Classical Music

Classical Music

Carlo Ferrari: Sei Sonate per Violoncello e Basso Continuo,

It is safe to say that Giovanni Battista Somis has by now been completely forgotten, this despite the great profoundness of his works, rather highly regarded up to the first years of the 20th c. This edition unearths his second opus, formed of twelve three-part sonatas, each characterized by an initial slow movement followed by two fast ones. These compositions combine the great cantabile quality of the Italian style with a sparkling virtuoso inventiveness. Played and interpreted by violinist Roberto Noferini with the basso continuo realization of Chiara Cattani.

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.

Sisto Reina is one of the many musicians from the Order of the Friars Minor Conventual who have greatly enriched the history of music. The diffusion of his music greatly exceeded the boundaries of the regions in which he was active: works of his are present in the archives of several Italian cities, and in Austria, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and England. The Armonia ecclesiastica, by Sisto Reina, published by Carlo Camagno in Milan in 1653 and dedicated to princess Angelica Luigia Mariana Gonzaga, nun in the convent of S. Paolo in Milan, is exemplary as regards the variety of forms, styles and languages that were typical of Italian seventeenth-century music, particularly in Lombardy. Michelangelo Gabrielli, Renaissance and Baroque repertoire specialist, directs the Concentus Vocum ensemble (from the Como Conservatory of Music) bringing this work to light in a world premiere recording.

The renowned Trio Hegel, violin, viola and cello, in this CD is offering to us an extract of the chamber music prevalent in the salons and the courts from the end of the eighteenth century up to the mid/late nineteenth century. The authors of these compositions - Cherubini and Cambini - were both of Tuscan origin, and both worked in Paris (Cherubini there was even director of the Conservatory from 1821) enjoying great fame. The string trios here are compositions rich in nuances and gallantry (according to the taste of the time), always very well made; they represent a summary of what was the typical Parisian hausmusik, bringing the listener to the enchanting atmospheres of Paris in the late nineteenth century.

Geminiani: Concerti Grossi tratti dalle Op. 3, 1 e 5 di Arca

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Bonaventura Rubino's Missa de Morti (Requiem Mass) is presented here within the liturgical and musical context that is peculiar to this friar from Bergamo. The polyphonic sections for voices and basso continuo alternate with the liturgical monodies of the ancient Roman rite, in keeping with the melodic and textual codification of St. Pius V's Missal and the Medicean Gradual. The recording of this Mass was carried out in several points of the church, in order to give the listener the physical sensation of the various spots where the ceremony was taking place and the music was being performed.

Classical Music

While during most of the 16th c. vocal polyphonic music had steadily focused on a four-part structure, around the 1570s the number of parts underwent a remarkable increase, particularly in sacred music, all over Italy. A typical example is the Concerti by Giovanni Gabrieli, published 1587, and one of the cornerstone works of the second half of the 16th c. The structure of these pieces is not particularly complex. Their appeal consists chiefly in the pursuit of grandeur, the dynamic play of choral masses, the restless rhythm of the chord sequences and the search for a sound rich in harmonics.

These early Baroque songs are an outstanding selection of dance forms, chaconnes, and passacaglia, which all honor the Iberian musical art. The composers featured here, Andrea Falconieri and Filippo Coppola, both served as master of the Royal Music Chapel of Naples during the early 17th century. This fresh interpretation offered by the Cappella Musicale di San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna and the choir of the Accademia dello Spirito Santo in Ferrara shines with their informed historical performance practice.

A lot has been written but little has been told about the Neapolitan Ferdinando Carulli, considered the founder of nineteenth-century technique and didactical teaching of the guitar; his figure as composer (he left us an endless number of compositions), represents an essential reference for the study of the guitar. This album, performed by Sandro Volta and Mauro Bonelli, is focused on one of the least considered aspects, yet very important for the formation of a musician: the music for two guitars in its fundamental meaning: on one hand exquisitely concertistic pieces, on the other hand dedicated to pure didactics - real “Lessons” - for which the compositions for two performers are particularly important. The interpretation of these works by Ferdinando Carulli was developed on the basis of the use of two period guitars with catgut strings from the collection of Lorenzo Frignani, in Modena, and on a “historically informed” performance practice. The result is aesthetically quite different from that obtained with modern instruments: its distinctive qualities are a more audible “noise” when the fingers pluck the strings or run over them, a more marked difference in the timbres of the various ranges, and also a particular lightness of sound.

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”

The absolute rarity represented by this world premiere concerning the historic mandolin is offered to us by the rediscovery and performance of the specialist Davide Rebuffa, that, on two original eighteenth century instruments brings to light the Six Partitas for solo mandolin by Filippo Sauli. Unfortunately we do not have much information about the life of the composer of Florentine origins, but we know that he was hired in Vienna at the Hapsburg court in the early eighteenth century when he probably composed this music that, as compared to the seventeenth-century manuscripts (whose content consists of simple dances, not yet in extended musical forms such as Suites or Sonatas), mark an important change in the nature of the mandolin repertoire of the Baroque period.

Classical Music

Giovanni Battista Gervasio was a significant personality in the musical scene of 'stile galante' of the second half of 18th century; composer, virtuoso and teacher, he studied and improved the four courses mandolin, which was first built in Naples in that period. Thanks to him this instrument became popular and technically refined as it is nowadays. The aim of this recording is to reproduce the tinkling sonorities of these compositions. In order to obtain thoroughly this particular natural sonority, we have decided to "capture" the natural reverberations of the environment without ignoring the sound of each single instrument, so that the phrasing is intelligible. We have played an original mandolin built in 1764 and an harpsichord copy of an Italian harpsichord of 18th century. We have chosen to play continuo only with harpsichord considering that these two instruments have a similar way to produce sound. This is the first complete recording of all the sonatas for mandolin by Giovanni Battista Gervasio and the first absolute world recording.

On this sixth volume of Alessandro Scarlatti's opera omnia for keyboard, once again the star is the eighteenth century Italian Anonymous Ferrarese harpsichord owned by Francesco Tasini. Toccatas, Arpeggi, Introduzioni, and even the famous "Folly of Spain," are contained in this volume featuring the brilliant and rich harmonics of the precious historical instrument. Extremely interesting is the interpretation by Francesco Tasini, that - absolute master of the period performance practice - succeeds in giving us a perfect understanding of the correct approach to the compositions by Alessandro Scarlatti, true founder of the Neapolitan keyboard School. Francesco Tasini studied at the Conservatories of Bologna and Milan, graduating cum laude in Organ and Organ Composition, and Harpsichord and Composition. He is a member of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, and of the Diocesan Commissions of Sacred Music of the Archdiocese of Bologna and of the Diocese of Ferrara.