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.

The selection of cantatas presented here is performed by the voice of soprano Tullia Pedersoli that skillfully interprets the musical ‘affetti’ proposed by the simple and elegant style of the composer, who in some points even seems to have provided some cues to Johann Sebastian Bach that, as known, deeply studied Italian and Venetian. All the cantate are about love, and frequently resort to the literary topoi that are typical of this genre.

A precious sound document by the late maestro Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini – also in some Tactus' historic early recordings (see TB460090) – in a live recording on the Giuseppe Serassi 1764 organ of the Cathedral of Guastalla, on 2 October 2011. The event took place as part of the "Musica intorno al fiume" organ festival, set up by the cultural association "Giuseppe Serassi" from Guastalla (RE). For the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy (1861-2011) Tagliavini elaborated a very interesting program aimed at celebrating the anniversary: from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento, crossing the main Italian music schools and their influences in Europe, the collection depicts a passionate and emblematic fresco of the evolution of the Italian organ school.

The CDs contained in this box set were conceived and produced as part of the project "Il mandolino a Napoli nel Settecento”, coordinated by the University of Bologna in collaboration with the University of Uppsala and the Neapolitan Mandolin Academy (www.mandolinonapoli700.com). The objective of the project was the recording on period instruments of the 19 compositions for mandolin by Neapolitan composers of the eighteenth century, whose manuscripts are collected in the Gimo collection and preserved in the "Carolina Rediviva" Library of the University of Uppsala. The two CDs include the works by Giovanni Battista Gervasio (CD1), and Emanuele Barbella, Gioacchino Còcchi and an anonymous (CD2). The production aims to offer the listener a new interpretation of this repertoire based on an interpretative concept sensitive to the quality of sound, phrasing and aesthetic and compositional concepts of the time, contributing to a more extensive rediscovery of the Neapolitan and southern Italian instrumental repertoire of the eighteenth century. This CD box was born thanks to the fruitful collaboration between the University of Bologna and the Museum of San Colombano – Tagliavini Collection, that hosted most of the recordings and made available the precious instruments of its collection.

Throughout the 19th century, the chamber song was one of the most common ways of writing, making and experiencing music. It involved a multitude of poets, composers and singers, some of them professionals (theatre composers, quality musicians, opera stars), others amateurs. This repertoire has been studied especially with regards the work of the great opera composers – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi – or the later output of the specialist Francesco Paolo Tosti, but in reality it is a very widespread phenomenon that gave rise to some worthy compositions, even though to appreciate them one should not forget that the context of their use, the nature of their performers and the very aesthetics of drawing room music called for values different from those of the theatre: spontaneity, ease, immediacy (values that also the “great opera composers” adhered to when writing for the drawing room).

Drawing on unpublished manuscripts owned by the Liszt Institute of Bologna, the soprano Barbara Vignudelli and the pianist Stefano Malferrari offer us a superb performance of this collection which presents an exemplary sample of the variety of styles and formal solutions used by composers completely outside the ranks of famous names, and yet able to compose short pieces that hold some pleasant surprises for the listener.

After the success of the "Missa novem vocum" (Tactus, TC951202, January 2022), with this new production by composer Carlo Alessandro Landini we return to the profane genre with the Sonata no. 7 for piano. Emblematic for the understanding of the artist Landini and his music, the album consists of a single track only of over 56 minutes. In his Piano Sonatas, Landini is clearly in opposition to the present-day trend of a fragmented world, of a schizophrenic speed, of zapping now transformed into scrolling (the by-now daily vertical unrolling of a social network). These Sonatas, three or four decades ago, were described as record-beating compositions because of their duration, which was much longer than average. The Sonata no. 7, composed in 2017-2018, treads in the footsteps of the previous ones with its recherche d’un temps perdu: not a bygone time that is longed for in a nostalgic way, but rather an expanded time that allows us to forget the time of clocks (or, in fact, of smartphones) and to retrieve the vital breathing space that our everyday life denies us. At the piano we have the great Massimiliano Damerini, among the most blazoned performers of nineteenth-century and contemporary music.

Born in France with Mozart’s double Concerto kv 299 and explored (albeit with a certain discontinuity) by composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the flute and harp duo was very popular with composers of the twentieth century, all over the world and in every possible style: the choice of the repertoire for this recording, however, privileged compositions inspired by the neoclassical taste, showing how it could be defined in many personal and different ways.

This production includes an anthology of unpublished works for flute and harp; apart from the famous sonata by Nino Rota, all other compositions are world premiere recordings. The consolidated duo formed by Claudio Ortensi and Anna Pasetti is already distinguished for recordings aimed at the rediscovery of music written specifically for their instruments in the Classical style (Luigi Gianella – Trois Duos Concertants op. 2, TC770702, Tactus, 2014) and in the Romantic age (Music for flute and harp of the Italian nineteenth century TC800005, Tactus, 2017).

In Raffaele Calace’s considerable musical production – approximately 200 opus numbers – 9 pieces are for solo guitar, obviously not including his single composition for Hawaiian guitar, Piccolo fiore op. 168. This statistical datum takes on a greater importance if we consider that Calace’s other solo pieces were all for the two main instruments to which he devoted his existence, the mandolin and the cantabile lute: for these instruments he composed respectively 30 and 26 works, in addition to his handbooks, which are a fundamental point of reference for the modern teaching of these instruments. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to consider this production unworthy of interest: it shows us the taste and charm of a period, and offers us compositions that are refined and far from commonplace.

These pieces convey the emotions and intimacy of the romanticism that could be felt in drawing-room music, during the so-called “periodiche”, the musical gatherings in the Neapolitan middle-class homes. The young guitarist Roberto Guarnieri plays Calace's music on a precious 1936 "Mozzani” guitar part of the collection of the Modenese luthier Lorenzo Frignani.

This album is dedicated to Tomaso Pegolotti, a character who held the double role of notary public and musician in the land of the Estense dukedom between Modena and Reggio Emilia. In fact, his father Livio initiated him into both the study of music and law, and thanks to his commitment and his talent, Tomaso had a brilliant career in both professions. The collection of the "Trattenimenti armonici da camera [...] opera prima", dedicated to Prince Foresto d'Este in 1698, includes his entire instrumental production, as the planned second work was finally never terminated due to Pegolotti's involvement in some unexpected political clash also connected to one of his judicial publications.

The collection consists of twelve sonatas from which can be deduced that the author possessed considerable technical skills on the violin. The Opera Quinta ensemble led by Fabrizio Longo (former protagonist of other important productions by Tactus: tc.630201, tc.670290 and tc.621602) is a solid reference in the musical practice of early and Baroque music.

The German musician Christian Zimmermann, on two historical copies of Renaissance instruments, is delivering to us this interesting anthology dedicated to the lute works by the Galilei family: Vincenzo and Michelangelo, respectively father and brother of the famous Galileo. Vincenzo, also harpsichordist, gamba violist and theorist, introduced both his sons to the art of music and, although we have news that Galileo himself was an excellent lutist, no traces of his compositions remains, while his father and brother were authors of various collections printed from 1563 to 1620. Michelangelo even became lutist at the court of Maximilian i, elector and duke of Munich.

The music proposed by Zimmermann consists of a varied overview of the musical forms dedicated to the lute in the Renaissance era: fantasias, ricercars, galiardes, counterpoints, currents, saltarelli, toccatas, in addition to the inevitable “aria di ruggiero", the famous instrumental bass coming from the lyrics of the Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.

Although now Rossini is remembered for his operatic production, his career had begun as a composer of chamber music. In 1804 the 12-year-old Gioachino was invited to spend the summer in the villa of his friend Agostino Triossi in Conventello. This rich landowner, who was an amateur double-bass player, was in the habit of organising concerts and musical gatherings: Rossini composed many instrumental pieces for him. The "Sei sonate a quattro for two violins, cello and double-bass" were composed for one of these occasions.

As Rossini himself related, “They are six horrible sonatas, composed by me during a holiday near Ravenna, in the house of my friend and patron Agostino Triossi, at a more than childish age, when I had not even had a single accompaniment lesson, and the whole thing was composed and copied in three days and performed dreadfully by Triossi, double-bass, Morini (his cousin) first violin, his brother, cello, and the second violin was me, who, to own the truth, was the least dreadful.”

We must not be misled by such a negative opinion. These sonatas, though elementary from a formal point of view, are genuine and quite inspired: the contrast between the brilliant passages and the lyrical/sentimental ones already reveals what a skillful opera composer Rossini was to become.

Since 2010 the Associazione La Cantoria has dedicated its energies to the rediscovery of unpublished musical compositions from Rome, transcribing, studying and performing these both live and recording them under the Tactus record label. This cd is dedicated to the musician, composer and organist Francesco Giovannini who was chapelmeister at the Church of Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli in the 18th century, and whose works are conserved in the archives of the Order of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God in Rome. The best way to understand and appreciate a liturgical musical composition is to savor it the very same context where it was born and for which it was conceived. This is what this cd intends to do.Composer: to allow us to live the sonorous experience of an ancient mass of the Roman rite. These late-Baroque compositions by Francesco Giovannini shine like precious gems set in an antique piece of jewelry made of Gregorian chant, readings, and orations where the organ is heard almost fleetingly in those moments when the sound of the voice and other instruments is superfluous or even prohibited.

A repertoire of absolute rarity is presented in this release, given the peculiarity represented by the instrumentation (horn and piano) that in the history of music cannot boast large quantities of original compositions. The program presented here by Nilo Caracristi and Giancarlo Guarino covers various centuries and changing styles: the music, the performers and the listeners are involved in a constant transformation that is proposed, experienced and perceived on several levels.

This musical journey begins with Gustavo Rossari’s Fantasia on motifs by Verdi, passes through the Italian twentieth century with the brilliant Sonata by Giorgio Ferrari, proceeds with Aleksandr Scriabin’s wonderful, romantic Romanza, an early work of his, plunges into the contemporary age with the nostalgia and rhythmic vigor of Fabián Pérez Tedesco’s Fantasia and with the soft swing of Donato Semeraro’s Ballad and Salsa, and ends with the thrilling main theme of the soundtrack of The Godfather 2, by Nino Rota, presented in a further, final metamorphosis that this time directly involves the musicians, surprising the listeners with an unexpected effect.

This discographic work completes the previous Tactus album (TC871380) dedicated to the complete organ works by Ulysses Matthey, famous concert artist and teacher of the Italian historical twentieth century. After the original works, the organist Fausto Caporali - on period instruments - in this double album tackles the complete transcriptions for organ by Matthey. The album is including pages of virtuosity and meditation, from the famous Chaconne in D minor by Bach for solo violin (a fascinating 'lighthouse' for many composers) to the symphonic pages of Liszt, Berlioz, Debussy, Grieg and Wagner, passing through Geminiani and Paganini.

Matthey's compositional refinement finds fertile ground in the organ adaptation of sublime pages of musical history, thanks to his experience as instrument tester and over two thousand concerts held throughout Europe during his incredible career.

Within this collection the tenor Domenico Menini is delivering to us some of the most famous opera and chamber arias of the vocal repertoire, from Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti to Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco Paolo Tosti, Giacomo Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo. An anthology of melodies that since their creation in the great melodrama and cultural salons of the nineteenth century have become widely popular, and still today are an integral part of the musical culture of every social class. The “G. Rossini” symphonic orchestra accompanying the tenor is conducted by maestro Daniele Agiman.

The organist Andrea Toschi with this work continues the musical research he started with his two previous record productions. The repertoire features composers that in the period of the early twentieth century adhered to the new impulse given by the Cecilian Movement strongly reacting to the domination of the theatrical style that during the nineteenth century ‘contaminated' the liturgical music. (Tactus)