Fontana: Complete Sonatas for Violin & Basso Continuo
Brilliant Classics

Fontana: Complete Sonatas for Violin & Basso Continuo

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Details

Composer
Giovanni Battista Fontana
Artist
Neyza Copa
Format
CD
Discs
2
Label
Brilliant Classics
Released
May 26, 2023
Catalog #
BRI96541
UPC
5028421965413

About

The only available complete recording of a hugely influential set of Baroque trio sonatas by a northern-Italian pioneer of the genre. Unrivalled in its breadth, renowned for reviving countless names of the past in authoritative new recordings, the Baroque-music catalogue of Brilliant Classics welcomes a significant new name to its long list of forgotten composers: Giovanni Battista Fontana (1589–1630). Born in Brescia, dying in nearby Padova, Fontana is known for a single major publication, a collection of 18 Sonate a 1, 2, 3 per il violino o cornetto, fagotto, chitarone, violoncino o simile altro instromento, published posthumously in Venice in 1641. The Italian early-music Lux Terrae ensemble presents a new recording of the complete set, demonstrating its foundational significance within the rich history of the Italian trio sonata as a genre. As in the chiaroscuro technique in painting, that defines images through the play of of light and shade, Fontana uses a musical chiaroscuro that lends theatricality and dynamism to these sonatas through a dialectic of contrasts and resolutions between contrasting idioms. All 18 sonatas follow a single-movement form, divded into contrasting sections. Their melodic material breathes the cantabile air of the 17th-century canzona or the dance and sometimes recurs, invariably elaborated, to form a simple arch design. Sonatas Nos. 2 and 6, on the other hand, comprise sections that grow out of recitative-like monody interspersed with freer instrumental flourishes, but subdivisions in dance-like triple metre are rarely absent for long. Lux Terrae is led from the violin by the Italian-trained Bolivian violinist Neyza Copa, who also introduces these Baroque rarities in a booklet essay. For her, Fontana’s sonatas shine as ‘a real jewel of the early Baroque, both in terms of the stylistic evolution of instrumental composition, and the development of an idiomatic language for the violin… Fontana is probably the most important composer of early Baroque violin music.’

Tracklist 18 tracks

  1. 1 Sonata No. 1 04:48
    Track
    1
    Title
    Sonata No. 1
    Duration
    04:48
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  2. 2 Sonata No. 2 07:14
    Track
    2
    Title
    Sonata No. 2
    Duration
    07:14
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  3. 3 Sonata No. 3 05:19
    Track
    3
    Title
    Sonata No. 3
    Duration
    05:19
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  4. 4 Sonata No. 4 05:49
    Track
    4
    Title
    Sonata No. 4
    Duration
    05:49
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  5. 5 Sonata No. 5 06:03
    Track
    5
    Title
    Sonata No. 5
    Duration
    06:03
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  6. 6 Sonata No. 6 06:45
    Track
    6
    Title
    Sonata No. 6
    Duration
    06:45
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  7. 7 Sonata No. 10 07:12
    Track
    7
    Title
    Sonata No. 10
    Duration
    07:12
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  8. 8 Sonata No. 9 06:31
    Track
    8
    Title
    Sonata No. 9
    Duration
    06:31
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  9. 9 Sonata No. 12 06:21
    Track
    9
    Title
    Sonata No. 12
    Duration
    06:21
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  10. 10 Sonata No. 8 06:55
    Track
    10
    Title
    Sonata No. 8
    Duration
    06:55
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  11. 11 Sonata No. 13 06:02
    Track
    11
    Title
    Sonata No. 13
    Duration
    06:02
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  12. 12 Sonata No. 14 07:06
    Track
    12
    Title
    Sonata No. 14
    Duration
    07:06
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  13. 13 Sonata No. 11 08:25
    Track
    13
    Title
    Sonata No. 11
    Duration
    08:25
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  14. 14 Sonata No. 16 05:37
    Track
    14
    Title
    Sonata No. 16
    Duration
    05:37
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  15. 15 Sonata No. 17 06:08
    Track
    15
    Title
    Sonata No. 17
    Duration
    06:08
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  16. 16 Sonata No. 15 04:52
    Track
    16
    Title
    Sonata No. 15
    Duration
    04:52
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  17. 17 Sonata No. 7 07:14
    Track
    17
    Title
    Sonata No. 7
    Duration
    07:14
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa
  18. 18 Sonata No. 18 07:21
    Track
    18
    Title
    Sonata No. 18
    Duration
    07:21
    Composer
    Giovanni Battista Fontana
    Performer
    Neyza Copa
    Ensemble
    Lux Terrae Baroque Ensemble
    Conductor
    Neyza Copa