Musici Ival

For several decades beginning in the 1950's I Musici was the leading ensemble specializing in Italian Baroque music, and their performances were standard-setting in their time. Their recordings still hold up exceptionally well even though approaches to early music, driven by the period instrument revolution, have changed somewhat since then.

The program presented on this release is one more typically found on small labels specializing in the Baroque era than on the major and sonically sumptuous Hyperion label, but for those who enjoy the virtuoso instrumental music of the Baroque it will live up to its surroundings. Naples in the middle of the 18th century was the largest city in Italy and one of the 10 largest in the word. Then as now, Naples attracted distinguished visitors with its scenic surroundings, but it was a hot, chaotic place from which creative people departed if they could. Of the big three Neapolitan opera composers, Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci, and Niccolò Jommelli, only Jommelli is represented here. It's hard to detect traces of their novel operatic styles in these flute concertos, which are nicely oriented toward solo display without losing a sense of overall balance.

With the number of Vivaldi concerto recordings flooding the market, what is a starter CD-buyer to do? How can he or she make a choice? Perhaps if a reviewer has any function at all, it is to steer the prospective purchaser in the right direction. If you like period instruments, the new disc with Giorgio Sasso might be a candidate for an ideal one-CD Vivaldi choice.

Known by and large for his seemingly inexhaustible supply of lighthearted operas, Gioachino Rossini did not restrict himself to that genre alone. As a boy of only 12 years, he was already accepting commissions to write small chamber works, including the present set of six string sonatas commissioned by the wealthy Agostino Triossi. Triossi was an accomplished amateur double bassist, a fact to which Rossini paid homage by scoring the six sonatas for a quartet made up of two violins, cello, and bass.

During the 18th century, it was not uncommon for enlightened princes with musical pretensions to commission works from their court composer and then affix their own names to the title pages. But in the recently solved riddle of the so-called Pergolesi/Ricciotti ''Concerti Armonici,'' the case seems to be just the reverse. These six works, written in the contrapuntal sdyle of the late Baroque, were long thought to be the work of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, largely because handwritten copies of the score found in various collections attributed the set to the Italian composer.

I Musici here performs the concerti grossi of Alessandro Scarlatti and his flute concerti. Scarlatti tended to be rather conservative in his compositions by adhering strictly to Corelli's concerto grosso model. He is not Vivaldi, Locatelli, or Torelli, but his pieces have somewhat of a pastoral warmth to them.

When Boccherini's six quintets for flute and string quartet were published in 1776, the composer described them as "opera piccolo" (little works) because of their generally brief character. But in these splendid performances by Italian Auser Musici, the flute quintets need no disclaimers, and they sound fully equal to the composer's string quintets. Flutist Carlo Ipata takes the lead, and his playing perfectly matches Boccherini's sweet-toned but technically challenging music.

Davvero bella e coinvolgente l’interpretazione dei tre cantanti che sanno calarsi con efficacia e la giusta teatralità in queste du fascinose pagine, sorretti con brio e vitalità da Auser Musici, diretto con intelligenza, buon gusto e assoluta proprietà da Carlo Ipata.