Arte Romanica Shapiro

During Albinoni’s lifetime (1671-1751) four separate collections of sonatas with violin were published under his name, though only the Trattenimenti armonici Op.6 were prepared by their composer. The works in Op.6 have accordingly dominated the record catalogues and obscured the virtues of the others, which Federico Guglielmo presents here with his customary flair and feeling for the Italian Baroque which has previously yielded the much-praised Brilliant Classics collection of Vivaldi’s Opp 1-12 (95200) as well as the Op.1 Trio Sonatas (94789) by Albinoni himself.

La finta giardiniera was a resounding success: after the first performance 1774 in Rome, the opera was translated into several languages and staged in many other European cities and inspired Mozart to write an opera of the same title. This world premiere recording by the ensemble l'arte del mondo shows the exceptional skills of this little-known composer. The Spanish Catalan soprano Nuria Rial is famous for her shining, crystal clear and beautiful voice and is one of the best baroque voices for baroque arias. She was described as "a silvery sounding voice, as clear as a bell."

After the enormous success of Vivaldi’s earlier collections La Stravaganza and L’Estro Armonico, his publisher Estienne Roger was eager to capitalise on the composer’s soaring popularity. With that in mind, Op.7 was published in 1720 containing 12 new concertos, ten for solo violin and two for solo oboe. However, it seems unlikely Vivaldi either authorised or approved of this publication, and recent research has even discovered that the authenticity of the concertos is doubtful, with at least the two oboe concertos certainly not by Vivaldi. The concertos may not bear the traditional Vivaldian hallmarks, with movements simplified or moved around, but they are still a worthy tribute to the composer, whether penned by the ‘Prete Rosso’ himself or not.

Though Swiss-born, Le Corbusier is known as a French architect, writer, urbanist, and designer, having become a citizen in his 30's and doing to majority of his work as a French citizen. He is best remembered for his pioneering vision and contributions to what is referred to as Modern Architecture by critics, historians and artists alike. His fifty year career produced some of the most iconic structures built all over the world. As an architect, Le Corbusier has designed everything from villas, to the UN Headquarters in New York City.

L'Arte dell'Arco now at last has recorded more instrumental works by the composer Francesco Veracini for cpo. The first release met with a unanimously enthusiastic response: »Here everything fits perfectly; here instrumentalists perform with passion; here a very great ensemble is revealed. The team effort is fascinating; here musicians, friends, and kindred spirits are at work. CD of the Month« (Toccata 1/10). The goal of this project is to record Veracinis complete overtures and violin concertos and to combine them with a selection of his most interesting sonatas from the collection without opus number (1716) and his Opus 1 (1721). When these three groups of works are juxtaposed, Veracinis various stylistic characters come into even clearer view.