Attractive Classical-era duets for violinand cello in world-premiere recordingsby a young Italian pair of brothers.Despite his French name, LouisMassonneau was a German composer,born in Kassel...

Attractive Classical-era duets for violin
and cello in world-premiere recordings
by a young Italian pair of brothers.
Despite his French name, Louis
Massonneau was a German composer,
born in Kassel in 1766 and dying at the
venerable age of 82 in MecklenburgVorpommern in 1848. His father was
chef to the Landgrave Friedrich II of
Hessen-Kassel, and Louis received his
musical training at the hands of the
court musicians in Kassel, soon
becoming a violinist in the court
orchestra. The Landgrave died when
Massonneau was 19, and the orchestra
disbanded, requiring him to seek his
fortune elsewhere. This he did in a
series of posts, as a concertmaster of
court and theatre orchestras in
Göttingen, Frankfurt, Altona, Dessau,
Hamburg and finally Mecklenburg, where he
settled for good and retired in 1837.
Composing all the while, Massonneau left
behind a fairly substantial catalogue. Almost
completely unknown apart from a trio of
oboe quartets, it includes three symphonies,
twelve symphonies and six violin concertos,
doubtless written with his own talents in
mind. These three Duos Concertante probably
date from Massonneau’s time in Altona, when
he came to know the cellist Martin Calmus.
Required to perform duets for the
entertainment of those attending ‘Musical
Academies’, Massonneau doubtless found a
dearth of such repertoire, and wrote it afresh.
Calmus himself must have been an
accomplished cellist, because both parts
demonstrate a virtuosity and experimental
spirit shared with the better-known music of
their contemporary Boccherini. Each duo is cast
in three movements, skilfully varied in form
from the others, in which lyrical expression is
tempered by a touch of irony. Haydnesque
touches of major-minor ambiguity lend
dramatic tension to the first duo, while a more
balletic spirit and Mozartian melodic charm
brings a quasi-operatic character to the second.
No.3 is the most innovative in its rapid
conversational interplay between violin and
cello and unconventional range of timbre.
Demian and Dylan Baraldi have made this
recording with the cooperation of the Edition
Massonneau, and authoritative booklet notes
from the Edition illuminate the composer’s life
and work.