Sassmanshaus Violine

Even in a field overcrowded with noteworthy editions of the Bach Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, these 1995 recordings maintain permanent status on my shelves. Fabio Biondi's fiddling is thoroughly steeped in the grammar of period performance yet avoids the exaggerated agogics, metronomic facelessness, and wimpy tonal qualities we often put up with in the name of authenticity. Abetted by Rinaldo Alessandrini's imaginative partnering, Biondi's characterful, singing sonority puts a fresh spin on every phrase. His improvised embellishments, no matter how audacious they sound at first, always arise out of an organic response to the music's spirit.

The immediacy and power of La Gaia Scienza and Paolo Beschi takes your breath away. The sound of these outstanding musicians on original instruments is amazing and appealing, the phrasing and the interaction are exemplary, every note and every bar has been rethought. Chamber music full of contrasts and emotions. Adventurous souls should not hesitate, key works by Brahms, Haydn, Schubert and Schumann have never been heard like this before and as a special encore, highlights from Bach’s Cello Solo Suites can be heard. Paolo Beschi (co-founder and cellist of ‘Il Giardino Armonico’) conducts the ensemble ‘La Gaia Scienza’ with pianist Federica Valli and violinist Stefano Barneschi. This group gives the world groundbreaking reinterpretations of romantic and baroque works. Pizzicato writes: ‘played vitally and pulsating, with feeling but without pathos.’

Diego Fasolis' strong sense of rhythm coupled with the fluidity and virtuostic ease of Galfetti's playing render this cd irresistible. The Vivaldi Edition: a recording venture conceived by the Italian musicologist Alberto Basso and the independent label Naïve, is one of the most ambitious recording projects of the twenty-first century. Its principal objective is to record the massive collection of Vivaldi autograph manuscripts preserved today in the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria in Turin, some 450 works in all. This treasure trove is none other than the private library of scores Vivaldi had at home at the time of his death in Vienna in 1741 and includes his extant operas, hundreds of concertos, sacred compositions and cantatas.

During the 1720s and 1730s Telemann prepared and to a large extent oversaw the printing and publication of a wide diversity of compositions. Chamber cantatas, concertos, orchestral suites, solos, trios and quartets were all represented. The high-water mark of chamber music publications came in the late 1730s with the set of six Paris Quartets (1738) and the Essercizii Musici (c1739). While almost every one of the 24 pieces contained in the latter collection has been recorded in the past, this is the first time that they have been issued as a complete set on disc. There is not a weak composition among them and Read more Telemann’s collection deserves its place among the most accomplished chamber music anthologies of the late baroque.