Canzoni Fantasie

This is a significant recording for several reasons. Sergio Vartolo has now recorded all of Frescobaldi’s keyboard music (the other issues were on the Tactus label). The Fantasie (1608) and Ricercari (1615) are the earliest of Frescobaldi’s keyboard publications (the latter being issued in the same year as the more famous first book of Toccatas), and as far as I’m aware neither had been issued complete before; so to get both together, and at super-budget price, is treasure-trove indeed. Frescobaldi fanatics need read no further. (Gramophone)

This is the fifth and final volume in the Ligia series of the complete keyboard music of Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643). Previous volumes reviewed in Fanfare include the Primo libro di capricci and Secondo libro di toccate (both 34:2), and the Primo libro di toccate (34:6). The present volume includes published collections from the beginning, middle, and end of Frescobaldi’s career. The Primo libro delle fantasie was published while the composer was still in Milan; it served as a kind of audition piece that eventually won him the position of organist at St. Peter’s in Rome.

Small size, four gut strings, a short bow were at beginning the ingredients of the magic. Such magic happened in Italy, the cradle of the violin, during the seventeenth century. “Seicento!” is therefore a multifaceted time-travel through the Early Baroque, from Venice to Sicily, exploring the wonders of the first violin virtuosos and their dexterous-passionated playing. A collection of music born looking at Caravaggio, Bernini and Borromini’s masterworks.

A release of great importance: the first time CD-issue of the Complete Works of Girolamo Frescobaldi. This edition provides a superb opportunity to discover this neglected master of the Baroque. The project is masterminded by the harpsichordist and organist Roberto Loreggian, and previous individual volumes of the series have been well received. This is there first ever complete edition of Frescobaldi’s music to be issued: a landmark on record, sure to be widely noticed by the musical press.

Inspiration, energy and freedom compose the alluring menu of La Vaghezza's very first opus. The five instrumentalists of the young Italian ensemble, recent winners of the EEEMERGING+ scheme, sculpt one by one these magnificent pieces of 17th century Italy, like jewels to be (re)discovered. La Vaghezza is a trio sonata ensemble playing music from the 17th and early 18th Centuries, with a special interest in the unpredictability, extravagance, originality and freedom found in 17th Century Italian music. Their musical interpretations are historically informed, but always guided foremost by their common sensibility as an ensemble and their search for 'La Vaghezza', an aesthetic concept which describes a beauty impossible to understand or grasp: like smoke, something calling to be touched yet remaining intangible.