Mario Brunello / Gidon Kremer / Kremerata Baltica SEARCHING FOR LUDWIG

SEARCHING FOR LUDWIG

 

Patricia Kopatchinskaja / Giovanni Antonini / Il Giardino Armonico WHAT'S NEXT VIVALDI?

WHAT'S NEXT VIVALDI?

Daniel Rowland / Maja Bogdanović PAS DE DEUX

                                                                   PAS DE DEUX

Mari Samuelsen / Håkon Samuelsen JAMES HORNER Pas de Deux

Pas de Deux is not a James Horner score for an unknown film but a freestanding composition, being billed as his first foray into classical music since the 1980s. Leaving aside the question of whether film scores qualify as classical music, it seems pretty clear that those who like Horner in general will like this work. Here and elsewhere, he does one thing well -- lush romanticism -- and does it very, very well. His economy of gesture, which makes one wonder why neutral arpeggios are having such an emotional impact, is fully in evidence here, and the configuration of forces, with lots to do for the two soloists, produces film score-like textures. The Norwegian violin-and-cello duo of Mari and Håkon Samuelson commissioned Pas de Deux, and though it is being promoted as the first major double concerto for violin and cello since Brahms, Horner himself has described the piece as a composition for violin and cello with orchestral accompaniment rather than as a true concerto. For all that, Pas de Deux does not really resemble Horner's film scores musically. It has elements that suggests what might have happened had Vaughan Williams somehow lived long enough to become enamored of minimalism, and it shows that Horner has been keenly aware of contemporary crossover directions. The work is performed here by the Samuelsens and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko, the forces that premiered the work in 2014, and it's safe to say that their work reflects the composer's intentions. The album is filled out with works by Arvo Pärt (the protean Fratres), Giovanni Sollima, and Ludovico Einaudi, whose Divenire also features the violin-cello combination. Horner can hold his own with any of them, and listeners who imagine sun-drenched meadows while listening to Pas de Deux will have a very good time with it. (James Manheim)

Sentieri Selvaggi LE SETTE STELLE

Sentieri Selvaggi is an Italian musical ensemble, specialising in contemporary music.

It was founded in 1997 by Carlo Boccadoro, Filippo Del Corno and Angelo Miotto. The ensemble has worked with composers such as Ludovico Einaudi, Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, Fabio Vacchi, David Lang, James MacMillan, Lorenzo Ferrero, Ivan Fedele and Louis Andriessen.

Sentieri Selvaggi has been a regular guest at Italian musical festivals including Teatro Alla Scala, Venice Biennale and MITO Music September, as well as at Italian cultural events including the Literary Festival at Mantua and the Science Festival at Genoa, and at international festivals including the Bang On A Can Marathon in New York City and the SKIF Festival in Saint Petersburg.

The group also organized a festival in Milan which since 2005 has become a contemporary music season with a program of concerts, public talks, and master classes. Every program focuses on a specific theme: in 2010 the title of the season is Nuovo Mondo (New World).

The ensemble has also staged chamber operas, including Io Hitler by Filippo Del Corno, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Michael Nyman and The Sound of a Voice by Philip Glass.

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)