Paganini: Centone Di Sonate / Gianfranco Iannetta, Walter Zanetti
Tactus
CD
$21.99Nov 06, 2020
The Centone di Sonate M.S. 112 is the last organic collection of sonate for violin and guitar composed by Paganini. The drawing up of this work, which is formed of 18 sonate evenly divided into three booklets (marked a, b and c) as was customary for a publication, probably began in Prague towards the end of 1828 and went on for several 11 years, during Paganini’s tour in Europe. It seems likely that the title Centone was attributed to the manuscripts after the composer’s death, during an operation of rearrangement of the unpublished material, with the purpose of generally indicating a collection of various pieces. Gianfranco Iannetta on violin and Walter Zanetti on guitar offer us the first six sonatas of the collection in a recording that for the first time is based solely on Paganini's autographed manuscripts.
Following her critically acclaimed recording of Mozart Concertos with Sir Roger Norrington and the RSNO, Francesca Dego turns to a selection of his Sonatas with her long-term recital partner Francesca Leonardi. Dego commented ‘Francesca and I have been playing together for seventeen years, more than half my life and the totality of my career. To work as a duo on a regular basis means reaching common interpretative solutions, ones that sum up each player’s qualities, and creates a great sense of mutual responsibility. What you do together somehow feels naturally complete. We decided to build this album around our very favorite Sonata, KV 454 in B flat major, which we had been performing for many years and in which Mozart’s simplicity and flamboyance coexist in perfect harmony.’
REVIEWS:
“… the balance between Dego and Leonardi is impeccable, along with the sense of two musicians singing from the same hymn sheet…If you’re looking for unfailingly tasteful and refined playing, then Dego and Leonardi neatly tick that box…”
– Gramophone (Charlotte Gardner)
“…The approach is modern-instrument with period awareness, the youthful playfulness of much of this music well caught…Dego and Leonardi’s polished and deeply considered performances of all four sonatas provide 70 minutes of unvarnished pleasure.”
– The Strad (David Threasher)
“…There is an infectious delight in give-and-take between piano and violin throughout …an exquisite recital.”
Over several years and several decades, Domenico Scarlatti composed a new sonata for his royal piano pupil practically each week. And so something gradually evolved that can justifiably be described as his life's work. But what does a life's work mean for us today? An immense number of sonatas, 555 in total. Their grandiose diversity and originality are only actually unlocked when, instead of consuming them ne masse, you listen to just one a week. However you should then listen to this one sonata every day, just as Scarlatti originally intended. And in one fell swoop, your life is over! Can we really do them justice today? In view of this, mine and Christoph Ullrich's undertaking to stretch the production over 17 years seems appropriate. Besides this, at the same time, Christoph Ullrich is still working on other lifelong projects, such as his large-scale children's project Laterna Musica (formerly Earworm). And so with our altered perception of time, we're battling to revive the past whilst remaining modern and curious in order ot meet today's demands. But the battle is worth it! What an adventure! Because who knows what'll come out of it after 17 years? What will the fingers and ears end up doing? Will there still be music at the end of it all? In all of his playfulness, craziness and childishness, in his cacophony of hand-crossing and sensuality, this cycle can also offer something very special compared to so many others: the realization that doing more and more and doing it faster doesn't actually help. Composer in the face of the fact tha tour existence is finite.
The city of Modena, under the rule of the Este family, was the capital of the Dukedom of Modena e Reggio. Thanks to Duke Francesco II's fondness for the violin, music became an essential element in the most important events at the Este court, such as receptions, weddings and official visits of foreign sovereigns. These were the occasions in which the Duke displayed all his magnificence. Modena stands out for the abundance of it's collection of musical documents in the Biblioteca Estense: the library is a real mine, largely unexplored so far. This consideration gave rise to the idea of making this beautiful, extraordinarily modern music available to those who are "pursuing" culture and art. So our goal is to promote a rediscovery of the enormous heritage preserved in the Biblioteca Estense, by carrying out a meticulous study of the sources of the works of the composers who were active at the Este Court in Modena, transcribing them into modern notation and critical editions, and producing monographic recordings of them. The first step consisted in the study and recording of the instrumental works of Giovanni Battista Vitali. In this first of 6 albums dedicated to his music preserved in the Estense Library of Modena, the baroque group Italico Splendore presents the very pleasant dances of the Chamber Sonatas op. 14.
Scarlatti: Complete Keyboard Sonatas Vol 10 / Colleen Lee
Naxos
CD
$19.99Aug 26, 2008
The son of Alessandro Scarlatti, who created a new school of opera in Naples, Domenico Scarlatti is particularly distinguished for his remarkable series of 555 surviving keyboard sonatas, written while employed at the Spanish court in Madrid.
Stefano Golinelli was an acclaimed virtuoso pianist who was also appreciated as a composer in his day. He played an important role in the 19th-century Italian musical renaissance, but his name has faded from view over time. The emotional power of Golinelli’s music is well represented in his first two piano sonatas, the earliest of which, Op. 30, shows the influence of Schumann and Mendelssohn. The Op. 53 sonata features a wealth of melodic ideas and musical surprises – its opening is an Italian homage to Chopin, and the work also contains a beautiful Andantino movement.
Giuseppe Sammartini: Sonate A Due Flauti Traversi Col Loro B
Urania Records
CD
$21.99Jan 16, 2026
Brother of the more known, Giovanni Battista, oboe and flute virtuoso, He was judged to be an ingenious composer on a par with Corelli and Geminiani. The success of these Sonatas, was largely due to their particular instrumental use, at a time when the 'flauto traversiere' was becoming increasingly fashionable; the flute performance of this CD fully adheres to the canons of articulatory practice (bisyllabic phonetics) of the first half of 18th century Europe.
Marcello: Psalms And Sonatas / Lydia Cevidalli, Ensemble Salomone Rossi
Dynamic
CD
$12.99Jan 22, 2021
Benedetto Marcello was born in Venice in 1686 and died in Brescia in 1739. His vast musical output remains largely unexplored, but his most famous work is the Estro poetico-armonico – a collection of fifty psalms, including eleven ancient Jewish songs – called Intonazioni – and two sacred hymns from Greek classicism. Marcello acknowledged the importance of Jewish and classical music heritage, and by blending these different styles, he sought to underline their universal value. This album features Psalms Nos. 21 and 42, as well as the Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in E minor Op. 1, No. 1, and the first movements of Sonatas No. 5 in F major and No. 4 in G minor for solo harpsichord.
Wolf-Ferrari: Dreams & Drama - Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-3 / Delle Donne, Baldini
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Apr 23, 2021
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's reputation rests largely on his operas, but the instrumental music he composed at the beginning and end of his career deserves a wider currency. The influence of Brahms can be detected in the First and Second Violin Sonatas, though Wolf-Ferrari's distinctive long-breathed melodies and chromatic flow are clearly present; the dramatic and expressive Second also includes references to Wagner's Tristan. With it's neo-Bachian figuration, passages of intense melancholy and uplifting operatic fantasy, the final Third Sonata is an enigmatic work, and unlike any other in the repertoire.
With 37 confirmed trio sonatas to his credit, Giuseppe Tartini is the most important Italian composer of his generation for this type of repertoire. It may seem odd therefore that these works have been so sorely neglected; indeed, as of 2022 only around 20 per cent of the repertoire had been recorded and a critical edition had yet to be published. This state of affairs was largely due to confusion regarding sources, with many divergent interpretations and uncertainties regarding the dates of the handwritten scores. Some order has been brought to this originally chaotic situation by the research carried out by Juan Mariano Porta from 2018 to 2022 as part of his doctoral studies, the result of which was the inclusion of the trio sonatas in the upcoming publications of the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Giuseppe Tartini, with advance materials made available to the Il Demetrio ensemble for recording. Giuseppe Tartini dedicated almost all his energy to his chosen instrument, the violin. His established corpus of works currently numbers 200 sonatas for violin and bass, 150 violin concertos, 37 trio sonatas, a handful of concertos for other instruments, and a small number of quartet sonatas and vocal compositions. Production of the trio sonatas began in the composer's late-mature years, and their style would seem to correspond to Tartini's final compositional period, described as a Drang nach absoluter Musik [urge for absolute music], which began around 1750 without a clear line of demarcation from what came before and continued until the composer's death. The trend was towards simplicity, partly deriving from Tartini's desire to put his theoretical speculations into practice. The trio sonatas no longer feature the virtuoso passages of earlier works. They present a binary form with regular phrasing. Their harmonic rhythm is slow, with the violins mainly proceeding in parallel triplets. The function of the bass is relegated one of harmonic support. This recording contains the sonatas G1, D1, d1 A1, A2, A3, A6, and a1, which date to Tartini's final compositional sub-period. They are little-known pieces, most of them hitherto unpublished.
This release continues Carlo Grante's series of Domenico Scarlatti's complete keyboard works. This series is the only one ever recorded with the same pianist playing all of the works.
"...beautifully played, and recorded, the first box in Music & Arts' series is profoundly impressive." - Jonathan Woolf, Music Web International
"Carlo Grante is one of the most astonishing artists I have ever known and worked with." - Fabio Luisi, The Metropolitan Opera's Principal Conductor
Del Cinque: Sonatas for 3 Cellos / Minasi, Vidoni, Baù, Vallerotonda, Buccarella
Arcana
CD
$20.99Jun 24, 2022
During his long life, the priest, nobleman, poet, and painter from Rome, Ermenegildo del Cinque (1700–73) wrote over 100 sonatas for two cellos and eighteen pieces for three cellos. Although he was a dilettante di musica, he was the most prolific composer of cello music of all time. Yet despite the fact that he also composed cantatas, a serenata and some sacred music, and was a renowned cellist in Rome, he remains virtually unknown today, even among cellists. This recording, made in the theatre of the Palazzo Altemps in Rome where del Cinque often performed, rescues some of these extraordinarily beautiful compositions from oblivion. The architect of this rediscovery is Ludovico Minasi (principal cellist of Il Pomo d’Oro, among other ensembles), who here leads a team of exceptional bass instruments featuring two recent winners of the MA Brugge competition, Andrea Buccarella and Teodoro Baù, along with the lutenist Simone Vallerotonda (a musician with long-standing ties to Arcana) and the cellist Cristina Vidoni.
