Padre Davide da Bergamo: Part I - Musica per la Liturgia

“Bel canto” and operatic reminiscences are present in all the compositions included in this cd. These works, in the wake of the melodic technicality that was typical of the nineteenth century Italian clarinet school, give the virtuoso Giovanni Punzi (First Soloist Clarinet of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Copenaghen) the chance to offer us a broad range of bravura displays. The album is a world premiere by Italian composers that with these “living room” fantasies are protagonists of the fervent musical life that underwent the powerful influence of the Italian melodrama that between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries will hold the absolute primacy of the world music scene. Punzi is accompanied by pianist Amedeo Salvato and Calogero Presti at the small clarinet (for the duet from the Sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini).

Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari was an Italian composer and theoretician. He was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant of Rovereto who at first had destined him for carrying on the family business; but from a very early age he showed a great talent and facility for music. Before he turned twenty he had already learned to play the oboe, the flute, the violin, the viola, and the contrabass. After his father's death in 1784, Ferrari decided to pursue a musician's career, and from that time onwards his life was spent travelling a great deal and staying in the major European courts. He followed the Prince of Lichtenstein to Rome and subsequently to Naples, where he became friends with Giovanni Paisiello. The outbreak of the French Revolution forced him to leave Paris (where he lived since 1787) more and more frequently, until in 1792 he relocated once and for all to London. There, at court, he had the chance to meet some great artistic personalities such as Haydn, Clementi, and Dussek. Ferrari became a deep connoisseur and lover of Mozart's works, so much so that he took on a strictly conservative attitude and refused to adapt to the process of evolution of music that was taking place, by then irreversibly, between the end of the eighteenth century and the first years of the nineteenth. In spite of his admiration for Mozart, Ferrari never gave way to the temptation of becoming an epigone of his, and always preserved a certain degree of stylistic originality. The two collections of sonatas presented in this programme, both probably published within 1795, are among the best examples of this kind.

It was in the mid-eighteen century London that the eclectic figure of Felice Giardini (or Degiardino: Turin, 1716 – Moscow, 1796) made his first appearance. He was a violin virtuoso with eye-catching executive skills, conductor, composer, impresario in contact with leading intellectuals. His musical production is multifaced. He experimented mainly with duet, trio, string quartet. His music is a perfect mixture of Italian and German tradition (Johann Christian Bach, Johann Stamitz and Manheim School that has typical features of the “Style Galant”). Evidence of this can be found in the Six Duos for Two Violins Op. II (1751), dedicated to Prince Heinrich of Prussia. Giardini’s style is spontaneous, easy to listen to, characterized by freshness and lyricism cantabile, joyous naturalness and refinement. Generally, it appears to be an essential musical writing, coming back to the formal clarity and to the contrapuntal simplicity. It develops a great tonal sensibility, supported by a dynamic rhythmic structure: the pure melody, without ornaments, is becoming increasingly important. The notoriety of his music is verified by Charles Burney: “I find all over Italy that Giardini’s solos are in great repute, and very justly so, as I heard nothing equal to them of kind, on the continent” (The Present State of Music in France and Italy, 1771).

It may seem curious, or at least eccentric, to present a cd containing a composer’s transcriptions for four- handed piano of some pieces of his own that are regarded as exemplary and extraordinary particularly for their orchestration – this opinion is undoubtedly deserved by two of Respighi’s three famous tone poems in several movements, but probably also by his suites of Antiche danze e arie, which moreover had been expressly conceived as “specimens” of re-invention and orchestration. The fact is that Respighi’s fame as a composer of symphonies and a magician of the orchestra has perhaps overcast his great talent as a pianist and his indubitable mastery of the instrument, which were so considerable as to make it possible for him to perform, as a soloist, in the premieres of some decidedly complex concert pieces for piano of his, that is the Concerto in modo misolidio (1925) and the Toccata for piano and orchestra (1928).The transcription of the works presented on this album, personally edited with great accuracy by the great Italian symphonist, reveals something more than the classical - and, in those days, we could say 'necessary' - piano reduction of his great symphonic works: Gabriele Baldocci and Francesco Caramiello guide us to the listening of these masterpieces, in which it is possible to see - free of the orchestral mixture and colors - the 'heart' of Ottorino Respighi compositional art.

The splendor and cultural heritage of Humanism contain an intricate network of intuitions and revolutions – that are often local or have developed in geographically or politically well-defined areas – of culture and of its representation in society: an unlimited theatricalisation of reality, in which each gesture, symbol and behavior is transformed into an active component of the greatness and beauty of the Court and of its main actuators. In a picturesque fresco of this rich era - musical heir of the Middle Ages - the Anonima Frottolisti ensemble offers a cross-section of the main aspects that characterized it: power, love, celebration, dance, and faith, through an imaginary journey in the wonder of the Italian courts of the fifteenth century.

Classical Music

This album confirms the genius of Vivaldi in all that he expressed through his writing. Containing a synthesis of Vivaldi’s roughly 50 compositions that, depending on the occasion, the composer named symphonies and concerts. The L’Archicembalo baroque ensemble is the recording ensemble here. The group is made up of masterful historical performance experts, who do a beautiful job of bringing expression into these pieces. Text for this album is provided in Italian and English by Daniela Demicheli.

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 its 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 Partitas and the Sonatas op. 13.The Partitas are formed of ten pieces for violone and eight for violin, in the form of variations introduced by a toccata. It is worthwhile to mention the fact that the sixty pieces of the Artificii, which are based on several counterpoint techniques and arranged in an order of growing complexity, from two to twelve parts, are an extraordinary example of a study of counterpoint that comes before J.S. Bach’s colossal work.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Within this new album the Armonia delle Sfere ensemble is delivering to us the complete Produzioni Armoniche work by Antonia Bembo, a collection of 41 motets dedicated in 1701 to Louis XIV, in whose court she landed after a series of vicissitudes occurred in Venice, her hometown, including the failure of a marriage and important family disputes, for which she was deprived of her paternal inheritance. After being trained under the musical guidance of Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), organist of the ducal chapel of San Marco, Antonia secretly married Lorenzo Bembo, a Venetian nobleman, from whom she had two children, and from whom in 1672 she herself asked divorce, due to the continuing absence of her husband, whom she also accused of continuing abuse and betrayal. She then moved to Paris, perhaps following the guitarist Francesco Corbetta, where she concentrated on music and composition, and where she had the opportunity to perform in the presence of Louis xiv, at the court of which she would find acceptance and protection until the end of her life. It is the fascinating story of a strong personality that sought and found its way overcoming the difficult condition of a seventeenth century woman artist.

The mezzo-soprano Elena De Simone and the Ensemble Il Mosaico are the interpreters of this production that continues the journey of Tactus in the precious rediscovery of various female characters forgotten by history, that played a fundamental role in the cultural and musical panorama of their time. One of these cases concerns the Milanese Maria Teresa Agnesi, a precocious musician and composer - she starts writing music and performing in the academies of her city already at an early age - who dedicated her works to the major political authorities of her world. The “Arie con Istromenti” dated 1749 are in fact dedicated to His Royal Highness Maria Antonia Walpurgis Symphorosa, wife of the heir to the throne of Saxony, educated and enlightened (both she and her husband were part of the Accademia Romana d'Arcadia), that deeply admired the work, thanking Agnesi on a letter with a heartfelt praise for the compositions.