Johann Sebastian Bach has always been considered one of the greatest music transcribers of all times. Many of his transcriptions (mostly the ones from Italian composers Vivaldi and Marcello) have become instant classics, and they are still viewed as masterpieces of the baroque repertoire. Bach has always been very active as a transcriber of his own music too. His masterful transcription of his Sonata for viola da gamba & keyboard No. 1, which he transformed into a trio for two flutes and continuo, has given the inspiration for this project. Tripla Concordia and Walter van Hauwe decided to transcribe even the other two Gamba Sonatas as Trio Sonatas, walking in Bach footsteps. In doing so, the members of the ensemble actually fulfilled their desire of offering a new listening experience of this set of sonatas, with fresh colors and textures. Tripla Concordia sincerely hopes that those new versions will cast a new light on these works, thus giving the listener the opportunity of discovering new details and fresh instrumental combinations. Transcriptions of other two Bach masterpieces, the Organ Sonata No. 3 (transcription by Sour Cream) and the Partita for Lute BWV 997, complete the recording.
Kleinknecht: Trio Sonatas for Two Flutes / Ensemble La Cantonnade
Tyxart
CD
$21.99Nov 18, 2022
Few works from Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht (1722-1794) can be found these days, which is unfortunate as this German composer, flutist, and Kapellmeister composed a large catalog of chamber music and symphonies that put his skill at the same level as his more famous contemporaries. Ensemble La Cantonnade (Miho Shirai, Zsuzsa Csige, Marie Colombat, and Niklas Heineke) sets out to change that with this new release of Trio Sonatas for two flutes and basso continuo. Each of these works is receiving here its world premiere recording.
This CD illustrates how present-day musicians can arrange Bach's compositions in accordance to his teachings, beyond the narrow limits set by the ideal of fidelity to the score. With good criteria, Il Maniatico Ensemble has arranged the six sonatas BWV 525 to 530, originally intended for organ, adapting them to an ensemble consisting of oboe, keyboard (harpsichord or organ), and cello. Johann Sebastian Bach himself is a good example of this conception of the musical work, far from the conceptual changes introduced by Romantic aesthetics. His arrangements of pieces by others and by himself are well known. He arranged concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello, and Telemann for organ; he turned oboe and violin concertos into harpsichord concertos; he transformed movements of concertos into cantata choruses; he reused and adapted vocal compositions in order to include them in other vocal compositions, etc. The present recording includes one of these arrangements by Bach himself. It is a version of the BWV 1030 sonata in B minor for flute and obbligato harpsichord, a work that is central to the flute players' repertoire canon. An autograph score by Bach himself of the sonata BVW 1030 for flute and harpsichord is preserved, and presumably he wrote it around 1736/37, during Bach's last years as conductor of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.
G.p. Telemann: Trio Sonatas For Recorder, Violin And Continuo
Dynamic
CD
$12.99Oct 29, 2013
TELEMANN Trio Sonatas: in d, TWV 42:d10; in a, TWV 42:a1; in F, TWV 42:F8; in f, TWV 42:f2; in a, TWV 42:a4; in f. Sonata in f, TWV 41:f1 • Fabio Biondi (vn); Tripla Concordia (period instruments) • DYNAMIC 7667 (52:13)
Fabio Biondi’s program of trio sonatas by Georg Philipp Telemann, apparently mastered in the late 1990s, corresponds to an identical program (same works in the same order) once listed as Stradivarius 33685 and not reviewed, so far as I can tell, in Fanfare. Tripla Concordia consists of Lorenzo Cavasanti (recorder), Caroline Boersma (cello), and Sergio Ciomei (harpsichord), and they lend almost bumptious support to the irrepressible Fabio Biondi, playing, in this case, a violin constructed by Desiderio Quercetani in 1991 after an 18th-century Neapolitan model. Danilo Prefumo’s notes explain that the ensemble has gathered together all of Telemann’s works for the combination of violin, recorder, and continuo, omitting other trio sonatas intended for recorder, treble viola da gamba, and continuo, previously considered to have been intended for violin.
The engineers come very close to the ensemble (and if the flute seems almost shrill on occasion, so does the violin on others); but the random breathing they’ve captured seems benign beside the amount of instrumental noise and multitudinous abrasive attacks they’ve registered, all of which might intimidate a faint-hearted listener (the recorded sound also gives the instrumental timbres a sharp edge that, it seems possible, might be an artifact). Nevertheless, there’s no gainsaying the irresistible élan of the ensemble’s reading of the first Sonata, with its three fast movements surrounding a slower second (all the sonatas comprise four movements, in which two fast movements generally provide a contrast with two slower ones). And the close, vibrant recorded sound, however pleasantly or unpleasantly it may strike the listener’s sensibilities from moment to moment, plays a significant role in creating the overall effect. In fact, the razor sharpness of the instrumental sound seems considerably more distracting in slow movements like the opening Adagio of the Sonata in F Minor (TWV 42:f2), rather than in headlong fast ones like the same Sonata’s Finale. The Sonata in A Minor, TWV 42:a4, seems perhaps the most balanced, with all the movements taking about two and a half minutes and alternating slow and fast in the pattern that had become pretty much standard. Yet, from my experience of the work as a performer, it seems to lack in this reading the exuberant energy that characterized the fast movements and the suavity that characterized the slow ones in their performances of the other sonatas. Recommended to those who may have missed this collection in what seems to have been an earlier incarnation and who take delight in this repertoire.
Bach: Trio Sonatas (Arr. for Organ, Viola da gamba & Harpsic
DUX
CD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%May 05, 2017
It remains an open question whether Bach’s six trio-sonatas fall into the category of keyboard music or chamber music. Bach adopted the then quite common form of the Italian trio-sonata not only for compositional but also for pedagogic reasons. It is also difficult to say how much of the musical material was written specifically for this cycle. At the same time they are exercises demanding an extremely high level of artistry in playing three independent voices with two hands and pedals. The student-originally in this particular case this was probably Wilhelm Friedemann Bach- is to learn thereby not only manual dexterity but also compositional technique. At first sight these pieces may look rather complex, but in fact the upper voices with their richly embellished lines proceed from a quite normal solid harmonic structure that is essentially a product of the basso continuo style. In addition, music for three independent voices provides an excellent opportunity for showing how an organ, with its distinct separate manual and pedal sections, can really sound like three different instruments simultaneously. This music is performed on The Organ of Joachim Wagner in Siedlce, an instrument discovered in 2002 in the village church in Pruszyn.
Saint-Saens: Sonata for Oboe and Piano; Faure / Mayer, Wisniewska
Tudor
CD
$21.99Jun 30, 2009
It is a shame that this unhackneyed collection of French music for oboe and piano has been overlooked. The Swiss company Tudor apply their usual exemplary production standards to recording and documentation. Artistic matters are in the hands of two dedicated musicians. Bamberg-born Mayer produces a full-throated quality, but going by the initial Fauré tracks, tends to scout over emotional expression. The Sicilienne could have been touching if the emotional agenda had been painted in. The Pavane feels rushed. The Berceuse is on the other hand quite pleasing with the note production being both curvaceous and penetrating. Wisniewska’s piano sound is rounded; not harsh. The Saint-Saens Sonata seems congealed in the first movement but in the other two is perfectly gracious. There is a gamin cheeky finale with strange echoes of Beethoven’s Fifth. Is Saint-Saens lampooning Beethoven?
Then we are back to Fauré with a sequence of five song transcriptions. Après un rêve is heavy-lidded and weighed down with sleepy contentment. Le secret is suitably grave with the music carrying a faintly melancholy tincture. Au bord de l'eau explores an elusive mood though the faint clicking of the oboe’s key mechanism can be heard and does return you to earth. Clair de lune is a brisk and pleasant stroll of a piece; not ardent. Mayer’s oboe here takes on the opulence of its cousin up the road, the clarinet. There are two Pierné’s represented in this recital Gabriel’s Serenade has an Iberian accent – more Massenet than Ravel. The Pièce sounds rather Tchaikovskian with a surprisingly brusque role for the piano. Fantasie Pastorale is by Paul Pierné. It radiates elysian calm – superbly done by the two players. The Satie pieces are well enough known. Here that sentimentality deficit I mentioned earlier is again in evidence though I did note that Wisniewska’s insight provided emotional contrast – listen to the way she gives face to a simple note cell in Gymnopédie 2. Bozza’s Fantaisie Pastorale is so much more than the shallow display piece I had braced myself for. It surveys stygian Bax territory, moves into showers of fanciful curlicues and culminates in a magically poised and elfin close. Koechlin’s Au Loin is for English horn and piano. It is splendidly ermine-dark and languid. The melodic material might remind some listeners of Bax’s In The Faery Hills.
Sonatas For Flute & Basso Continuo / Mario Carbotta, Roberto Cognazzo
Vermeer Records
CD
$16.99Feb 05, 2021
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.
There was a remarkable outpouring of Italian instrumental music from the 17th century onwards yet many composers who contributed to this flourishing body of work remain relatively unknown. One such composer is Pietro Marchitelli who was born around 1643 and was active in Naples as an outstanding violinist. Some 30 sonatas survive in a small number of collections. The seven lively and tuneful sonatas on this album conform to the precedent established by Corelli and are played by Labirinto Armonico, an ensemble that has collaborated with some of the very best early music performers.
Bernardini meets Dreyer: a distinguished period-instrument oboist explores the music of a little-known Florentine forebear. Domenico Dreyer was born in Florence in 1701 to an Italian mother and German father, at a time when Italy was experiencing a golden age for the oboe, led by technical innovations in the design of the instrument. The family was musical, but why he picked up the oboe is unknown, as is most of his early life. At any rate, these sonatas are preserved in manuscript form under his name - his only surviving music - and may have been published in 1727. What we do know is that Dreyer travelled with his brother, a singer and impresario, across Europe and as far as St Petersburg. In the early 1730s Dreyer was playing in Venice, where he most likely met Vivaldi, and a musical link between the two men is illustrated by these six appealing sonatas. At any rate, Bernadini is drawn to these sonatas, as he explains in a booklet introduction, 'because they combine ornamented and very expressive slow movements with fast movements of great virtuosity, using the possibilities of the two-key oboe to the extreme.' Bernadini draws out various thematic correspondences between particular movements of the sonatas and various parts of Vivaldi's output, while observing a more general Vivaldian flavour to the writing. We might know more but for Dreyer's sudden and unexplained death at the age of 34, 'due to an unfortunate event,' according to the best historical record available. The sonatas may be enjoyed on their own terms, however, as stylish examples of Italian Baroque chamber writing at it's zenith. They are performed here by Bernadini on a copy of a 1730 instrument by Giovanni Maria Anciuti (1674-1744), the most important Italian wind instrument maker of the time. Not only is this the closest available instrument to Dreyer's sonatas in terms of place and date, but it is also one of the few 18th-century oboes to feature the low C sharp, which Dreyer notates at the end of the Fourth Sonata. He is joined by a quartet of fellow Italian period- instrument specialists, who supply a richly varied continuo section. - Domenico Maria Dreyer (ca. 1680 - ca. 1740) was the son of the German tenor Johann Conrad Dreyer, born and raised in Florence. His life was closely linked to that of his younger brother Giovanni Filippo Dreyer, a castrato, impresario and opera composer. The brothers worked for a long time at the courts of Moscow and St. Petersburg and later in Italy. - Six oboe sonatas and two recorder sonatas have survived from his oeuvre. The oboe sonatas are of great musical beauty and stylistically belong to the Venetian High Baroque period of his contemporary Antonio Vivaldi. It is assumed that they were composed around 1725. - Each sonata typically follows a four-movement structure, alternating between slow, lyrical passages and lively, dance-like sections. This format allows for a rich exploration of the oboe's tonal capabilities, from it's warm, mellow low registers to it's bright, penetrating highs. Dreyer's sonatas often feature elaborate ornamentation and intricate melodic lines, demanding both technical proficiency and expressive nuance from the performer. - Played by the famous Italian oboist Alfredo Bernardini (founder of the Zefiro Ensemble) and a continuo group consisting of cello, archlute and harpsichord/organ.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Trio Sonatas for organ, masterpieces in their intrinsic poetic power, were composed between 1723 and 1725, in his early days as Kantor in Leipzig. They are performed here by Benjamin Alard, First Prize winner in the organ section of the Freiburg Bach Competition. After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue, Pink and White collections (a total of sixty reissues) which gave a new lease of life to the pearls of the Baroque catalogues from our house labels, here are fourteen new titles which offer a chance to discover other treasures, whether Baroque or dating from an earlier or later era. Like the most recent series, this sixth instalment opens out onto the Classical repertory (Mozart by Ensemble 415 and Chiara Banchini) and the Renaissance (Févin by Doulce Mémoire and Denis Raisin Dadre); recordings that are an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. Fourteen reissues performed by the leading musicians in the field, most of which received one or more awards on their original release. Proper booklets accompany the discs, with notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from all over the world have been selected to illustrate the covers, this time with the guiding thread of the color green, a symbol of nature, fertility...and hope!
Zelenka's output contains mostly sacred music. His instrumental works, however, show the composer's talent and shouldn't be overlooked. The work included on this release, Sonate a due Hautbois e Basson con Basso Continuo, ZWV 181, was written in Vienna between 1715-1716. The work is notable in double reed literature for the required virtuosity of both instruments, which was uncharacteristic for the music of that time. This release is the first recording from the ensemble Zefiro. The featured double reed performers are oboists Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo Grazzi, and bassoonist Alberto Grazzi.
In 1700, Corelli published his 12 violin sonatas, Opus 5, in Rome. A veritable revolution in violin technique, they won the admiration of eminent composers (Bach, Dandrieu, Couperin) and greatly influenced the French (Francoeur, Leclair, Senaillé, Quentin), who were to try their hand at this virtuoso and brilliant Italian style. At the end of the 1730s, the first six sonatas of opus 5 were"adapted to the transverse flute with the bass" by a Parisian publisher. The level of virtuosity they demanded was quite innovative at the time. This display of virtuosity is also to be found in the compositions of Jean-Baptiste Quentin, known as Le Jeune. We have very little biographical information on Quentin himself, but all his work is greatly inspired by Italian music and is heavily influenced by Corelli. Anna Besson has made the world's first recording of his sonatas, with the help of two other eminent performers of the new Baroque generation, Myriam Rignol on viola da gamba and Jean Rondeau on harpsichord…
Georg Druschetzky is a name that people who know their music history associate with charming but innocuous wind partitas and truly out-of-the-ordinary concertos for six, seven, or eight timpani and orchestra. The latter category comes as no surprise; after all, Druschetzky was an “Upper Austrian Regional Timpanist” (a title actually bestowed on him in Linz in 1776), and so why shouldn’t he offer compositional tribute to his instrument? But there’s more: Druschetzky enjoyed a successful career that took him all the way to the court of the Palatine of Hungary, Archduke Joseph von Habsburg, in Ofen (today’s Buda), where he held the posts of court composer and music director and wrote masses, symphonies, two operas, and numerous chamber compositions. His chamber works include a cycle of ten oboe quartets (1807-8) from his late years that make an astonishing and lasting listening impression – because of his rich imagination and his compositional wit and spirited harmonic daredevilry that we otherwise encounter only in the “surprise artist” Haydn. This discovery is so significant that we in any case intend to present all ten quartets in congenial recordings by the Grundmann Quartet on historical instruments. The present release is volume 1 in this project.
The Trio Sonata In 17th Century Germany - London Baroque
BIS
CD
$21.99Mar 01, 2008
On two previous discs, London Baroque has explored the genre of the trio sonatas as it unfolded in 17th Century France and England. Both these issues met with great acclaim. The ensemble has now arrived in Germany, or more correctly: the German-speaking world of the time, as the programme also features works from the Low Countries and Austria. The great masters of the period, Buxtehude and Biber - are both among the ten composers represented here. But included are also other, less well-known names, such as Johann Schmelzer and Johann Rosenmüller. The great variety of styles and forms found on the disc fully reflect the diversity among the composers, while also serving to remind the listener of the fact that the trio sonata genre was just becoming established during the period.
