Vivaldi 12 Sonatas

All six of Corelli's published collections of instrumental music demonstrate his exceptional skill as a violinist and composer, but it was in his Violin Sonatas Op. 5 that Corelli had the most significant impact on violin technique. The Op. 5 collection consists of 11 sonatas and a 12th sonata with a series of 23 variations on the famous 'Follia' theme. All 12 pieces contain a variety of difficult violin techniques.

The revival of the viola d'amore as an instrument distinct and separate from the viola is a well-established phenomenon, advanced by composers and performers alike at least since the 1920s. That doesn't mean, however, that there are a great many players of the viola d'amore around, nor are there nearly as many viola d'amores in existence to play, at least in a quantity relative to the number of violas that are out there. It is certainly an odd duck instrument; it has six or seven strings and a rank of sympathetic strings that vibrate along with the player, it puts out rich harmonics and has a mellow, somewhat nasal sound. Although it has earned a considerable number of nods from twentieth-century composers, its historical repertory is relatively small; Attilio Ariosti remains the all-time champion among Baroque composers for the viola d'amore, having written 21 sonatas for the instrument. Next in line is Antonio Vivaldi, with eight concertos and four arias with viola d'amore used in a concertante format. This Virgin Classics disc, Vivaldi: Concerto per Viola D'amore contains all of these concerti, of which the last is a double concerto for viola d'amore and lute, and these are performed by the group that probably constituted the state of the art in Vivaldi interpretation in 2007, Fabio Biondi's Europa Galante.

This disc contains some sonatas for wind instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach from his years in Weimar (1708-17) and Cöthen (1717-23), having in common – as they have come down to us or as several musicologists have proposed – their being intended for the recorder and/or the oboe. The interchangeability of instrumentation, linked to different creative periods, to practical contingencies, and to the inexhaustible desire for perfection that induced the genius of Eisenach, according to the testimony of his earliest biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, to continually revise his own works, often makes it difficult to go beyond their sterile catalogue dates in tracing their evolution. For this reason an experimental approach was chosen here, to bring back to their presumably original state what today is a handful of works, which were part of a much larger repertory. Chamber music was becoming the composer’s principal occupation in the time period under consideration, which was decisive in the progress of Bach’s career from organist to Konzertmeister (1714) and then to Kapellmeister of a Calvinist court (1717) essentially devoted to the cultivation of secular music.

One of the most creative talents to emerge in the field of period performance over the last decade, Rachel Podger has established herself as a leading interpreter of the music of the Baroque and Classical periods.

Jean Zewalt Triemer - Six Cello Sonatas [1745]
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG (burned CD rip) | front+back cover | 412 MB | RS
Recorded: Apr. 2002, Brisbane, CA, USA | Released: 2004 [2003] | Label: Magnatune | TT: 73:44
Ensemble Mirable (Joanna Blendulf - baroque cello | JungHae Kim - harpsichord)

Triemer's sonatas aren't just empty music written to educate other cellists, or to edify wealthy patrons as background music; it has substance, but its effect is very subtle - movements seem longer than they are, and the overall sense of time passing in this music is slowed down. Blendulf gracefully and carefully traverses through this music like a tightrope walker, parasol in hand […] (Uncle Dave Lewis, allmusic.com)

Michelle Barzel Ross is an Iraqi(Mizrahi)-American violinist, composer, and improviser. A protégé of Itzhak Perlman, Michelle is known for her debut album, pop-up project and blog Discovering Bach: Complete Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach. A gifted improviser across genres, Michelle is featured on Movement 11’ of the GRAMMY winning Best Album of the Year: We Are, by Jon Batiste. This season, Michelle has the honor of performing with the Juilliard String Quartet as guest first violinist for their winter International and US tours, while Areta Zhulla is on maternity leave.