Solo

Johann Jakob Walther was one of the most significant violinists in Germany in the generation before Johann Sebastian Bach, and Bojan Čičić believes his music should be essential listening for anyone seeking a fuller understanding of Bach’s polyphonic writing for the instrument. Having built their reputation with a series of Delphian recordings focussing on "missing link" composers, Čičić and his Illyria Consort are passionate about bringing Walther’s collection of Scherzi da violino to the wider audience it deserves. This first complete recording displays the sheer ambition of Walther’s opus, with highlights including his demonstration of the violin’s polyphonic potential in the D major Sonata (No. III); the joyful playfulness of the end of No. IV; the inventiveness of the Imitatione del cuccu; and – Bojan Čičić’s personal favourite – the dramatic melancholy of the final Aria in E minor.

Alongside his success directing the ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria, Gunar Letzbor has not let up on demonstrating his talents as a violinist. After the recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas the 12 Fantasias by Georg Philipp Telemann present him again completely “a solo”. Telemann’s Fantasias for Solo Violin are reflections both of his full maturity as a composer and of being highly proficient violinist himself, with the exceptionally prolific and enormously busy composer publishing sets of fantasias for solo instruments – flute, viola da gamba as well as violin – without basso continuo in Hamburg in the 1730s. The 12 Fantasias recorded here are written for an unaccompanied instrument and manage to embrace both the long established style for polyphony in German violin music – with fugues and multi-part writing for the violin – and more modern trends – galanterien and Italian sonata and concerto influences. Gunar Letzbor plays a Sebastian Klotz violin from the eighteenth century.

The mandolin reached prominence as a solo instrument in the 17th century when it began to appear in operas and oratorios, and in chamber and solo repertoire. Amongst the most prominent composers for the instrument were Niccolò Ceccherini and Pietro Cappellini, masters of polyphony. But it was Filippo Sauli’s Sei partite, composed for the four-course mandolin, that constitute a body of work unique in early 18th-century mandolin repertoire – a kaleidoscopic digest of different styles and influences that combine French and Italian traditions in music of exquisite taste and expressive beauty. Born in L’Aquila in 1992, Davide Ferella has appeared as soloist at several Italian festivals, performing with groups such as I Virtuosi Italiani. He has collaborated with the Teatro alla Scala di Milano and Teatro Comunale di Bologna. A keen scholar, he is dedicated to the rediscovery of the mandolin repertoire from the 17th and 18th centuries. In 2019 he founded the early music ensemble Accademia degli Erranti, of which he is also the artistic director; in July 2020, Dynamic published their first recording, ‘Tiranni affetti, Works for mandolin and voice’, entirely dedicated to the works of Florentine composer Carlo Arrigoni.

Above the album worked the 'Kim Miyoung - J.S. Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo BWV 1001-1006, Violinist Kim Miyoung', and his release took place on 2020. The album has got songs with a total duration of more than an hour. A compilation is a compilation of original music.

Ukrainian violinist Iryna Gintova performs Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Solo Violin, one of the pinnacles of the Baroque repertoire for the instrument. Telemann’s 12 Fantasias embrace an array of European styles fashionable at the time, including Italianate concerto-style movements inspired by Corelli, contrasted with pieces in the French style. Telemann was an able, self-taught violinist and relished showcasing the instrument’s varied colours and techniques in these works, including multiple stopping, implied counterpoint, improvisatory lines, and tussles between traditional Baroque intricacy with newer, lighter and more forward-looking virtuoso melodies. Iryna Gintova performs these wide-ranging works with the nuance and fluidity for which she is increasingly known in performances that have taken her to major venues, competitions and festivals around the world.

Minuets, sarabands, bourrées, gigues, gavottes, hornpipes and polonaises. Like many other composers, Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) used dance as a foundation for his compositions and this is no more evident than in his fantasias for flute, where we find several examples. Although the music is written for neither the ballroom, theatre nor opera, references to the baroque French court dance are clear and abundant. The music therefore invites something more than a pure listening experience, also evoking movement and corporeal responses.

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 and Partitas (2018), which Gramophone judged to be "a first-rate choice among the recordings of these works on period instruments, despite the competition”.

Dans ce projet de plus de deux heures de musiques, accompagnées d’un bonus cinématographique spécial, Cyprien Katsaris nous plonge dans l’univers plein de surprises de Camille Saint-Saëns pour son 100ème anniversaire, au travers de transcriptions parfois rares de grandes œuvres symphoniques et de quelques pièces originales.