Cyril Amenti's Coin

Cellist Christophe Coin has embarked on a project to record all of Vivaldi’s cello concertos. With this third instalment (the sixty-first volume of the naïve label’s complete Vivaldi Edition) he now has twenty cello concertos under his belt. Christophe Coin has become a noted authority in the work of the brilliant, tirelessly prolific Venetian composer, performing it with a host of different ensembles, such as L’Onda Armonica, the ensemble founded by Sergio Azzolini. As with the first two volumes he alternates between the cello and the violoncello piccolo, providing a palette of highly varied sound colours.

Les dictionnaires de musique du XIXe siècle signalent tous l’importance de Gross comme violoncelliste et compositeur. Il est injustement absent de ceux d’aujourd’hui. Son oeuvre de plus de 43 opus est composée principalement de musiques pour le violoncelle, de pièces pour piano, de lieder et de quatre quatuors à cordes.

The present album, number nine in Eric le Sage’s valiant Schumann edition, is devoted to the trios with piano, a favourite formation of the 19th Century that combines the economy of chamber music with the prestige of instrumental music. He is accompanied by regular partners Gordan Nikolitch and Christophe Coin with a guest appearance from Paul Meyer on clarinet for Op. 56.

This recording is something of a classic of the historical-performance movement. It combines awesome soloists just hitting their peak years, a distinctive overall approach from conductor Christophe Coin and the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, and an illustration of what's possible when Bach's music is played on the instruments he had in mind when he wrote it. The illustration is especially vivid in this case, for all three of these cantatas feature an unusual instrument: a violoncello piccolo, which is a small five-stringed cello with a higher (the extra string is at the top) and less assertive sound than a full-size cello. There is also a second disc of these with the same forces and the same virtues. Coin plays several of these instruments himself and forges an instrumental sound to match its light, ethereal quality.

Born into a long line of musicians, some of whom officiated at the court of Versailles, Boëly was first taught from the age of five by his father, a countertenor at the Sainte-Chapelle who was also a composer, teacher and author of a treatise on harmony influenced by Rameau. In 1796, he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study under Guérillot (violin) and Ladurner (piano), who introduced him to Bach, Haydn and Clementi. His formal education was of short duration, however, since he was forced to leave the conservatory in 1800. From then on, he taught himself, reading the old masters to cultivate his personal tastes and develop his style, which was out of sync with that of the audiences of his time who preferred patriotic or Italian works to his overly classicist offerings.

Directeur musical de l'Ensemble Baroque de Limoges depuis 1991, violoncelliste et gambiste de renommée internationale, soliste, chef d'orchestre et chercheur, Christophe Coin est reconnu comme l'un des plus mûrs et des plus créatifs musiciens de son époque. Il est fondateur du Quatuor Mosaïques, l'un des rares Quatuors à pouvoir fêter ses vingt ans d'existence.