Albinoni Pachelbel Deutsche Grammophone

Tomaso Albinoni - Sinfonie a Cinque op.2
Ensemble 415 / Chiara Banchini
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 286 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Zig-Zag # ZZT 090202 | Country/Year: France 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…If that's not enticement enough, suffice it is to say Zig Zag Territories' Albinoni: Sinfonie a Cinque, Op. 2, is urgently recommended for those afflicted with a taste of high-quality Baroque music and will happily appeal to less specialized musical interests who just want to hear something pleasing, yet substantial.

One of the darkest corners of Tomaso Albinoni's worklist is his chamber music. Albinoni's Opus 2, published in 1700, is particularly problematical, as half of its 12 numbers are chamber sonatas and the other half consists of concertos, chamber concertos to be sure, but the very word concerto is often taken automatically to mean orchestral music. T

If we think of Albinoni beyond the ubiquitous and apocryphal Adagio (not so much arranged as concocted by a 20thcentury musicologist, Giazotto), we may remember collections of lively oboe and violin concertos, maybe also some trio sonatas and works featuring solo flute and trumpet. But Albinoni, the composer of cantatas and operas?
This quartet of Italian musicians puts the record straight with a new recording of secular cantatas. In fact Albinoni married a soprano, Margherita Raimondi, and apparently had a fine singing voice himself.

Johann Pachelbel (baptised 1 September 1653 – buried 9 March 1706) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era.

Arguably Pachelbel's masterpiece, "Apollo's Lyre" is a series of six arias, each of which consists of a set of highly contrasted variations on the initial theme. As a composer, Pachelbel was perhaps most interested in the variation principal, in direct contrast to his great successor, Bach, who used the form only rarely (but then typically wrote the greatest variation work ever–the "Goldberg Variations"). The musical argument is easy to follow, and the tunes themselves simple and memorable. John Butt frames the work with two mighty chaconnes. A chaconne is basically the same thing as a passacaglia, namely a series of variations over a constantly repeating bass line. Try this disc. You're in for a pleasant surprise.

Tomaso Albinoni is one of the greatest composers of the Italian Baroque, together with Vivaldi, Corelli and Locatelli. The greatest part of his works however is mostly unknown. Therefore, Brilliant Classics plans to issue a substantial series of his works, starting with this first recording of the complete Trattenimenti Armonici. A series of 12 sonatas, for violin, cello and instrumental ensemble, in Sonata da Chiesa style: small scale, alternating fast and slow movements. The violin has a leading role in the typically Italian vocal writing of the solo part.

This is a fine recording of the complete set of concertos for strings with solo violin and harpsichord by Tomaso Albinoni, performed by I Solisti Veneti directed by Claudio Scimone. Albinoni was a contemporary of the better-known Antonio Vivaldi and wrote concertos in a similar style. String instruments much as we know them today were developed in Cremona in the 17th and 18th centuries by three families in particular - Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari - to replace the viols that had been used in the previous centuries. As a result there were several composers, in Italy especially but also elsewhere in Europe, who composed works for these exciting new-sounding instruments.

Pachelbel - Canon & Gigue; Bach, Handel, Vivaldi
Musica Antiqua Köln - Reinhard Goebel
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 371 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Archiv Produktion # 447 285-2 | Country/Year: Germany 1995, 1983
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

"…As it stands, this is an issue that can be warmly recommended musically and technically without reservation—except perhaps to those who hanker after rich Romantic tone and find the characteristic sound of baroque violins wiry. Even they, however, could not fail to be stirred by the enormous vitality of these performances: the word 'routine' simply doesn't seem to exist in the vocabulary of this splendid team of virtuosi. Its Vivaldi, which brings home the point that the Folies d'Espagne was (as its name implies) originally a frenzied dance, is in itself worth getting the disc for; 'the' Pachelbel canon played in the proper style might wean slush-wallowers away from the soupiness in which it is usually drenched; but the Handel trio sonata (incorporating themes from various stage works) is also a delight; and the glorious sense of controlled freedom which permeates the Bach, meticulously phrased and stylishly ornamented, uplifts the spirit." ~Grammophone

The artistry of Holliger (b1939) prompted Evelyn Rothwell (Lady Barbirolli) to call him 'The Paganini of the oboe' Holliger's mastery of the oboe ranges over a vast expanse of repertoire, from the baroque to contemporary – Bach to Berio and Zelenka to Zimmermann. His style is notable for its flexibility, agility, integrity and ability to communicate convincingly across the wide range of repertoire he performs. Holliger has done much to champion the oboe music of composers such as Zelenka and Krommer, and has also had over 100 works composed for him by composers including Berio, Carter, Henze, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Penderecki and Stockhausen.