Carmignola Bach

Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin are pinnacles of the repertoire—beautiful, mysterious works that test a violinist’s technical and musical skills to their limits. It’s music that’s perfectly suited to Giuliano Carmignola, one of today’s great Baroque performers. His playing has a beguiling rhythmic freedom that highlights the music’s spontaneity and an expressiveness that penetrates its soul. The Presto from the Sonata No. 1, one of Bach’s most exhilarating movements, is a thrilling ride, while the tender Sarabande from Partita No. 1 sings and sighs. And the Chaconne from the second partita, an astonishing 14-minute set of 32 variations, emerges glorious, noble, and majestic—a miracle of Baroque performance.

In November 2004 a new name caused listeners to prick up their ears on the international orchestral scene: under Claudio Abbado’s artistic guidance the Orchestra Mozart came into being. It combines both young instrumentalists on the threshold of a first-rate career as well as eminent chamber musicians such as Danusha Waskiewicz, Alois Posch, Jacques Zoon, Michaela Petri, Ottavio Dantone, Mario Brunello, Alessio Allegrini, Jonathan Williams and Reinhold Friedrich. As with his famous Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado hand-picked an ensemble to his liking, this time one of early- and Baroque-music specialists, all masters in their field.

In tandem with the “Vivaldian ardour” (International Record Review) of conductor-harpsichordist Andrea Marcon and his Venice Baroque Orchestra, violinist Giuliano Carmignola – “a wonderfully accomplished player” (Gramophone) – has raised the bar on recordings of the Venetian Baroque master. This 7-CD set contains many of Vivaldi’s most engaging concertos, enlivened with playing “full of character, energy and sensibility” (BBC Music Magazine) – including “a performance of the Four Seasons as fine as any” (ClassicsToday). It also features Carmignola and Marcon presenting the complete Bach Violin and Harpsichord Sonatas

Carmignola’s fiery and successful “Vivaldi con moto” is followed by a more subtle and traditional Bach Concerto recording, a Co-Production between Deutsche Grammophon and Deutschlandfunk. Carmignola and Concerto Koln bring new and outstanding colors into this often recorded repertoire, and their temperamental performance introduces a sparkling and thrilling interpretation of Bach’s concertos. Carmignola is a unique artist and one of today’s most charismatic and captivating violinists, prompting The Strad to say “Timing is everything, and Carmignola has the timing of Sinatra. Rubato, portamento, pauses, tight-rope showmanship.” For the Double Concerto, Carmignola is joined by Mayumi Hirasaki on the first violin.

An eminent interpreter of Vivaldi, Giuliano Carmignola has always had a great affinity with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, as can be heard in his landmark recordings of the Violin Sonatas with Andrea Marcon (2002), the Violin Concertos with Concerto Köln (2014, Diapason d'or), and the Sonatas & Partitas (2018), which Gramophone judged to be "a first-rate choice among the recordings of these works on period instruments, despite the competition”. Carmignola’s latest project took shape during the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and offers a new and sometimes experimental reading of Bach’s Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso, in which he highlights new details and exalts the choreatic character and the brilliance of many of the suites’ movements.