On two previous discs, London Baroque has explored the genre of the trio sonatas as it unfolded in 17th Century France and England. Both these issues have met with great acclaim: the English volume being described in Goldberg Magazine as ‘A programme of outstanding music … A gem of a disc’, while the French issue received top marks on German website Klassik Heute, with the following words: ‘Everything that one might possibly wish for in a performance of this music is present here: charm, elegance, eloquence, force, flexibility, fire, intimacy, and the most important: soul.’ The ensemble has now arrived in Germany, or more correctly: the German-speaking world of the time, as the programme also features works from the Low Countries and Austria.
This release is part of an eight-disc series by the small historical-instrument ensemble London Baroque, covering the entire history of the trio sonata in four countries (Italy, Germany, France, and England) over two centuries (17th and 18th). The series is more aimed at those with a strong interest in Baroque instrumental music than at general listeners, but several of them have been attractive for anyone, and this album falls into that group. It might well have come first in a chronological series, for it includes the very first works that might be called trio sonatas, the Sonata a tre of Giovanni Cima, published in 1610, and the Sonata a tre secuondo tono, from 1621.
London Baroque offers another installment in its ongoing European Trio Sonata series, this time devoted to 18th-century Italy; as with the ensemble’s previous efforts the program features generally excellent performances of lesser-known repertoire. Ten years ago I reviewed a similar 18th-century Italian program by this same group titled “Stravaganze Napoletane”, also on BIS, and was generally impressed with the performances–except for one piece: Domenico Gallo’s Sonata No. 1 in G major.
17th Century Wrocław (then Breslau) was one of Europe’s important musical centres. Its three main Protestant churches – St. Elisabeth, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Bernardine – collected extensive music libraries. Their repertoire was shaped both by prints imported from Italy and Germany, and by works composed by local cantors and organists employed in church ensembles. A separate collection of nearly 400 prints from 1610–55 remained in private hands. During World War II, however, they were taken away from the city and dispersed after 1945. Some items have not been found until now. The majority of the prints returned to Wrocław. Numerous manusripts were considered lost until the late 1980s, when they reappeared in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek. They found their way there from Moscow, where some items of the former Breslau library still remain.
18 keyboard sonatas from a little-known yet individual voice in the rapidly developing era between Bach and Mozart: music on the cusp of revolution.