In 1738 the acclaimed violinist and composer Michele Mascitti (1664-1760) published in Paris his ninth collection of sonatas. The seventy-four-year-old Neapolitan musician was at the end of his long and celebrated career, but not of his creative powers. Dedicated to the Crozat family, which was to be Mascitti’s patron until the end of his life, the twelve sonatas for violin and bass op.9 are fine examples of the graceful blend of Italian and French styles that made this composer so popular in France. With the world premiere of eight sonatas from Mascitti’s op. 9, the Quartetto Vanvitelli carries on the rediscovery of this music that Hubert Le Blanc likened ‘to the warbling of the nightingale’. After the success of their interpretation of Mascitti’s op.8, greeted as ‘a jewel of interpretation that exalts with grace, elegance and, more importantly, finesse of touch, the individual stylistic experimentation of Mascitti’ (A111), the ensemble Vanvitelli makes with this recording another decisive step towards the full appreciation of this remarkable and unjustly forgotten composer.