Johann Christian Schickhardt: Six Sonatas Op. 22 Epoca Barocca

The first recording of Johann Carl Bischoff's Six Sonatas for Cello performed by Claudio Ronco and Emanuela Vozza on period instruments. Johann Carl Bischoff (1747-1800) was a a German composer and a virtuoso cellist. He became a member of the court orchestra of the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau in the 1770s. In 1793, Bischoff invented a cello-like instrument, which he named the Harmonicello. The instrument had five bowed gut strings and ten sympathetic metal ones.

A superb account of J.S. Bach's Sonatas for violin and harpsichord obbligato by Ryo Terakado and Fabio Bonizzoni.

Frederieke Saeijs’ Linn debut sees the Dutch violinist realize a lifelong ambition to put her personal stamp on Ysaÿe’s homage to her chosen instrument and its celebrated virtuosos.

Following on from their critically acclaimed Resonus debut of duets by Johann Joachim Quantz, the Elysium Ensemble have recorded an album of the Six Sonates, Op. 51, by French composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755).

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce the return of pianist Peter Donohoe to the label, following his acclaimed complete survey of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas, with a dazzling new recital coupling Rachmaninoff – on the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1873 – and Chopin.

Igor Ruhadze's Brilliant Classics recording of sonatas by Locatelli (94736) won warm praise from Gramophone. 'The playing is elegantly supple, the string tone warm, and the architecture of individual movements thoughtfully worked out. All this makes for a pleasant mood and enjoyable listening. The more exuberant pieces are brilliantly and at times breathtakingly performed.'

Born as Charles-Antoine Campion in the Lorraine region of France, Carlo Antonio Campioni (1720-1788) made the decisive move to Florence as a 17-year-old violinist, probably studying with Giuseppe Tartini in his famous ‘school of nations’ in Padova. By 1752 he had become an experienced music director as well as composer, appointed as maestro di capella at the cathedral in Livorno. Around a decade later he moved back to France for a temporary stay in Paris but in 1763 he took up the prestigious post of maestro di capella for the Grand Duke of Florence.

Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672-1749) was a priest first and musician second: a ‘gentiluomo di Trento’ as he described himself on the title page of his Op.1 trio sonatas. Chamber music continued to be Bonporti’s preferred creative outlet, at a time when cantatas and increasingly operas obtained wider favour, and his increasingly strenuous attempts to gain royal or aristocratic preferment by dedicating and sending his works to kings, queens and princes proved ever fruitless: he died as he worked, a humble cleric.

The two sonatas published by Medtner as his Opus 25 make a salutary contrast: the longest and most taxing of his sonatas placed alongside a sonatina-like work possibly intended for children.

Under the title I vanni occulti, ensemble Al Ayre Español, led by maestro Eduardo López Banzo, offers us its personal vision of Handel’s Sonatas Op. 2. The phrase comes from the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion, 1707). The reference to this aria is not anecdotal, because Sonata No. 1 in this Op. 2 contains references to this music — an aspect that, hardly surprisingly, constitutes a characteristic element of the composition technique of the maestro from Halle.