Bojan Cicic

Contemporary accounts of the violin playing of Antonio Vivaldi, the ‘Red Priest’, show the extent to which he raised the instrument to hitherto unknown extremes of soloistic virtuosity – able, in its spontaneity and sonorous brilliance, to hold its own against an orchestra in fiery and unforgettably dramatic confrontations.

Hearing guitarist Sean Shibe’s Bach recital, recorded in Delphian’s fifteenth-century Scottish venue, Baroque violinist Bojan Čičić was inspired during the first lockdown to begin recording Bach’s iconic Partitas and Sonatas. Amid the gloom of the pandemic and restrictions on performances, Čičić travelled north – when allowed – to explore the intense rigours of Bach’s fugues and shining virtuosity of the Partitas’ fast movements.

In March 1575, a party led by the Venetian diplomat Giacomo Soranzo set out on a mission to Constantinople. They sailed down the Istrian coast, along the length of present-day Croatia, and on to the Bay of Kotor. Much of the land they passed was the territory of the Serenissima – inhabited by both Italians and Slavs, and of strategic importance since it was exposed to constant Turkish threats from the Balkan hinterland.

Giovanni Giornovich was one of the most colourful and popular violin virtuosos of his day. Apparently of Croatian descent, he was seemingly known by a different name in every country he toured (Ivan Jarnović and Giovanni Giornovichi, among some thirty variants), deliberately making the most of his mysterious origins.

Hearing guitarist Sean Shibe’s Bach recital, recorded in Delphian’s fifteenth-century Scottish venue, Baroque violinist Bojan Čičić was inspired during the first lockdown to begin recording Bach’s iconic Partitas and Sonatas. Amid the gloom of the pandemic and restrictions on performances, Čičić travelled north – when allowed – to explore the intense rigours of Bach’s fugues and shining virtuosity of the Partitas’ fast movements.

Though better known as a virtuoso keyboard player, as a young man Handel also trained as a violinist. His works for violin and harpsichord, says essayist Donald Burrows, ‘do not attract attention by flashy virtuosity: rather, they are flowing and agreeable chamber music, in which the violinist is in musical conversation with the keyboard player’.

Though better known as a virtuoso keyboard player, as a young man Handel also trained as a violinist. His works for violin and harpsichord, says essayist Donald Burrows, ‘do not attract attention by flashy virtuosity: rather, they are flowing and agreeable chamber music, in which the violinist is in musical conversation with the keyboard player’.

Though better known as a virtuoso keyboard player, as a young man Handel also trained as a violinist. His works for violin and harpsichord, says essayist Donald Burrows, ‘do not attract attention by flashy virtuosity: rather, they are flowing and agreeable chamber music, in which the violinist is in musical conversation with the keyboard player’.

Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) releases the penultimate volume of an acclaimed project to record Mozart’s complete works for keyboard and orchestra. This volume includes Mozart’s Concerto No. 7 for Three Pianos and Orchestra, performed here uniquely on three different types of keyboard instruments: by Robert Levin (tangent piano), Ya-Fei Chuang (fortepiano) and Laurence Cummings (harpsichord). It follows the release of the same concerto in Mozart’s own arrangement for two keyboards (Vol. 11) and is joined on this album by two other Piano Concertos composed in Salzburg in the early months of 1776.