Locatelli L'arte Del Violino Carmignola

When considering the first set of compositions designed to truly extend and test the technical limits of the violin, most would first consider the 24 Caprices of Paganini. However, more than a century before Paganini was even thought of, Italian composer Pietro Locatelli was pushing the violin to its limits with his four concertos of Opus 3, subtitled the "Art of the Violin."

This box set collects four individual albums of the early '90s by veteran historical-instrument violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch and the Raglan Baroque Players, each containing three of the 12 violin concertos included here. The box, although not issued in Hyperion's budget Helios series, is offered at a cut-rate price. Locatelli was a pure virtuoso; he was no Vivaldi, and these works had one purpose and one only: to display his nearly unthinkable capabilities on the violin. As such, the entire set may be of more interest to performers and specialists than to general listeners; three CDs of Locatelli are bit much.

"For this Album I choosed three different violins with bows to match have helped to maintain the performance authentic throughout the program."

In his music, Locatelli pushes the boundaries of the violin technique with an unprecedented virtuoso and at times romantic vision. The frequent use of exceptional high positions on the violin, many daredevil antics in the left hand including double stops and extended stretches, and the exploration of hitherto rarely used bow techniques, makes him a true pioneer for the violin and the development of violin technique in general…

Published in 1733, Pietro Locatelli’s L'Arte del violino for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo took both violin technique and the solo concerto as a genre into a whole new realm. The twelve concertos included in the collection also played a part in forming the image of the violin virtuoso, reaching its full bloom with Paganini towards the end of the century. While the unusually high technical demands of the solo part are obvious to the listener from the start, the great surprise comes at the end of the first and third movements of each of the concertos. Here Locatelli inserts Capriccios for the soloist alone of a difficulty previously unheard of, with a left hand technique making use of extensions, octaves, unprepared tenths, double and triple stopping, arpeggios and double trills.