Sincerity And Authenticity

Anyone who aspires to a professional career as a violinist must eventually reckon with Beethoven's Violin Concerto. This exacting instrumental jewel demands not only technical mastery, but also an extraordinary sense of lyricism and emotion from those who seek to make it their own. It is not surprising that, over the centuries, famous virtuosos have never stopped reimagining and recording this masterpiece in order to pass it on to posterity: Fritz Kreisler, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Isabelle Faust… Now, it is in their footsteps - rather intimidatingly, let's admit - that a new, irresistibly charismatic voice has now arrived.

The very first-ever set of ‘piano sonatas’ in a new and highly imaginative recording.Following Andrea Coen’s 2010 recording (94021) Brilliant Classics is the only label with two complete versions of Giustini’s sonatas on the market, showing its commitment to significant but under-recorded turning points in musical history. Lodovico Giustini (1685-1743) seldom left his native Pistoia, where he worked as organist of the Congregazione dello Spirito Santo. Published in nearby Florence in 1732, this set of 12 elegant sonatas is, in keeping with Scarlattian practice, dominated by movements in binary form, featuring dances and contrapuntal excursions, and displaying hints of the emerging galant style, which replaced busy Baroque continuo textures with a singing, more natural approach. Giustini enjoys high contrasts, soft and loud, and teases out of the new fortepiano technology everything it had to offer.However, the extant scores are not free of errors, and they leave a good deal up to the performer. Paolo Zentilin makes the most of Giustini’s writing.

It was probably Peter Pears, Britten’s partner in music and life, who drew the composer’s attention to the rich heritage of English folksong and its attractions, as a way to introduce texture, variety and a lighter tone to their song recitals together during the 1940s.

Following Andrea Coen’s 2010 recording (94021) Brilliant Classics is the only label with two complete versions of Giustini’s sonatas on the market, showing its commitment to significant but under-recorded turning points in musical history. Lodovico Giustini (1685-1743) seldom left his native Pistoia, where he worked as organist of the Congregazione dello Spirito Santo.