Classical Music

Classical Music

The fame enjoyed by Virgilio Ranzato, composer, concert performer and appreciated conductor, declined inexorably at the end of the Second World War when only two yet very famous operettas remained in his performed repertoire: "Cin-ci -là", and "Il paese dei campanelli." In fact Ranzato was a prolific and multifaceted musician. He composed symphonic poems, chamber and orchestra music, danceable songs, soundtracks, one opera and twenty operettas, making him one of the most central characters in the musical panorama of the early twentieth century. Paolo Mora and Milo Martani on this album address the vast repertoire the composer dedicated to the duo par excellence of chamber music: the works for violin and piano, delivering an interesting crosssection of the most interesting themes of the musical literature of the time: serenades, prayers, dances, exotic atmospheres, intimate or carefree moments flourishing thanks to the writing of Ranzato, skilfully moving between instrumental virtuosity and the pathos of the crepuscular aura of the beginning of the new century.

The composer and violinist Biagio Marini (1594-1663), from Brescia, is generally acknowledged as one of the most extraordinary personalities of the early seventeenth-century instrumental music tradition. He was an exemplary representative of the baroque-age wandering musician, and was hired by a great number of prestigious musical institutions, not only in Italy but also beyond the Alps. We should mention first of all the periods he spent in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, and those in the employment of Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg. He was also active, for shorter periods, not only in his native Brescia, but also in Parma, Milan, Brussels, Bergamo, Padua, Ferrara, and Vicenza. Today Marini is remembered essentially for his contribution to the development of the seventeenth-century instrumental repertoire. To put it briefly, he is appreciated because of two main achievements: that of having taken part in the early definition of the trio-sonata genre, and that of having decisively contributed to the development of the violin technique. The work on this release, discovered by the collaboration of Musicali Affetti from Vicenza with some researchers from the University of Strasbourg, finally can be performed by the Musicali Affetti ensemble directed by Fabio Missaggia and the RossoPorpora vocal ensemble directed by Walter Testolin.

Classical Music

If tasked to rank the world most famous composers, Giuseppe Verdi would definitely be on the honorees’ dais. This CD includes the chamber works for voice and piano - Romanze da camera – used by the composer in the 1840s to open his way into Milanese high society following his arrival from his native Busseto, still unknown and eager for appreciation and recognition. For this world premiere recording utilizing historical piano, the voices of mezzo Daniela Nuzzoli and tenor Raul Hernandez, accompanied by pianist Marcello Rossi, reveal the early output of the future great opera composer.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Mauro Giuliani was the musician who most indelibly marked the history of the guitar. After his first years in Bisceglie, Barletta and Trieste (a period about which we do not have much information), in 1806 he moved to Vienna, instantly and fully integrating in the prestigious musical circles of the city. He was an esteemed friend, among others, of Beethoven, Haydn and almost certainly Schubert, and a partner in the concert performances of virtuosos such as Hummel, Moscheles and Mayseder. He was the first to create a repertoire that not only was quite considerable for its quality and quantity, but also, unprecedentedly, became a settled part of the concert practice of contemporary musicians and was transmitted to posterity, down to our time. The programme presented in this release by Davide Ficco and Rossana Bertini, great artists, and sensitive to the historically acknowledged performing style, deals with two musical genres to which Giuliani devoted his greatest efforts: vocal chamber music, and, to a greater degree, the solo guitar repertoire.

The Oktoechos ensemble, a sophisticated female vocal ensemble led by the specialist Lanfranco Menga, in this release presents a program entirely dedicated to the union of music and politics in the Venice of the early fifteenth century, time of its greatest economic growth and territorial expansion. The naval power of the “Serenissima” and the consequent commercial vitality of the Republic inevitable created the preconditions for a parallel artistic growth, witnessed by the contributions of the greatest artists of the time alternating within the Palatine Basilica of St. Mark at the service of the Dogi and the bishops, composing a great deal of celebratory music that exalted their power and that of the city itself: the city “where the merchants were kings, where Saint Mark was, where the Dogi were used to marry the sea with a ring”

Classical Music

Giovanni Battista Sammartini, main exponent of the eighteenth century Milanese instrumental school, was not only a reference for local musicians, but also enjoyed international fame; he was “the most European character of the Milanese scene of the time” (G. Pestelli, 1982). A prominent figure in a complex era, witness and advocate of those stylistic and formal metamorphoses that marked the gradual transition from the late Baroque, heavily influenced by the violinistic school, to the mature gallant style anticipating the classicism by reaching an idiomatic accomplishment. The award-winning harpsichordist Susanna Piolanti performs this unpublished collection of sonatas mostly edited in London during the eighteenth century, in which the search for and the consolidation of a new language never ends: “I will, I will, but my harpsichord will kill me”, senior Sammartini answers to his customers’ requests. After all, the work of a composer always starts from the keyboard.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music