Fabio Biondi Roman

Through this exciting recording, the violinist Fabio Biondi pursues his exploration of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire for solo violin. Two years after his complete recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's solo Sonatas and Partitas (V 5467), he lands on entirely unknown territory, the Assaggi by the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758). Rarely lasting more than twelve minutes, the Assaggi is thus a fascinating melting-pot of multiple aesthetics in vogue in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Through this exciting recording, the violinist Fabio Biondi pursues his exploration of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire for solo violin. Two years after his complete recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's solo Sonatas and Partitas (V 5467), he lands on entirely unknown territory, the Assaggi by the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758). Rarely lasting more than twelve minutes, the Assaggi is thus a fascinating melting-pot of multiple aesthetics in vogue in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Through this exciting recording, the violinist Fabio Biondi pursues his exploration of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire for solo violin. Two years after his complete recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's solo Sonatas and Partitas (V 5467), he lands on entirely unknown territory, the Assaggi by the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758). Rarely lasting more than twelve minutes, the Assaggi is thus a fascinating melting-pot of multiple aesthetics in vogue in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Fabio Biondi champions this little known territory of the European late baroque with a voracious generosity and highly eloquent sense of phrase.

With Antonio Caldara’s 'Morte e sepoltura di Christo', released on Glossa just after a new album devoted to Vivaldi’s late violin concertos, Fabio Biondi returns to the Italian oratorio, another of his specialities. The Venetians Caldara and Vivaldi may have been contemporaries but their career paths led them in different directions, and Caldara was to spend much time working in Mantua and Rome before securing the position of vice-Kapellmeister for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in Vienna.

Alessandro Scarlatti was only 24 and had just begun his enormously successful operatic career when he set a libretto by that great Roman patron of the arts, Cardinal Pamphili, on the subject of repentance and divine grace. It was performed before a distinguished audience by a small group of leading singers and instrumentalists of the day in March 1685—the year of the birth of Alessandro's son Domenico (in fact, as a matter of interest, three days before the birth of J. S. Bach). This simple little morality (oratorio is too grandiose a term for it) shows Magdalen torn between youthful pleasures and repentance for hedonistic living: the subject is treated in a sequence of extremely brief arias (and a few duets) and recitatives, which add up to a rather bitty effect, all the more because of seemingly haphazard key-sequences.

Discovered by Michael Talbot in 1973, the 12 sonatas of the Manchester manuscript are generally considered the high point of the composer’s chamber music. They are performed hereby Fabio Biondi, one of the most authoritative Vivaldi performers, accompanied by an allstar continuo group: Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rolf Lislevand, Paolo Pandolfo and Maurizio NaddeoIn his liner notes, Michael Talbot reckons that Vivaldi assembled them to present to Cardinal Ottoboni, the great Roman patron of the arts (portrayed by Francesco Trevisani on the front cover), on the occasion of the cardinal’s visit to Venice, his birthplace, in 1726.

Much has been said and written about Handel and Metastasio, and the composer’s supposed lack of interest in the librettos of the famous Roman poet. The fact is that Handel generally used adaptations of much older librettos which perhaps represented a bigger space of liberty for its work and conception of drama. Though Handel set to music only three librettos by Metastasio (Siroe, Poro and Ezio), we can hardly doubt he knew and recognised the qualities of their dramaturgy. Two of the three were successful and all of them gave him opportunity to write beautiful music.

In Baroque opera the dramatic figure of Gaius Julius Caesar received a considerable amount of attention from librettists and composers alike, and not just from G.F. Handel working with Nicola Francesco Haym. With Giulio Cesare, a Baroque hero, Raffaele Pe creates a full recital devoted to the Ancient Roman warrior and Dictator of the Republic, drawn from operas spanning the length of the eighteenth century.