Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The German patrician von Uffenbach, during a visit to Venice for the carnival of 1715, at long last managed to meet with Vivaldi and order from him “10 concerti grossi”. Three days later, the composer reappeared with all of the requested music, assuring his patron that it had been expressly composed for him. Vivaldi was unquestionably a very quick composer, but he was also a barefaced and extremely capable promoter of his own talents. The collection of twelve concertos for strings, now preserved in Paris, also has all the earmarks of having been a rapidly and cleverly assembled series of previously composed works, with very little new music added. This same modus operandi would mark the genesis of op. 10 and many other collections by Vivaldi. But Vivaldi is an excellent composer, and like a great actor, he succeeds in taking on the appearance of a character by merely donning a hat or imitating a gesture. Thus he manages to outline with a few brushstrokes all of the force of a French entree in the opening of Concerto n. 5, or to fall suddenly into the most moving melancholy when his unusual Ciaccona modulates into the minor key. Even the last movement of Concerto n. 2, despite appearances, is a rare example of a menuet en rondeau camouflaged as an Italian allegro. The beginning of Concerto n. 1, although belonging to the older works, must have been chosen by Vivaldi to open the collection because it resembles a chaconne in binary meter. These, then, are the distinctive elements, obvious and yet quite effective, which render the idea of a well recognizable taste or style—the same style which informed the “Domine Fili” from the Gloria RV 589, the aria “Tornar voglio” from Arsilda, and the final chorus of Il Giustino. Federico Maria Sardelli conducts the famous baroque ensemble Modo Antiquo, in this amazing historical recording.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The music on this album comes from a unique and extraordinary period of our history, between the 13th and 14th centuries, which saw the rise of Comuni and Signorie in central-northern Italy: in the years of truce after the end of struggles between the Empire and the Papacy, Italian national sentiment flared up in great spiritual, artistic, political and social fervor. In this fertile environment, a new musical art flourished, the Ars Nova. In contrast to the liturgical polyphony of the Ars Antiqua (12th-13th centuries), which from the first experiments with organa culminated in the highly refined practice of the School of Notre Dame, the term Ars Nova designates the development of secular polyphonic music from the 13th century in France and since the 14th century in Italy. The idea of dedicating an album to the theme of love in Italian music of the 14th century might seem a bit overused, given how rich and varied is the discography in this regard. But the reflection on love undeniably continues to be central in our lives, just as it was for the men and women of seven hundred years ago, whose voices in "Ch'amor mi prese" we interpret and we infuse with new life ad meaning. There are elements of human nature whose essence does not change over the centuries. The feeling of love is one of these: it is expressed through new forms and different codes, but it's most intimate essence is not affected by the passage of time. It does not matter whether the object of love, or it's ispiration, is human or divine: it produces in those who feel it that inexplicable and overwhelming bewilderment that poets, writers, composers, philosophers and mystics in every time and place have felt to express in words or music.

Italian composers and instrumentalists born in the second half of nineteenth-century Italy can be seen as the children of a true cultural revolution of the Risorgimento. This revolution was induced by the need to create a new national musical identity, disengaged from the iconic and dominant role of opera. In fact, for much of the nineteenth century, the operatic tradition had overshadowed the instrumental one, which began to regain particular momentum and diffusion only after 1860. Unified Italy was now compared to the great European powers and needed to be more cultured, progressive, and sophisticated. Instrumental music (symphonic and chamber), had always been associated with literature, philosophy, and the more intellectual world, and was perfectly suited to embody a new musical identity of the country that could match and compete with the great German model. It is the case of the three composers here represented (Sinigaglia, Fano, Massarani), who fully embraced the legacy of their predecessors but, like them, paid the price of living in a transitional historical moment. Like in a limbo between the "old" and the "new," between Romanticism - at the time entirely exhausted in the rest of Europe - and the first glimmers of a new musical language that would soon move towards deconstruction with the avant-gardes of the 20th century. Yet, the outcome of their work is worthy of historical and performance interest, and shows the necessity of rediscovering a significant portion of Italian music history. Certainly, their shared Jewish background and the consequent censorship of the racial laws from the early 1930s may have contributed to some extent to the oblivion that befell these names. Riccardo Pes and Pierluigi Piran focus this recording on the interesting works for cello and piano by the three authors.

Petrali: Complete Organ Works