2 Cellos

Sprightly and wonderfully fresh playing from the young Dutch cellist.

The English cellist Steven Isserlis has been a leading light on the international musical scene for more than three decades. His complete recordings for RCA Victor including concertos and chamber works by Haydn, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Saint-Saens, Anton Rubinstein, Faure, Richard Strauss, Janacek, Bloch, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and John Tavener will now be available in a 12-CD box.

Though born in Italy, Luigi Boccherini was based for most of his life in Madrid, where he played the cello and wrote more than a hundred string quintets. They’re perfectly formed from the simplest chords, and not without their touches of profundity. The cello sonatas sound at times too much like performers’ music. The explanation lies in changing styles of string technique and the rise of the piano, though Anner Bylsma’s playing gives them a new lease of life.

Josef Mysliveček byl ve své době oceňován především jako operní skladatel (Bellerofonte, Olympiade, Nitteti, Ipermestra…). Jeho úspěchy a popularita byly celá sedmdesátá léta 18. století značné. Přátelství s Wolfgangem Amadeem Mozartem je pak dalším významným kamínkem v mozaice, která tvoří Myslivečkovu osobnost a kompoziční směřování.

Five years ago, Stile Galante dedicated a CD recording with the renowned Swedish mezzosoprano Ann Hallenberg to the celebrated soprano castrato Luigi Marchesi (1754-1829). Accompanied by soprano Francesca Cassinari, Stile Galante is now going back to this extraordinary musician and presents his work as a composer of chamber vocal music. Marchesi published during his stay in London two different collections of ariettas with fortepiano and harp accompaniment. The Ariette op. 1 & 2 are sweet musical cameos dominated by remarkable elegance. They perfectly embody the taste of the time and represent Marchesi’s wish to use his popularity as an opera singer to push in front of the audience a more all-round image of himself as an artist. The programme is rounded off with brilliant instrumental pieces for fortepiano and harps by female composers Anne- Marie Krumpholz (1766-1824) and Veronika Rosalia Cianchettini (1769-1833) who worked with Marchesi in London.

Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini (Lucca, Italy, February 19, 1743 – Madrid, Spain, May 28, 1805) was an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No. 5 (G 275), and the Cello Concerto in B flat major (G 482). This last work was long known in the heavily altered version by German cellist and prolific arranger Friedrich Grützmacher, but has recently been restored to its original version. Boccherini composed several guitar quintets including the "Fandango" which was influenced by Spanish music.