Lorenzo

The catalogue of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works numbers 1128 works, although he actually composed many more than that: a quantity of works have unfortunately not survived to the present day. Some works have also survived in an unfinished form, either because Bach himself did not finish them or because part of the manuscript has been lost. This recording presents all of Bach’s organ works that have survived as fragments; I myself have provided them with completions. Not an easy task, to say the least, but I have tried to adhere to Bach’s style, knowing only too well the impossibility of imitating such a supreme artist. This notwithstanding, it is at least now possible for us to hear and appreciate works that had to a great extent been forgotten.

Scarlatti’s sonatas are among the most original compositions of the Baroque period, bursting with rhythmic and harmonic invention, contrast and colour. Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli take up this exceptional production and record, on two guitars, twelve of his 555 sonatas. Scarlatti was well acquainted with the instrument, which he heard in Spain and Italy, where it permeated his keyboard compositions. By going back to one of Scarlatti’s most obvious and greater musical sources of inspiration, the two performers underline the eloquence and inexhaustible invention of these rhapsodic miniatures, masterpieces of their composer’s art as a colourist.