Music

Born in Torino in 1967, Alfredo Franco was involved in non-classical music in his youth before taking up the classical guitar. He then undertook advanced studies in the historical and critical fields in the Department for Art, Music and Theatre of the University of Turin. He would later abandon concert activity as a performer and focus instead on composition. His now prolific classical guitar output has been well received by important interpreters such as Cristiano Porqueddu and increasingly programmed on the stage and in the studio.

David Pohle was one of Heinrich Schütz's most talented pupils although, unlike his master, Pohle did not compose only sacred vocal works; he also created a substantial body of instrumental music, including some thirty sonatas for four to eight instruments and a number of ballet suites. Pohle was very much an heir to the polyphonic tradition and was certainly influenced by the playing of Italian violinists, and particularly so by Carlo Farina, who lived in Dresden at that time. Pohle not only made use of Italian influences but also adapted models from French dance music: this explains the great diversity of structures in these sonatas, which in some respects also herald the outbursts of the stylus fantasticus. This is a revelatory first recording of Pohle’s complete sonatas.