Antonio Vivaldi – Christophe Coin, L'onda Armonica

Cellist Christophe Coin has embarked on a project to record all of Vivaldi’s cello concertos. With this third instalment (the sixty-first volume of the naïve label’s complete Vivaldi Edition) he now has twenty cello concertos under his belt. Christophe Coin has become a noted authority in the work of the brilliant, tirelessly prolific Venetian composer, performing it with a host of different ensembles, such as L’Onda Armonica, the ensemble founded by Sergio Azzolini. As with the first two volumes he alternates between the cello and the violoncello piccolo, providing a palette of highly varied sound colours.

Nine cello sonatas by Vivaldi have survived. Six of them were published as a set in Paris in about 1740; that set, mistakenly known as the composer's Op. 14, contains the sonatas recorded in this release. The three remaining sonatas come from manuscript collections. All but one of the six works are cast in the slow-fast-slow-fast pattern of movements of the sonata da chiesa. The odd one out, RV46, in fact, retains the four movement sequence but inclines towards the sonata da camera in the use of dance titles. The music of these sonatas is almost consistently interesting, often reaching high points of expressive eloquence, as we find, for example, in the justifiably popular Sonata in E minor, RV40. Christophe Coin brings to life these details in the music with technical assurance and a spirit evidently responsive to its poetic content. Particularly affecting instances of this occur in the third movements of the A minor and the E minor Sonatas where Coin shapes each phrase, lovingly achieving at the same time a beautifully sustained cantabile.

Following his attractive performance of six of Vivaldi's cello sonatas, Christophe Coin has recorded six of the composer's 24 or so concertos for the instrument. Five of these, Michael Talbot tells us in an interesting accompanying note, probably belong to the 1720s while the sixth, the Concerto in G minor (RV416), is evidently a much earlier work. Coin has chosen, if I may use the expression somewhat out of its usual context, six of the best and plays them with virtuosity and an affecting awareness of their lyrical content. That quality, furthermore, is not confined to slow movements but occurs frequently in solo passages of faster ones, too. It would be difficult to single out any one work among the six for particular praise. My own favourite has long been the happily spirited Concerto in G major (RV413) with which Coin ends his programme. Strongly recommended. (Gramophone Magazine)

Vivaldi wrote an astonishing 500 concertos during his lifetime, of which 27 were composed for solo cello. At the time, the instrument was in its infancy, and it was unusual for great composers to write works specifically for solo cello. Indeed, none of the concertos were published during Vivaldi’s lifetime: they had been written specially for his young female students at the Ospedale della Pietà, where the composer was employed in Venice, and were therefore not widely known. However, Vivaldi clearly saw the potential in the new instrument, otherwise he would not have gone on to write so much material for it; after the violin and bassoon, it is his third most popular solo concerto instrument.

Fireworks, virtuosity and bravura pieces are essential ingredients of Vivaldi’s concerto oeuvre. Discover or rediscover Vivaldi’s concertos played by the most prestigious artists.

After the violin and bassoon, Vivaldi apparently like the cello best as a solo instrument. Because while the Italian Baroque master wrote somewhere over 200 violin concertos and 39 bassoon concertos, he also wrote 28 cello concertos. Part of his special affection may come from the fact that Vivaldi himself seems to have invented the genre. Although there had been passages for solo cello in earlier composers' works, Vivaldi apparently wrote the first actual concertos featuring the cello throughout. This disc, the first in Naïve's Vivaldi's Edition's releases of all the concertos played by Christophe Coin with Il Giardino Armonico led by Giovanni Antonini, is an easy winner.

Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702/3-1771) began his musical studies at the famous Kreuzschule in Dresden. Subsequently he acquired his legendary prowess on the violin from two of the most excellent teachers of the time: the Vivaldi disciple, Johann Georg Pisendel in Dresden and Giuseppe Tartini in Padova. Very early in his career, during his service as concertmaster in Merseburg, Graun got acquainted with Johann Christian Hertel (1697-1754), an outstanding viola da gamba virtuoso; they remained friends throughout their lives, corresponding frequently. This may be the reason for Graun's apparent knowledge of the technical possibilities of the viol: his compositions for this instrument - not less than 22 large-scale works are extant - bear witness to this.

Directeur musical de l'Ensemble Baroque de Limoges depuis 1991, violoncelliste et gambiste de renommée internationale, soliste, chef d'orchestre et chercheur, Christophe Coin est reconnu comme l'un des plus mûrs et des plus créatifs musiciens de son époque. Il est fondateur du Quatuor Mosaïques, l'un des rares Quatuors à pouvoir fêter ses vingt ans d'existence.

Orlando Gibbons was one of the most important composers active in England during the early 17th century. Descended from a family of musicians, he spent the last few years of his life as organist at Westminster Abbey. In 1613 he published a selection of fine keyboard music in the volume called Parthenia. In addition to his own pieces he also added some by those other emblematic figures of the time, William Byrd and John Bull. In his brief life, he was not able to compose as much music as his more famous contemporaries, but he has since through his music attained the status of a "musicians’ musician"; one whose music far transcends that of most composers of the time.