The experience of Gregor Aichinger (Regensburg, 1564/65 – Augsburg, 20/21 January 1628) in Italy, which took place during two distinct periods, made it possible for the Bavarian musician to be an important connection between the music that was practiced at that time in Italy and the musical culture on the other side of the Alps (Aichinger was one of the very first German musicians to publish compositions with basso continuo, a practice with which he had become acquainted precisely during his visits to Italy). The Virginalia consist of twenty five-part pieces. The introductory one, Virgo, Dei mater pura, is followed by the pieces of the Joyful Mysteries (from the second to the sixth), then – from the seventh to the eleventh – by those of the Sorrowful Mysteries, and subsequently – from the twelfth to the sixteenth – by those of the Glorious Mysteries. In the last four pieces there is a contemplation of the Virgin Mary, by now projected in a light and a dimension that are beyond the world, as the mediator between mankind and God. The collection dedicated to Maria is performed by the Ensemble Concentus Vocum directed by Michelangelo Gabbrielli, already protagonist in some important world premiere recording of the Armonia Ecclesiastica 1653 by Sisto Reina [TC621801].

The duo formed by Valentina Vanini (mezzo-soprano) and Giuseppina Coni (piano) is the protagonist of this recording dedicated to the Florentine composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, including chamber lyrics and piano pieces. All the compositions collected in this double CD saw the light in the early twentieth century, more precisely between 1913 and 1928. A kaleidoscopic panorama of impressions and emotions – from the evocation of the childhood world, to the poetic themes of great breadth up, to the pictorial evocations of the great Italian schools of the past – unravels in the succession of pieces, characterized by a very refined musical style, often not simple but incredibly fascinating and evocative. Not conventionally counted as part of the “Generazione dell’ottanta”, in reality Castelnuovo-Tedesco pursues the same ideals and intentions (because of his studies with Ildebrando Pizzetti), which are fully manifested in these compositions, superbly interpreted by the Vanini-Coni duo.

This world premiere recording by ArsEmble is focused on the rediscovery of the seventeenth-century composer from Rimini, Mario Bianchelli, an amateur instrumentalist (belonging to a noble and wealthy family, and therefore without the need to practice the musical profession for living) formed at the Collegio dei Nobili in the city of Parma, managed by the Jesuit fathers. The young Bianchelli excelled there in the study of the guitar, the lute and the harpsichord.

His activity as a composer was widespread and renowned, and this production is dedicated to the manuscript chamber cantatas preserved in the Gambalunga library in Rimini, one of the richest and most important public libraries in Italy. The concertation of the cantatas is by Roberto Cascio, protagonist of many productions within the Tactus catalog (tc650770, Ippolito Ghezzi; tc520003 La historia del Beato Martino; tc640001, Il Seicento Italiano “alla Spagnuola”; tc660005, Baruffe Amorose del Settecento).

Among the musical genres that were most appreciated and cultivated in Vienna in the early eighteenth century, one that stands out decidedly is the chamber cantata. The Italian cantatas, which were favourite compositions for the cultivated entertainment of the court, were abundantly circulated in manuscript form and collected in a great quantity of books that made chiefly between the eighteen-tens and the eighteen-forties. Now these cantatas are scattered in collections and libraries that have been the object of important musicological studies.

The six cantatas presented in this recording are all drawn from the Mus.Hs.17567 manuscript in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek of Vienna, and were quite probably all composed there around 1710-1712. It is an extremely interesting handwritten-copy collection formed of twelve compositions that are attributed with certainty to Giovanni Bononcini (three), Francesco Conti (three), Antonio Caldara (three), Emanuele d’Astorga (two), and Andrea Stefano Fioré (one). The two symphonies by Caldara (for solo cello) and Giovanni Bononcini are completing the listening of this cd by the Aurata Fonte ensemble, already protagonist of the recording of some great Italian Baroque music discovery (TC670202, TC611990).

According to the composer and conductor Clarence Lucas, writing in 1935, “of the merits of d’Ambrosio... he always maintains his standard of elegance and never becomes commonplace”. By the way d’Ambrosio’s instrumental music was highly appreciated by contemporaries and played by the most acclaimed interpreters of his time, though nowadays seems hélas almost neglected. Alfredo D’Ambrosio (Naples, June 13, 1871-Paris, December 28, 1914) was a Neapolitan violinist and composer studying in Naples Conservatoire with Eusebio Dworzak, Ferdinando Pinto, Enrico Bossi, then in Madrid with Pablo Sarasate and in London with August Wilhelmj. He then set up in Nice where for years he promoted the musical programs of the Club L’Artistique, with his Colleagues Harold Bauer and Jacques Thibaud, or playing in his own Quartet with his cousin Luigi d’Ambrosio (violinist and later teacher of Salvatore Accardo). The Archos Quartet guides us on a chronological path to the discovery of the compositions for quartet and quintet of strings, using the collaboration of two exceptional soloists: Friedrich Thiele on the cello and Mio Tamayama on the double bass.

In the circles of early music lovers, documented information about performance practice is so important as to be obsessively searched for by musicians and musicologists. While iconography sometimes cannot be relied on as evidence because of its symbolic meaning, a piece of information on the aesthetics of a performance, the making of an instrument, the composition of a group of instruments, or the repertoire performed is all the more valuable if it comes from a document, be it official or private, such as a letter. Considering that Isabella d’Este was a passionate lover of music and also a musician herself, it is easy to understand that the massive corpus of letters written and received by her can be an extraordinary mine of this type of information. Here the Anonima Frottolisti ensemble (TC490001, TC250001, TC400007) continues its research in a deep introspection into the meanders of the music of Humanism, focusing on a repertoire drawn from the letters of the Marquise of Mantua Isabella d'Este, whose strong cultural and artistic sensibility deeply marked her time.

Giuseppe Mazzini, the greatest revolutionary of the 19th century in Europe, was very passionate about music, he attended theaters and organized an annual concert to support the Italian School he founded in London. He published a very interesting “Philosophy of music” in Paris in 1836 and, as we know from the letters to his mother written in periods of exile from Italy, he loved to play the guitar.

His three guitars, appearing for the first time together in a single recording, are preserved in his birthplace in Genoa, today Museo del Risorgimento – Istituto Mazziniano, at the Istituto Storico Nazionale Domus Mazziniana in Pisa, where he died, and in the private collection preserved in Milan by Marco Battaglia. The album includes a varied and fascinating repertoire of original music by Niccolò Paganini, Luigi Moretti, Giulio Regondi and Luigi Legnani, a song specifically mentioned in a letter from Mazzini, a theme by Giovanni Pacini varied by Mauro Giuliani, also author of a potpourri that includes parts of works by Gioachino Rossini, and a fantasy on Verdi's Traviata, elaborated by Caspar Joseph Mertz.

Within this album the “Insolito 8cento” duo (Angelo de Magistris, violin and Rosaria Dina Rizzo, piano) is rediscovering a little-known feature of the great Belcanto master Gaetano Donizetti: his chamber works dedicated to the violin, an instrumental production little mentioned and often completely ignored. In fact Donizetti never ceased to deal with the composition of instrumental chamber music, giving life to brilliant works that, same as for his vocal works, testify his extraordinary creative vein in which one can recognize great inspiration, almost like a continuous improvisation, yet always refined and elegant as well as completely devoid of those formal negligence typical of the ‘utility music' or composed for mere exercise or pastime.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678, in a period during which the cello was acquiring popularity in the world of concerts and an important role in musical entertainment. The Red Priest ennobled the soul of the cello. It gave him the inspiration for no less than twenty-seven concertos for solo cello, a concerto for cello and bassoon (rv 409 in E minor), another one for two cellos, string instruments and basso continuo (rv 531 in G minor), a considerable number of works with the indication “violoncello obbligato”, and nine sonatas for cello and basso continuo (in addition to the beginning of a tenth sonata which has been lost). For these works, musicological research has often placed the name of Vivaldi side by side with that of Antonio Vandini, whose six sonatas for cello and basso continuo have been recorded for Tactus by Bologna Baroque in 2018 (TC 692202). For the recording, we used two cellos of the Fondazione Orpheon that belong to Maestro Jose Vasquez: a cello of the Montagnana School (circa 1750) for the solo part and a Simone Cimapane from 1692 (that according to some written evidence had belonged to Arcangelo Corelli’s orchestra) for the basso continuo part.

By being present and available in every corner of the planet the stone stands as a witness to the human and natural history. It appears to be as a sort of “geo cultural Esperanto”, a constant that binds distant, in space and time, worlds and cultural traditions by cutting across with a horizontal, diagonal, and vertical movement. This work of the Sonar Trio is inspired by such universal and supratemporal nature of the stone. Marco Delisi (flute), Roberto D’Urbano (clarinet) and Vanessa Sotgiu (piano) are professionals of undoubted skills who are measuring themselves with pages of contemporary music that traces back to a link betweenWest and East, between ascending musical languages of accultured European tradition, and sound vestiges of ancient, possibly primordial and archetypal, character. With the exception of the first two, all tracks of the Lithos album are dedicated to the Sonar Trio. The suggested path unfolds therefore between very human vibrations and pure sound solicitations, between hidden suggestions originating from a prehuman world, refined punctuations of a contemporary dialogue, in which the material element is always somewhat present. The trio brilliantly manages to achieve the double goal of reconciling the human with the primordial and history with nature. It does also recompose the sensory threads that hold together sounds and colours, visions and listening.

The collection presented in this recording by the voice of the mezzo-soprano Manuela Custer – accompanied by Raffaele Cortesi on the piano and the strings of the Dafne Quartet – offers us a series of valuable composers trying their hand at the genre of vocal chamber music. The common denominator of the compositions presented are the Dante Alighieri rhymes – certainly one of the greatest poets of all time – whose immortal verses inspired generations of artists over the centuries. Starting from the notes by Gioachino Rossini, the album then focuses on the historical period going from the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century, including, alongside famous names (Giacomo Puccini, Amilcare Ponchielli, Arrigo Boito, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco) a series of less known composers to the general public but of extraordinary importance for the understanding of this historical period.

After the album dedicated to chamber music [TC931901] by the composer Luciano Simoni – passed away in 2010 – in this cd Tactus is presenting his Missa Solemnis, a large composition dedicated in 1987 to the Pope Giovanni Paolo ii (premiere in Bologna and later in Poland in Wroclaw), immediately enjoying considerable success. Simoni’s Mass certainly reflects the inner needs of a believing composer who adheres with passion and faith to the depth of the sacred texts, as his own words are explaining to us: «What is represented in my Missa is the descent of God towards man, who is then raised towards Him […], in my work there is the anxiety and fear of contemporary mankind, there is the constant, unceasing human tension towards salvation, where only Christian hope can be a safe haven.».

Giuseppe Torelli, born in Verona in 1658, is deservedly included among the composers who contributed to the renown and success of the Bolognese School, which was undoubtedly one of the keystones of Italian Baroque music, together with the Venetian, Roman and Neapolitan Schools. Torelli’s production that has been handed down to us includes almost 200 works, most of them chamber-music instrumental compositions and orchestral pieces with solo performers. Eight of these works are in print, practically all of them published in Bologna from 1686 onwards. The 12 concerti grossi con una Pastorale per il Santissimo Natale, posthumous op. 8 dated 1709, published by Felice Torelli, brother of the composer and celebrated painter, are undoubtedly his most inspired work, and not only for their extremely high musical quality. The collection is divided into two parts: six pieces are actual Concerti Grossi, while the other six are Concerti for violin and orchestra. The solo violinists Jérémie Chigioni and Roberto Noferini (already interpreter of the world’s first recording of Paganini’s Capricci on historical violin, v. Tactus TC781690) are at the head of the Ensemble Locatelli from Bergamo, concerted and directed by Chiara Cattani.

Diogenio Bigaglia, a composer who at present is unknown to most people, was active in Venice in the first half of the eighteenth century, so he was a contemporary of the much better known Tomaso Albinoni, Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello, and, above all, Antonio Vivaldi, whose work shows several evident – and more or less explicit – references to Bigaglia’s production. So he turns out to be a composer who is worthy of interest not only for the intrinsic musical worth of his works, but also for the influence his activity may have had on musicians with whom we are more familiar; this is why musicologists have recently started showing an increasing interest in him. This recording presents the complete "12 Sonate a Violino Solo o Sia Flauto e Violoncello o Basso Continuo Opera prima del Signor Bigaglia Padre Benedettino", as this work is called in the title page of the edition published in Amsterdam by Michel Charles Le Cène around 1722 . Davide Belosio solo violin interprets this world premiere recording accompanied by I Solisti Ambrosiani, already protagonists of a previous release dedicated to the rediscovery of the Venetian composer (v. Diogenio Bigaglia, Cantate per soprano e continuo, Tactus, TC670203).

Among the entertainments with which the Bavarian nobles of the 18th century occupied their monotonous and idle daily life, in addition to gambling, tobacco smoking and reading, the mandora and calichon are often mentioned. The latter were lutes, with only 6- (or even 5-) courses of strings, which – being much less demanding than the contemporary German 13-course lute – became among the favourite instruments of the German, Austrian and Bohemian aristocracy, including women, who were generally excluded from professional instrumental music.

The larger 8-course calichon, due to its versatility was widely used as a continuo-playing instrument in chamber ensembles and orchestras, especially in monasteries and among the clergy. It is precisely an original gallichone of 1754 the instrument used by the specialist Davide Rebuffa for the performance of the pieces attributed to Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello, probably composed in Stuttgart after 1737 for a member of the family of the Dukes of Württemberg, at the service of which he spent much of his existence.