Vivaldi Sonata

Ensemble 415 is a chamber ensemble devoted largely to the performance of Baroque music on period instruments. The numerical reference in the group's name derives from the pitch used for tuning instruments in the Baroque era. In performing chamber music, Ensemble 415 consists of just a few players, but for larger compositions, the number expands to a minimum of 13 and can reach up to as high as 40 performers. The ensemble's repertory has been broad over the years, taking in many Baroque standards by J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel, as well as lesser known fare by Muffat and others.

Antonio Vivaldi - Sonata a tre 'La Follia'
Ensemble 415 / Chiara Banchini
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 367 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # HMG 501366 | Country/Year: France 2008, 1991
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

"Ensemble 415 is a chamber ensemble devoted largely to the performance of Baroque music on period instruments. The numerical reference in the group's name derives from the pitch used for tuning instruments in the Baroque era. In performing chamber music, Ensemble 415 consists of just a few players, but for larger compositions, the number expands to a minimum of 13 and can reach up to as high as 40 performers. The ensemble's repertory has been broad over the years, taking in many Baroque standards by J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel, as well as lesser known fare by Muffat and others…"

Good recordings of Vivaldi’s first printed opus are hard to come by. The set lacks the distinctive imprint of what we understand and recognize as Vivaldian, yet the pieces have great charm if handled sensitively and imaginatively. These have long been virtuous features in Monica Huggett’s playing: her gently inflected approach to the music, shared by the other members of Sonnerie, is a constant pleasure, and is heard to great advantage in the many beguiling slow movements of which the Largo and Sarabanda of Op. 1 No. 4 immediately spring to mind.

Good recordings of Vivaldi’s first printed opus are hard to come by. The set lacks the distinctive imprint of what we understand and recognize as Vivaldian, yet the pieces have great charm if handled sensitively and imaginatively. These have long been virtuous features in Monica Huggett’s playing: her gently inflected approach to the music, shared by the other members of Sonnerie, is a constant pleasure, and is heard to great advantage in the many beguiling slow movements of which the Largo and Sarabanda of Op. 1 No. 4 immediately spring to mind.

These works, often thought of in terms of being ‘immature’, are currently under recorded. This is a pity because although lacking in the depth of Vivaldi’s next opus, the masterwork ‘L’Estro armonico’, these sonatas are sophisticated and artful studies.

It is now generally accepted that Vivaldi wrote ten cello sonatas – one of them now lost. Six (RV 47, 41, 43, 45, 40 and 46) of the surviving nine were published posthumously as a set, in Paris, by Charles-Nicolas Le Clerc around 1740. The other three survive in manuscript collections: RV 42 (along with RV 46) is preserved in the library at Wiesentheid Castle at Unterfranken in Germany; RV 39 and 44 (along with RV 47) are to be found in a manuscript in the Naples Conservatoire.
Geminiani’s opus 5 consists of six cello sonatas, and was first published in Paris in 1746. The twenty years either side of 1740 saw the cello rise to a very fashionable position in French musical society, largely at the expense of the bass-viol – a change of fashion which stirred such strong emotions that in 1740 Hubert Le Blanc published his fierce Defense de la basse de viole contre les entreprises du violon et les pretensions du violencel. Music such as that by Vivaldi and Geminiani which is played here by Roel Dieltiens and his colleagues must have made a powerful counter-case for the cello.

Discovered by Michael Talbot in 1973, the 12 sonatas of the Manchester manuscript are generally considered the high point of the composer’s chamber music. They are performed here by Fabio Biondi, one of the most authoritative Vivaldi performers, accompanied by an allstar continuo group: Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rolf Lislevand, Paolo Pandolfo and Maurizio Naddeo.