Elisa Tomellini began her piano studies at age five. She went on to graduate from the Conservatory of Milan. Tomellini has been touted as a real and authentic piano virtuosi, and this album presents her as an artist with a brilliant future. Included on this disc is Rachmaninov's Moments Musicaux op. 16. This is known as one of the most difficult works of Rachmaninov repertoire, but Tomellini performs with fluency and spontaneity that makes the difficulties of the piece seem to disappear. Rounding out the album are works by Piazzolla, which are performed here with exuberance and poeticism. Tomellini transcribed and arranged these pieces herself.

Francesco Spagnoli Rusca (1634-1704) lived and worked in northern Italy. His oeuvre, which includes around 500 compositions, is held in the Archive of Como Cathedral. The works on this album are his instrumental works, recorded for the very first time. Performing these premiere compositions are the soloists of the Milan Baroque Orchestra, conducted by D. Costantini.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714 where he grew up under the severe leadership of his father Johann Sebastian receiving a complete musical forming. In 1738 when he was 24 he introduced himself to the Prussian court arousing the admiration of the Crown Prince. In 1740 Federico II succeeded the throne and the new King wanted Carl Philipp Emanuel at his service. For the following 28 years he accompanied the king, who was a flautist, every evening on the harpsichord. According to the musical historian Charles Burney, Carl Philipp Emanuel was not sufficiently appreciated by the King that in terms of composition seemed to prefer Quantz and Graun. Even Carl Philipp composed for the Prussian King a certain number of solo sonatas, trio sonatas and concerts that increased his already vast repertoire whose manuscripts are nowadays preserved in the Berlin State Library. Many of these compositions are known in their “modern“ version- i.e. performed with a metal flute and with the piano instead of harpsichord - and it in is this version that Francesca Pagnini and Annibale Rebaudengo present these works to the audience, giving particular attention to the expressive and interpretative values the extremely modern Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s musical writing puts in continued evidence.

Every instrument’s repertoire is usually rich in works composed in very idiomatic ways and realized by authors often unknown to the general audience. Especially in the 19th Century it is possible to notice a very rich literature dedicated to the most different musical instruments able to satisfy the needs and requirements of the one who had to perform as a soloist. In the case of oboe the works we present are an example of a production that collects virtuosity and melodic pleasure. They are all by 19th Century Composers from all over the world - Spain ( Escobés ), France ( Saint-Saëns, Stupuy ), The Netherlands ( Barth ) and England (Walmisley )- everyone with their own peculiarities but united in the perfect agreement of the virtuosic and expressive resources of oboe. Enrico Calcagni is a keen scholar of his instrument repertoire both classic and contemporaneous (as you can see in Vermeer 40020: Henry’s Adventure ) and in this release we have a tangible interpretation of instrumental brilliancy and vividness giving us back in their authenticity too long forgotten works.

This release presents 18 arias by Italian authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, all taken from the famous Alessandro Pasotti collection and performed on horn and piano. The Pasotti collection Ancient Arias was published for the first time in 1885 and for a very long time has been the main source for the knowledge of operistical music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These were times where musical philology was just at its beginning. The horn player Nilo Caracristi and the pianist Giancarlo Guarino perform eighteen arias chosen by themself with any changes from the original text published by Pasotti showing to the the audience both their cleverness and the exceptional communicative force of this music. This is an enjoyable release from the first to the last note.

In the first half of the eighteenth century Milan was one of music’s world capitals, and was the center of Italian instrumental music. It can be considered the starting point of a genre that would redefine music all over the world- the sonata. Milanese musicians were long forgotten but nowadays, thanks to musicological investigation and studies, they have been revalued. This new VERMEER release presents a series of Sonatas for flute and continuo all from Milanese composers; beginning from Giuseppe Sammartini who was also an appreciate oboe performer, Carlo Zuccari violinist from Casalmaggiore and who worked for long time in Milan, and Giovanni Andrea Fioroni, Milanese cathedral choirmaster from 1747 to his death. All of them gave a significant contribution to Milanese instrumental music. The four Sammartini Sonatas are very relevant and were likely composed before Sammartini left for London in 1728. They are performed by Mario Carbotta. This VERMEER is a combination of beauty and musical value.

The vihuela is the forerunner of the modern guitar; it had a great fortune in Spain during XVI Century that it is testified by a series of compositions. In this album Paolo Chierici gives us a wonderful anthology of the two composers who are well known in vihuela history- Luys Milán and Luis de Narváez. Milan and De Narváez had two very different styles and personalities as Paolo Clerici himself has written “ Naváez Style is completely different from Milan’s one: in Fantasie the first shows a rigorous composition very close to the coeval polyphonic models of the time, the other composer: Milan also in Fantasie shows a style more extemporaneous and rhapsodic. Narvarez composed and wrote tracks both sacred and secular; which Milan did not do.” Paolo Chierici is a lutist, guitarist and vihuela performer of international fame. He presents these tracks with a technical and philological knowledge both of instrument and compositions. For this Recording Clerici used an instrument made for him in 1995 by Milan lutist Giuseppe Tumiati.

Hornist Luca Delpriori has been involved in the Italian classical music scene since the early 1980’s. Since 2006 he has devoted himself to the deepening of the classical repertoire through the recovery of unpublished material and performing on period instruments, in particular the rediscovery of the rich and often forgotten literature intended for the horn-harp duo that characterized the Napoleonic period. He and harpist Paola Perrucci are heard here in a program of works further reflective of his research.

Ei paesi di lingua tedesca, la musica per flauto solo ha una lunghissima tradizione, che ha il suo capostipite nella celeberrima Partita in La minore BWV 1013 di Johann Sebastian Bach, capolavoro inarrivabile e, in un certo senso, mai pi� eguagliato. All'epoca in cui Bach scriveva la sua Partita in La minore, intorno al 1720, il flauto traversiere (che gli inglesi all'epoca chiamavano anche German Flute) era praticamente all'inizio della sua travolgente carriera, che ne avrebbe fatto, nel volgere di poco tempo, uno degli strumenti pi� popolari al mondo. Era fatto quasi esclusivamente di legno, ed era uno strumento molto diverso da quello odierno, costruito in metallo prezioso (argento o, meglio ancora, oro), Relativamente facile da suonare, il flauto traverso si e arricchito nel tempo di una copiosa letteratura e ha avuto i suoi eccellenti virtuosi che ne hanno incrementato la popolarit� (nel secondo Novecento, per citare solo alcuni dei pi� noti, Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Galway e, in Italia, Severino Gazzelloni) e hanno direttamente o indirettamente sollecitato gli autori a scrivere per loro. La letteratura per flauto e effettivamente sterminata. Il nostro album ci offre una scelta di sei composizioni per flauto solo, scritte da cinque autori diversi, appartenenti in larga maggioranza all'area musicale di lingua tedesca; la sola eccezione e costituita dall'olandese Rudolf Escher, mentre Willy Burkhard era svizzero-tedesco. Gli altri tre, Karg-Elert, Paul Hindemith e Gunter Raphael, erano tedeschi.

Vittorio Fellegara (1927-2011) studied with Luciano Chailly and get graduated at Milan Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory after having followed mathematics and physical University courses. From 1955 to 1956 he attended Darmstadt Ferienkurse für neue Musik; then from 1956 to 1959 he was Roman Philharmonic Academy secretary and after that from 1960 to 2004 of the Italian Society of Contemporary Music; he was also present in the most important Contemporary Music Festival all over the world and member and president of the Jury in International Festivals. His artistic course started in Fifties from a constructive vision aimed to join the hindemitian polyphonism to the dodecaphony the he oriented himself to a more vanguard language considering also civil engagement issues always connected to an artistical dimension. After this Phase he adopted a more intimate lyricism underlying his taste for an elegant and refined wrap. Our new release collects a series of chambers works written by Fellegara from 1980 to 1994 and it is a tribute to this artist died eleven years ago. A valuable collection unreleased tracks showing the creative soul of one of the most important Italian composer of the Twentieth Century.

I solisti di Pavia was founded about twenty years ago and nowadays can be seen as a stable and affirmed ensemble in both the Italian and European music scenes. Along with their leader, Italian cellist Enrico Dindo, the group has become internationally renowned. This ensemble presents a Chamber repertoire which runs from the XVIII Century to present day giving to the audience an interpretation which joins accurate historical performance practice with a fresh and lively musicality. In this album Enrico Dindo and the ensemble Solisti di Pavia present some of the most famous works for cello: from Max Bruch Kol Nidrei (opening the album) to Saint-Sa�ns Le Cygne.