This release offers a vivid picture of the diverse and varied spirits that characterized the twentieth century, as told in music. A milestone of twentieth century guitar literature, Nocturnal after John Dowland op. 70 (1963) by Benjamin Britten, joins hands here with two pieces, Fantasia per Laura (2010) and Suite per chitarra (2016), by Giancarlo Facchinetti (1936-2017), a composer from Brescia who ‘with his biographical and artistic story, sums up the fragmented and contradictory course of twentieth century music’.

Alongside the mainland represented by the works of Britten and Facchinetti, the former unanimously historicized and the latter undoubtedly on the way to being so, five well-known songs belonging to the tradition of pop music have been inserted, like a small and intricate archipelago. Seemingly isolated, far removed from the seriousness of the classical context just described, yet dense with their own poetic originality, thanks in part to the inventiveness of the musicians who have succeeded so well in making guitar arrangements of them, the songs surface like water lilies among the leaden atmospheres elicited by Britten and Facchinetti, like an invitation to free our mind and soul from the meditative introversion characterizing the Nocturnal, as well as the Fantasia and Suite. The pieces in our program alternate as if wishing to lead the listener through the meanderings of an emotional journey that culminates in the concluding Nocturnal.

In this release, clarinetist Aldo Botta wanted to give his contribution in the popularization of solo clarinet pieces. It is a tribute to international renowned artists as well as others lesser-known, who have composed little musical masterpieces from both past and present literature. Some of them are from our own time, artists who are currently working on astonishing musical productions as clarinetists, performers and teachers. Their compositions – here available for the listener – all have a single common characteristic, which is the desire to convey the love for a very noble instrument: the clarinet.

In Kurtág’s works for solo flute or in ensemble, we find all the characteristic features of his musical language: the theatricality of the musical gesture and expressive value of the interval; the connection with the word and its intonation; the symmetrical writing through expansions and contractions of individual ideas, the aphoristic and fragmentary writing; the reworking of material and self-quotation. Moreover, these pieces show a humanistic approach, where music, while avoiding any consolatory intent, becomes memory, communication, and sign of affection.

Still today, an area of shadow, sorely in need of illumination, continues to surround the piano output of various composers living between the end of the 18th and start of the 19th centuries, indisputable protagonists at the keyboard and creators of new aesthetics in the period in which they lived, forgotten with their death and rarely considered by posterity if not within limited and unjust boundaries. They are considered almost unapproachable, even negligible, because of a critical vision incapable of seeing, broadly speaking, beyond the established triads: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven for Classicism, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt for early Romanticism. Thus, figures such as Cramer, Field, Czerny and Moscheles, who lived between the two centuries, and Hiller, Thalberg and Henselt, born in the 19th century, are eternally relegated to second place. Above all, however, justice is continued to be denied to Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) and Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), who had a direct and not insignificant relationship with the above-mentioned trinities, especially the former, steadfastly holding their own and reciprocating their esteem, apart from certain disagreements seen in some of their letters, and teachers in turn of some of the misunderstood figures mentioned above. In this admirable recording, the pianist Sebastiano Mesaglio, sensitive and zealous re-evaluator of what the history of the piano has passed down to us, offers through an aptly chosen selection of sonatas the chance to gain a clear understanding of what Clementi and Hummel’s contemporaries thought of them, quite rightly, and what we in turn should think.

The present release presents three of the most well known and most performed concertos for oboe in the instrument’s repertoire. It is often said that the classical era is full of intrigue and mystery, and the history of music is no exception. However, time hides as much as it enlightens, and the ancient adage “Veritas filia Temporis” (Truth is the daughter of Time) often solves these riddles.

Christian Schmitt studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon and at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe where he won top prizes. Then he improved his skill with renowned masters such as Thomas Indermühle, Maurice Bourgue, Paul Dombrecht and Heinz Holliger. In 1992 he was awarded first prize in music from the Fördergemeinschaft in Freiburg (European Cultural Foundation). Over 20 years he performed as oboe soloist in Sinfonieorchester Basel, leaving in 2012 to devote himself to a Stuttgart Musikhochschule class where he was appointed Professor in 2008, succeeding Prof. Ingo Goritzki. He is as the cutting age of contemporary creation for the oboe and several pieces have been written for him by different composers.

This album represents an innovative and renewed production path started in 2020 with my first album published by Stradivarius Music, with which a solid collaboration has been established. Already in the previous work, my aim was to immediately highlight in the title a personal vision of Jazz Manouche style, starting from its stylistic peculiarities, and adding “color” in a harmonic and stylistic combination with my experience. Despite maintaining the basic staff of guitars and bass, it was necessary to complete my compositions, depending on the need, with the valuable collaboration of many friends and musicians who, with enthusiasm have been involved. The desired sounds are more modern than the previous album. Each note is meaningful! At the root of this collection of unpublished works there is the “contamination” and “inclusion” of music styles that have occurred in the journey of my artistic life. The unmistakable touch and sound of the Manouche guitar and the sound, creative and emotional impacts that Django Reinhardt had on me, have inevitably influenced my vision and my path, in summary. -Pietro Lazazzara

VIVALDI Violin Concertos: in F, RV 287; in g, RV 321; in d, RV 240 . Double Violin Concertos: in C, RV 508; in g, RV 517. String Concertos: in C, RV 113; in D, RV 123 • Giorgio Sasso (vn, cond); Paolo Perrone (vn); Insieme Strumentale di Roma (period instruments) • STRADIVARIUS 33944 (68:09)


Stradivarius’s notes somewhat vaguely mention world premiere recordings; three of these works, RV 240, 508, 517, have appeared in collections reviewed, or to be reviewed, in Fanfare (RV 240 and RV 508 appear in the recording by Il Pomo d’Oro, Naïve 30550, while Gli Incogniti included RV 517 in their collection on Zig-Zag 310, 36:4). Giorgio Sasso’s recording with Insieme Strumentale di Roma took place in the Church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna in October 2011.


The program opens with the Violin Concerto in F Major, RV 287, beginning with bumptious resonant strokes that the ensemble surrounds with reverberant silence. The engineers have miked Giorgio Sasso, who already proves to be an aggressive violin soloist, up close, revealing both the starch in his articulation and the considerable beauty of his tone. Violinist and ensemble eschew lightening tempos, achieving their effects timbrally rather than temporally. They bring out the contrast between the brilliant upper registers and the booming bass parts (all with only six instruments—but including organ in the concertos, RV 240 and RV 113). In the slow movement, too, they combine the warmth of I Musici’s old recordings (or those of the Virtuosi di Roma) and the elegance of Arthur Grumiaux’s Baroque recreations with the chunkiness characteristic of many now mainstream period-instrument ensembles. When the textures support the balance, the engineers focus on the harpsichord part, as they do in RV 287’s Largo . Sasso interlaces the Finale with pointed rhythmic interjections.


The Concerto in C Major, RV 508, for Two Violins, begins with a sweeping tutti, but the soloists engage in virtuosic dialogue through much of the movement, and Sasso and Paolo Perrone carom off each other like so many weightless and frictionless billiard balls. In the slow movement, Sasso and Perrone stretch engaging ruminations over a framework of steady notes in the upper strings, while in the Finale they cavort vivaciously if not virtuosically.


The program’s other Double Violin Concerto, RV 517, in G Minor, follows. Its first movement begins fugally (and this fugal writing returns later toward the movement’s end), and the ensemble prises apart the contrapuntal lines with a clarity of cleanly etched glass. The violin soloists provide relief in arch homophonic interplay. They generally play together, too, burnishing affecting emotional highlights on the slow movement’s stately melodic material. The Finale also begins contrapuntal, but features more homophonic solo sections, recalling those in the first movement. Sasso and Perrone bring enough crisp gusto even to these less prepossessing solos to keep the music perpetually fresh.


The ensemble pieces the first movement of the String Concerto, RV 113 in C Major, out of insistent, infectious rhythmic motives, but provides a moment of respite by making the figuration of the slow movement flow gently before the brisk repartee of the Finale. The soloists and ensemble alternate portentous statements and playful figurations in the first movement of the Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 321. After their lyricism in the slow movement, they return to stronger punctuation in the Finale. The Violin Concerto in D Minor, RV 240, joined by continuo organ in the ensemble’s recording, appears the longest of the works in their program. Pablo Queipo de Llano’s notes suggest that Vivaldi wrote it between 1710 and 1715; and while he notes the incisiveness of its melodic elements, listeners may fasten instead upon the flowing lyricism that Sasso brings to its first movement, the ensemble’s dramatic interjections in the slow movement surrounding the melting lyricism of the solo part, and the leaping figuration that Sasso negotiates with such violinistic agility in the Finale. The program concludes with another of the string concertos, RV 123 in D Major, shortest of the works on the program. The ensemble’s jubilant playing of the first movement, its steady figuration alternating in dynamic level, the at times hushed solemnity it brings to the brief slow movement, and the fugal splendor of the Finale’s opening (reminiscent of Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto), make the work a memorable conclusion to the program.


If Bach learned a great deal about Italian concertos by transcribing Vivaldi’s works in the genre, he missed one of the central pillars that support them: their soloistic drama. That’s in evidence in Stradivarius’s recording, one of the most balanced and exhilarating of Vivaldi’s concertos that’s come my way in the last several years. Urgently recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

For those familiar with Baroque violin works in 19th- or 20th-century arrangements, the idea of layers of accretions to the Urtext should not seem foreign. Baroque composers engaged in the practice of adapting and rewriting with even more energy, Bach himself reworking concertos by Vivaldi in a way that reminds listeners of the presence of both luminaries. Corelli?s concerti grossi, as well as his trio and solo sonatas, maintained their preeminence for decades, a position that makes it seem natural that composers would have adapted them (Geminiani had made from them concerti grossi). Francesco Maria Veracini, Tartini?s flamboyant contemporary, also applied his fancy to these works, resulting in a set of Dissertazioni , the first six of which, glossing the first six sonatas ( da chiesa ) of Corelli?s op. 5, have, through their release by Stradivarius, become available for listeners in performances by Federico Guglielmo and Andrea Coen. Guglielmo, writing his own booklet notes, suggests that the many omissions and mistakes in the manuscript in Bologna make it doubtful that it had ever served as the source for a performance. Be that as it may, Guglielmo and Coen now reveal the extent to which Veracini rendered Corelli?s arguments in his own unique language. Those familiar with Geminiani?s concerti grossi based on Corelli?s violin sonatas will find in Veracini?s rewritings a bolder departure harmonically, melodically, and technically, even though he preserves the same instrumentation. It?s no matter of mere ornaments (like those Geminiani provided for Corelli?s Ninth Sonata, outside the first set of six), no matter how characteristic. Only a glance at Corelli?s originals reveals at once the audacity with which Veracini provided new basses, modernized melodic contours, and stiffened technical requirements (while remaining, as did Corelli, in the first four positions). Every measure unmistakably bears one of the two composers? identities. And that?s as true of the étude-like perpetual motions as of the nobly sketched fugues and broadly singing adagios. Not for more than a century would a composer like Vieuxtemps so boldly reconceive and update one of Corelli?s Sonatas (the ?Folia?). If slow movements lose some of their directness and simplicity, and faster ones become more densely packed with violinistic and musical ideas, the imbalance of credits and debits will depend on the listener?s response to Veracini?s work as reflecting either the benevolence of an improver or the malevolence of a blasphemer.


Federico Guglielmo (on a 1710 Calcanius) tends to sound at times a bit tubby, occasionally ceding primacy to the harpsichord (which Coen?s performance as well as Veracini?s prepossessing basses render deserving of such attention) and at times a bit abrasive, although the timbres never impede Guglielmo?s élan in explicating the composer?s melodic and violinistic ideas. The recorded sound, capturing the duo close up, swathed in the reverberant sound of the Church of S Maria dei Servi, reveals all the detail. Guglielmo begins the finale of Dissertazione VI, at the bridge ( sul ponticello ), while Coen?s bass suggests drones characteristic of folk music. For the rest, Guglielmo indulges in few timbral experiments or asperities not related to the instrument?s timbral profile.


For those who revere the Master, for those who appreciate Veracini?s enthusiastic exploration of the frontiers of Baroque expressivity, as well as for aficionados of the period?s string literature, Guglielmo?s readings should come as a revelation and a gift. Others, less thoroughly grounded in Corelli?s bedrock, may have a less clear idea of what?s happening. Yet for the performances? gusto, the program should appeal to all types of listeners. (But beware: Dissertatione III begins with track 11?not 12; IV with track 16?not 17; V with track 21?not 22; and VI with track 26?not 27 and ends with track 30?not 31; I could find nothing missing in Dissertatione II to throw off the numbering.) Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Trio in a. SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Trio No. 2 in e • David Trio • STRADIVARIUS 33861 (76:59)


I’ve heard many recordings of Tchaikovsky’s A-Minor Piano Trio, some better than others, but none until now that I could go on rapturously about for paragraphs on end. It’s a difficult piece to make a persuasive argument for; being structurally weak and written with little enthusiasm by the composer, it’s not one of Tchaikovsky’s most inspired works.


The David Trio, founded in 2004, is an Italian ensemble. Its members are Daniele Pascoletti, violin; Patrizio Serino, cello; and Claudio Trovajoli, piano. And according to its official website, the group has recorded two other albums for Stradivarius, Schubert’s B?-Major Trio and a disc pairing a Haydn trio with Brahms’s B-Major Trio. I searched for both of them, as well as for this new Tchaikovsky/Shostakovich coupling, at all of the usual mail-order outlets, but to no avail. The only place I found them listed was at Stradivarius’s Italian-language website. Based on this new release, I want the other two and I want them NOW.


This is absolutely stunning playing and a stunning recording. The David Trio’s tonal opulence restrained by a measure of self-control and enhanced by meticulous technique and ensemble balance ensures a reading of the Tchaikovsky that skims off the excess schmaltz to reveal the sinew beneath it. It’s a performance that manages to be emotionally expressive without ever succumbing to the temptation of mawkish sentimentality. Though the first movement still suffers from making too much of too little, the David Trio can’t be blamed for that; it’s Tchaikovsky’s fault. But at its core, the second movement exhibits sound instincts and the composer’s perhaps underestimated facility for variations technique.


Heretofore, a favorite recording of the work has been with Vadim Repin, Dmitri Yablonsky, and Boris Berezovsky on Erato. I wouldn’t have imagined that three Italians would outshine three Russians in music from their home turf, but wonders never cease. On all counts—execution, interpretation, and recording—the David Trio now becomes my first choice for this work.


The ensemble’s Shostakovich is equally impressive—no surprise that the group has won numerous prestigious awards—but this score is one of the piano trio repertoire’s greatest masterpieces, and the number of outstanding recordings make for a hotly contested field. The coupling of the Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 is not an uncommon one. The Rosamunde Trio did it (reviewed in Fanfare 32:3), as did the aforementioned Repin/Yablonsky/Berezovsky, and Kremer/Maisky/Argerich in a live 1998 Deutsche Grammophon recording from Tokyo. There are others, too, but if the coupling appeals to you, in some instances you may find the performance of the Tchaikovsky more desirable than that of the Shostakovich or vice-versa. The wonderful thing about the David’s recording is that the performances are unquestionably in the very top ranks for both works.


It’s only January, and we’re already starting out on a very high note for new chamber-music releases. This one is urgently recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

This simple celebratory cantata made Stradella a well-known theatrical personality. As opposed to using traditional recitative, Stradella incorporates string interludes interrupting the characters, which allowed them to express emotions during facial expressions and movement, a novelty during the Baroque era. The Concerto Madrigalesco performs these works extraordinarily with historical performance practices.

On this album, Stefano Grondona plays the works for guitar by Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) and Gaspar Cassad� (1897-1966). The CD is an homage to his master Andr�s Segovia; the guitar used for this recording was made by the great luthier Antonio de Torres in 1882.

Classical Music

Classical Music

La navigazione notturna is the “first fragment of a broader cosmology,” composed in Città di Castello in 1985, for the Sagra and the Tempio Malatestiani of Rimini. At the last moment that performance did not take place. The score was stopped at bar 85, but from that point onwards the work was planned in detail on graphic plots which indicated two parallel dimensions: one for the transformations of the sound elements (fast and complex agglomerates) with the other controlling the articulation of the physical acoustic space through the switching of sound agglomerates among instruments. Thus a four-part dialogue began to take shape. The part of the fragment that was not yet in the score has now been transcribed from those plots. The project envisaged the four instruments placed in a cross and the listening area in the center of the acoustic space. Due to the nature of this composition, it has not yet been recorded, making this the world premiere. Three other works by Sciarrino are featured as well: Due Arie marine, Il giardino di Sara, and Altre notti.