Even in a field overcrowded with noteworthy editions of the Bach Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, these 1995 recordings maintain permanent status on my shelves. Fabio Biondi's fiddling is thoroughly steeped in the grammar of period performance yet avoids the exaggerated agogics, metronomic facelessness, and wimpy tonal qualities we often put up with in the name of authenticity. Abetted by Rinaldo Alessandrini's imaginative partnering, Biondi's characterful, singing sonority puts a fresh spin on every phrase. His improvised embellishments, no matter how audacious they sound at first, always arise out of an organic response to the music's spirit.
The marvelous voice of tenor Ian Bostridge could not be more perfect for this program of Bach cantatas and arias. Like Hans Hotter before him, Bostridge's voice has a unique ethereal quality, a hollow distance that identifies less with the character and more the spirit of the subject. His singing clearly captures the "disembodied presence", as Michel Roubinet aptly puts it in the booklet's notes, of the mortal somewhere between resignation of the world and the ultimate union with Christ–the theme that links every selection here.
This was the great collection of 12 varied and exciting violin concertos that turned Bach on to concerto writing. In fact, he transcribed several of these works for solo harpsichord, organ–even for harpsichords and orchestra. What fascinated him most was the balanced, three-movement form, the brilliance of the solo passages, the tunefulness of the music generally, and Vivaldi's seemingly inexhaustible storehouse of invention. When a composer ventured to publish a collection such as this, he was making a major statement. This is one of the really big ones in Baroque music, and it's performed with splendid authority and an unrivaled sense of sheer joy.
Fabio Biondi’s immense curiosity for characterful music – especially of forgotten scores from the Baroque – yields another fabulous surprise with Francesco Feo’s oratorio San Francesco di Sales. Feo’s reputation is at last starting to wax after having waned dramatically in the nineteenth century and thenceforward: in his own age he was compared very highly with Bach and Handel, and Charles Burney was moved to describe his vocal music as being “full of fire and invention and force in the melody and expression of the words”; Feo was also a boon companion of Pergolesi.
Alongside his success directing Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi's sixth CD for Glossa is the first to showcase his talents as a solo violinist.
Alessandro Scarlatti was only 24 and had just begun his enormously successful operatic career when he set a libretto by that great Roman patron of the arts, Cardinal Pamphili, on the subject of repentance and divine grace. It was performed before a distinguished audience by a small group of leading singers and instrumentalists of the day in March 1685—the year of the birth of Alessandro's son Domenico (in fact, as a matter of interest, three days before the birth of J. S. Bach). This simple little morality (oratorio is too grandiose a term for it) shows Magdalen torn between youthful pleasures and repentance for hedonistic living: the subject is treated in a sequence of extremely brief arias (and a few duets) and recitatives, which add up to a rather bitty effect, all the more because of seemingly haphazard key-sequences.
Bach's Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord hardly lack for excellent recorded versions in the period instrument department, including these sensitive and musicianly collaborations between Giuliano Carmignola and Andrea Marcon. Tempos rarely move faster than the music can sing, and cultivated vocalism characterizes Carmignola's sweet, silvery timbre, which differs from Andrew Manze's grittier approach. Indeed, you hardly notice Carmignola's bow arm at all in the way his long, sustained notes seem to materialize from within the harpsichord. A genuine give and take prevails as the musicians effortlessly adjust to each other's foreground and background roles.
There’s very little to say about this recording save throwing yet more encomiums Jordi Savall’s way: as with his other Bach recordings, this is a success. The warmly dark, coppery sound for which these forces are renowned is here in its full glory; Savall’s pacing is neither frenzied nor laborious; the audio clarity is stunning. Because Savall is such a renowned gamba player who has recruited great fellow string players to his projects (note one Fabio Biondi on violin), you might overlook stellar playing elsewhere in the ensemble. But there’s no way to ignore the wind section in the opening movement in the first suite: the exquisite phrasing and pitch-perfect tones demand to be heard (and heard repeatedly, at that), and the masterful playing becomes even more delightfully apparent in the extended oboe and bassoon solo in the same suite’s Bourée.