are in the galant style. They are three authentic masterworks that in some way give us the scope of his compositional talent with the elegance of their writing and the remarkable originality of the themes and their relative development, with solutions, often ingenious and not to be taken for granted.

There would be much to say on the importance and reasons of the practice of tablature transposition and transcription in the evolution of music for keyboard instruments. What we can point out, however, is that, in the case of some great composer who did not leave an original repertoire, there is an increasing tendency to adapt pieces that had a different destination for the organ. So it is customary to hear, played on the organ, the pieces Schumann composed for pedal piano or the music for mechanical clocks composed, among others, by H�ndel, Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart. That is the intention of this album by Stefano Innocenti- he performs works by Bach, Mozart, and Rameau which weren't originally intended for his instrument on his instrument- the organ. This album recorded by Stefano Innocenti on the eighteenth-century organs of the Ducal Chapel of San Liborio at Colomo and the Duomo of Guastalla is part of the cultural activities promoted by the Associazione culturale "Giuseppe Serassi."