Classical Music

Italian composer Luigi Gazzotti from Modena studied at the Bologna Conservatory where he received honors in composition. The works featured here are his chamber arias, which were largely inspired by poetry, specifically that of Leopardi. Christina Barbieri is the featured vocalist on this recording. Winner of the Luciano Pavarotti prize, she breathes life into these beautiful texts. Alongside Barbieri is pianist Luca Saltini. Saltini has won first prize at the “Czerny” prize in Turin and “Viotti” of Vercelli, and has translated the texts to be included with the album.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Francesco Molino rightfully belongs to the generation of musicians that, in the wave of the general renaissance in the age of the European revolutions between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, elevated the guitar to the status of concert instrument. After a military career and various experiences as violinist and oboist, he arrived in Paris in 1818 and finally reached the role of guitar music composer and teacher: the rise of his fame is also testified by the famous dispute between his supporters against those of Ferdinando Carulli, as reported on a famous illustration of the time. This new album is mainly focused on Francesco Molino chamber music llegacy that the performers Luciano and Mauro Tortorelli manage to capture and deliver to us through the refined simplicity, delicacy and transparency that characterized and distinguished the composer's work from that of his contemporaries.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, when a successful new opera appeared on the scene, the publishing system promoted initiatives that aimed at maximizing its diffusion and creating widespread channels for the exploitation of its popularity. This was helped on by the production of paraphrases, duets and melodies; all these pieces were near-faithful transcriptions of their models, but were enlarged and personalized through the keyboard of a piano or, as in this case, the strings of a harp or the “keys” of a flute. We undoubtedly should add to all this that a typically bourgeois taste led proficient “amateurs” to take pleasure in delightfully playing all sorts of musical instruments and performing, among other things, an original repertoire that was not bound to opera music but influenced by it. Claudio Ortensi’s flute and Anna Pasetti’s harp take this world back to us through this premiere recording of the works by Michelangelo Sola, Giovanni Toja, Angelo Bovio and Giuseppe Gariboldi, active protagonists of the European and Italian compositional streams converging chamber music with the political and cultural trends that crossed the Classicism and the Romanticism.

The sensible and sophisticated pianist Rossella Spinosa faces the arduous task of performing the music of Giacinto Scelsi, a very special composer that grew within the Parisian scene influenced by Debussy, the generation of the Eighties, the Dodecafonia of the German school, and the esotericism of Skriabin, reaching (after traveling to the east in India and Tibet) his very personal idea of global spherical sound. So Scelsi became the interpreter of a new concept of sound that transcends the formal architecture almost renouncing to making music, becoming a link between the earthly world and cosmic forces. The result is music demanding great sensitivity and particular mood by both the performer and the listener, to whom is requested a total and religious immersion in the sound and vibrations of the world of Giacinto Scelsi. Rossella Spinosa holds degrees in piano, harpsichord, composition, and law. She also graduated with highest marks in Musicology. She is a winner of numerous national and international piano competitions, and has performed in the most prestigious halls in Italy and abroad.

Giovanni Battista Fasolo most probably composed its Annuale simultaneously to the famous "Fiori Musicali" by Girolamo Frescobaldi; the Annual, however, was delivered to printing only ten years later, in 1645, possibly for editorial reasons because it was the same Venetian printer - Alessandro Vincenti - specialized in keyboard music, to publish both collections. The goal pursued by Fasolo with his Annuale was to provide "tutto quello, che deve far un Organista, per risponder al Choro tutto l'Anno" (everything that an organist has to do, responding to the Choir throughout the year). More than an artistic stand-alone product, the collection was an example of the repertoire suitable to the liturgical service of the time: a compilation of models and forms, styles and modes of composition tha thad to be learned for finally being reused in the daily practice. Unlike Frescobaldi, Fasolo does not provide any toccata intro: a genre completely absent in teh Annuale. On this album organist Luca Scandali is performing three complete masses at the historic Luca di Bernardino da Cortona organ accompanied in alternatim by the ensemble Bella Gerit.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is the fifth volume of Alessandro Scarlatti's complete works for keybaord series. Francesco Tasini plays the 1836 organ, located in the basilica of S. Maria di Campagna. This unique organ is perfectly suited to the Toccatas, Sonatas and Follias from the great master from Palermo.

This album is entirely dedicated to harp and introduces us to two composers active in the Historical Italian twentieth centruy period - Alfredo Casella. Casella's shy nature led him to compose more for himself than for the public or for the fame. The passionate interpretation by Alessandra Ziveri approaches with great momentum this double challenge: the premiere recording of unknown works and the Casella sonata an absolute harp music milestone.

The musical content of this album presents a cross-section of the typical aesthetic features and diversified representative expressions that were most appreciated by the public during the late Renaissance and early Baroque. The style of In Tabernae Musica's performance stems chiefly from the study of the iconographic sources, from which there emerges an artistic production that is targeted not exclusively at the educated class, but also, at the people.

The city of Modena, under the rule of the Este family, was the capital of the Dukedom of Modena e Reggio. Thanks to Duke Francesco ii's fondness for the violin, music became an essential element in the most important events at the Este court, such as receptions, weddings and official visits of foreign sovereigns. These were the occasions in which the Duke displayed all his magnificence. Modena stands out for the abundance of it's collection of musical documents in the Biblioteca Estense: the library is a real mine, largely unexplored so far. This consideration gave rise to the idea of making this beautiful, extraordinarily modern music available to those who are "pursuing" culture and art. So our goal is to promote a rediscovery of the enormous heritage preserved in the Biblioteca Estense, by carrying out a meticulous study of the sources of the works of the composers who were active at the Este Court in Modena, transcribing them into modern notation and critical editions, and producing monographic recordings of them. The first step consisted in the study and recording of the instrumental works of Giovanni Battista Vitali. In this third of 6 albums dedicated to his music preserved at the Estense Library of Modena, the baroque group Italico Splendore performs the Sonatas op. 5. The title of each of the sonatas is the surname of a well-known aristocratic family of the area of Modena: this was Vitali's explicit homage to the circles in which he was working. Each sonata is different in it's affect and style: the musical material is complex and diversified, almost as if it were actually personalized: this seems to suggest that there is a deliberate correspondence between the individual pieces and the people to whom they were dedicated.

The internationally acclaimed young composer Carlo Forlivesi moves in a geographical and temporal space led by electronic, orchestral, chamber music and ethnic instruments, digging the past of the ancient Latin hymns, Bach and Haydn, and exploring a traditional culture completely different and far from ours. Forlivesi was born in Faenza, Emilia-Romagna. He studied at Bologna Conservatory, Milan Conservatory and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome. He then joined IRCAM (Institute de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) and subsequently DIEM (Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music), Tokyo College of Music, and Northwestern University, with fellowships from the governments of Italy, Denmark, Japan, and the United States (Fulbright Commission). His activity has mainly focused on new music in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Forlivesi has conducted extensive research in the field of traditional Japanese music and dance including the ethnic music of the Ainu. Beside contemporary music, he cultivates a particular interest in early music, which he studied and performed for several years.