Suonatori

Throughout a long and extremely productive career, Georg Philipp Telemann harboured a great affection for the overture-suite, consisting of a French overture followed by a number of dances and character movements. Tempering the rigid model inherited from the French tradition with his own rich powers of invention and playfulness, he remained true to the form long after it had gone out of fashion.

The opening Overture (Suite) in A minor is one of Telemann's most ambitious concerted works, running to seven distinct dance movements in 30 minutes. The rhythmic shifts in the "Air à l'Italien" are pretty abrupt and really catch your attention. Of the three concertos, the Double Concerto in A minor for flauto dolce and viola da gamba is a standout, owing to its occasionally explosive gestures and knotty emotionalism. All of these works have been recorded numerous times, but most commonly on the standard transverse flute, but only the F major concerto was originally written for flute, and many versions of the Overture in A minor show signs of having been somewhat condensed.

Johann Joachim Quantz, in his handbook for transverse flute written in 1752, wrote of the composer Georg Philipp Telemann: “I wish to especially recommend Telemann’s trios written in the French style, many of which he had already fashioned thirty or more years ago.” Georg Philipp Telemann not only gained the admiration of Quantz, but his pieces are still frequently performed and recorded today. For this album, his Concerto di camera in G minor, Double Concertos in A minor and E minor, and Suite in A minor have been recorded. Performing these timeless works are three outstanding period instrumentalists, Bolette Roed, Reiko Ichise, and Alexis Kossenko.

In Holland in the 1720s the transverse flute enjoyed considerable popularity among amateur musicians. Aware of that keen interest, the publisher Michel Le Cene decided in 1729 to present his customers with the very first collection of concertos for flute and orchestra. Vivaldi responded to his request by refurbishing several older works. Only one of them was already in the modern concerto form: the Concerto in F major for recorder and strings. Another four pieces were hybrid in form and still close to chamber works. The predominant role of the recorder or flute in those four concertos made them ideal for adaptation.

Noi non ci saremo, Vol. 1 is the first volume of a double collection of the Italian musical group Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti, published in 2001.

Linea Gotica è il secondo album in studio del Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti, pubblicato nel 1996. «Linea Gotica è un disco di chitarre elettrificate, perché questo è il suono del nostro tempo, per quanto detestabile possa essere questo suono e questo tempo.»(Giovanni Lindo Ferretti). L'album è presente nella classifica dei 100 dischi italiani più belli di sempre secondo Rolling Stone Italia alla posizione numero 8.

Composed during a few hectic weeks in the autumn of 1739, the set was partly intended by Handel – renowned mainly as a writer for singers and as an organist – to reinforce his stature as an instrumental composer. The result is music that exhibits a great variety of musical thought and invention, here interpreted by the highly acclaimed Polish ensemble Arte dei Suonatori making their third recording for BIS. The recordings are the fruit of a regular collaboration between the ensemble and French conductor Martin Gester, focusing on the baroque concerto.

In Venice in the 18th century, Christmas was celebrated as only Venetians know how to celebrate: according to one account, more wax was burnt to light up the three storeys of the Procuratie on Christmas Eve, than in all the rest of Italy in an entire year. At the same time, rather than being an independent feast – and as such, the most singularly important one of the year – the Venetian Christmas was also part of the city's famous Carnevale, which at this time lasted for almost six months. This lent a rather special character to the celebrations, compared with for instance the more clerically inclined Rome.

A long time ago, back in the 1970s, period instrument performances mostly sounded sweet and low down. Part of the reason for this was the catgut strings and the lower tuning, and part of the reason was that players seemed to prefer a mellower and rounder tone. But time passed and period instrument performances became more and more strident until they became nearly painful to listen to by the late '80s. Violinist Rachel Podger has recaptured the mellow sounds of yesterday by producing a warm and almost human sound with her 1739 Persarinius instrument.