Christopher Anderson

This album, along with Aqualung and Thick As A Brick, constitutes Ian Anderson's thrust for serious music credibility–unlike the two Tull albums, however, this one started out with a serious intent and seems to be roughly Anderson's equivalent to Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio, except that there's nothing remotely as embarrassing here as there was in that piece of overblown North England drivel (also done for EMI, on should recall). The familiar voice is absent, as Anderson confines his work to the flute and, with keyboard player/arranger Andrew Giddings, gets backing from various size classical ensembles.

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)

During the later years of the seventeenth century in Italy the form of the solo cantata with basso continuo became popular. Extra voices with obbligato instruments were often added to the basic formula, but the alternating pattern of recitative and aria remained more or less constant. the majority of Handel's cantatas date from the first decade of the eighteenth century and, more specifically, to his period in Italy between 1706 and 1710. Three of those in the new issue belong to that period whilst the fourth, Mi palpita il cor, suggests Anthony Hicks—in its version for soprano, oboe and continuo—dates from Handel's first years in England. Only recently have two complete copies of Alpestre monte turned up and this performance is, I believe, the first commercially recorded one.