Giovanni Sollima / Monika Leskovar / Arianna Art Ensemble GIOVANNI BATTISTA COSTANZI Sinfonie per Violoncello

With one disc of cello sonatas by Giovanni Battista Costanzi behind him, Giovanni Sollima has decided to provide further proof of how Costanzi has hitherto been a woefully neglected but exciting compositional voice from that nebulous period between Baroque and Classical. With this new disc of Sinfonie per violoncello from Glossa, Sollima demonstrates once more the melodic inventiveness and harmonic liberty to which Costanzi was given together with a virtuoso’s capacity to relish the technical demands imposed by a Roman musician who was clearly also a star player on the instrument himself.

Together with the Arianna Art Ensemble Sollima has recorded five sinfonias for cello and continuo, and a sonata for two cellos by Costanzi where he is joined once again by Monika Leskovar. If the four movement sonata da chiesa structure favoured by Corelli is still apparent in some of these sinfonias, there is a greater openness to the galante style and influences coming from elsewhere in Europe and from across Italy, for all that Costanzi may have not ventured far outside the Eternal City (it is likely also that he taught the young Boccherini, who had made the considerable journey from Lucca for lessons with “Giovannino del Violoncelo”).

A new composition (The Hunting Sonata) by Sollima himself – another cellist-composer – takes off from Costanzi’s almost programmatic Sonata for two cellos, “ad uso di corni da caccia”. (GLOSSA)

Giovanni Sollima / Monika Leskovar / Arianna Art Ensemble GIOVANNI BATTISTA COSTANZI Sonate per Violoncello

The inspired decision by cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima to investigate the instrumental music of his eighteenth-century counterpart, Giovanni Battista Costanzi, is yielding its first recording with a new Glossa release of cello sonatas.

Costanzi’s place in the history of the cello has all but slipped from view and yet his solo cello sonatas display a remarkable freshness in handling the late Baroque sonata genre as instigated by Arcangelo Corelli. They also impose substantial technical demands upon the soloist – including playing in the instrument’s highest register – making powerful use of the cello’s expressive capabilities. Five sonatas scored for cello and continuo have been selected by Giovanni Sollima for this recording, the first to assess this aspect of the Roman composer’s output.

Not content with attending to Costanzi’s works Giovanni Sollima composes one of his own – Il mandataro – which reflects the labours of an apparently marginal member of the Roman court in the time of Costanzi’s patron, Cardinal Ottoboni: a courier or messenger charged with keeping the musicians informed of their duties. Sollima, who has previously recorded Neapolitan cello concertos for Glossa (backed by Antonio Florio and I Turchini), is joined for this new recording by fellow cellist Monika Leskovar (a pair of the sonatas are for two cellos) and the Arianna Art Ensemble. Scholar Imma Battista supplies pertinent biographical information for this overlooked Baroque composer. (GLOSSA)