Gábor Boldoczki / Cappella Gabetta / Andres Gabetta VERSAILLES

VERSAILLES

 

Jana Semerádová / Erich Traxler CHACONNE FOR THE PRINCESS

                                                  CHACONNE FOR THE PRINCESS

Ashley Solomon THE SPOHR COLLECTION

                                                     THE SPOHR COLLECTION

Dmitry Sinkovsky / Il Pomo D'Oro VIRTUOSISSIMO

                                                                   VIRTUOSISSIMO

Leila Schayegh / La Cetra Barockorchester Basel JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR Concerti per Violino Opp. 7 & 10 - Nos. 2 & 6

                                   CONCERTI PER VIOLINO OPP. 7 & 10 - NOS. 2 & 6

Leila Schayegh / La Cetra Barockorchester Basel JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR Concerti per Violino Opp. 7 & 10 - Nos. 1 & 3

                                    CONCERTI PER VIOLINO OPP. 7 & 10 - NOS. 1 & 3

Chantal Santon-Jeffery / Purcell Choir / Orfeo Orchestra / György Vashegyi BRILLEZ, ASTRES NOUVEAUX!

                                                   BRILLEZ, ASTRES NOUVEAUX!

Lucile Boulanger LES DÉFIS DE MR. FORQUERAY

In her debut recording for harmonia mundi, Lucile Boulanger explores the facets of Antoine Forqueray’s career as a virtuoso instrumentalist: adept in a wide range of Italian repertoire and skilled at transcribing works originally intended for the violin, he could try it on for size, as it were, before settling on a different medium.

With the viola da gamba, he extended the technique of playing it far beyond the norm, confronting the performer with fiendishly difficult challenges… which have been met brilliantly by the hugely talented foursome heard here.

Fantasticus SONNERIE & OTHER PORTRAITS

This is a most delightful recital of early-18th-century French Baroque chamber music. The works have been carefully chosen and comprise solos as well as trios. Although some of the works will be relatively unfamiliar to listeners (particularly the Dornel and Francoeur), there are still more of similar calibre waiting to be recorded. This single CD-length programme – only available as a download – could thus easily be added to, an observation prompted by the high standard of playing heard here.

Fantasticus was formed specifically to explore the excesses, shall we say, inherent in the Baroque style and present in some of the chamber music of the late 17th and 18th centuries, as well as to experiment with the limits of associated performing practices. Each member of the trio is a polished period player. Their performances are confident, stylish, beautifully articulated and convey a sense of genuine rapport. This is only their second release, so we have much to look forward to.

All of the composers represented here were equally well known as fine performers in their day. They held posts at the Paris Opéra and at the courts of Louis XIV and XV. The intimate scale of the music on this disc belongs to the salons where French aristocrats indulged themselves and their friends with private performances of virtuoso works, music that was nearly always new and had a certain edge.

Originally a literary genre, portraiture in music was subsequently explored by composers such as Couperin, Marais and Rameau. This recording includes three portraits of the Forqueray family: the Dornel Sonata undoubtedly celebrates Antoine’s penchant for playing Italian violin sonatas on the viol; the Rameau seems more likely to portray Antoine’s son and collaborator; and the mesmerising Duphly most certainly personifies the harpsichordist Marie-Rose Dubois, who was married to the son, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine. Definitely a collector’s item. (Julie Anne Sadie / Gramophone)

Chouchane Siranossian / Jos Van Immerseel L'ANGE & LE DIABLE

Jos Van Immerseel returns to chamber music and the accompaniment of young talents, two absolute priorities for him. In Chouchane Siranossian he has found a worthy partner, as gifted on the modern violin as she is on the Baroque instrument, a pupil of Tibor Varga, then of Zakhar Bron, as well as a disciple of Reinhard Goebel, whose first recording, on the Oehms label, attracted great attention (winning a ‘Diapason Découverte’). Here it is the Baroque violinist who engages in dialogue with the harpsichord of Jos Van Immerseel in a Franco-Italian program juxtaposing the music of the ‘Angel’ Leclair and the ‘Devil’ Locatelli, not forgetting Tartini’s famous ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata . . . Indeed, all this music is ‘devilishly’ difficult to play, but the Franco-Armenian violinist shows perfect mastery of it, combined with great inventiveness.

Fabio Biondi / Europa Galante JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR Violin Concertos Op.7 - Nos. 1, 3, 4 & 5

Jean-Marie Leclair epitomized the idea of an eighteenth-century virtuoso-composer, one whose compositional output largely reflects his activity as a performer. Whilst the French school possessed precursors such as Jean-Féry Rebel, it is very much to Leclair that it owes its genuine development. The virtuoso violinist became a highly sought-after teacher, and a full generation of musicians were recipients of his teaching.

Leclair published twelve concertos for violin in two sets, Op 7 (c.1737) and Op 10 (c.1743). The Op 7 collection, of which four concertos have been included in this recording, is without doubt partially made up of works which Leclair performed at the Concert Spirituel between 1728 and 1736.

Today, we are aware of the sytle employed by Leclair in his violin playing through his own writings and concert reviews from the time. His uncompromising ideal of performance is of a truly Appolonian nature: precision and integrity in execution, economy with the use of effects, accurate intonation and nobility of expression – all features brought to this new recording by Fabio Biondi and his already legendary ensemble, Europa Galante. The scholar Louis Castelain of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles provides the booklet notes. (Glossa Music)

John Holloway / Jaap ter Linden / Lars Ulrik Mortensen JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR Sonatas

Following his acclaimed recordings of sonatas by Biber, Schmelzer and Veracini and his no less lauded rendering of the complete unaccompanied works by Bach, British violinst John Holloway once again joins forces with his excellent partners Jaap ter Linden and Lars Ulrik Mortensen for an album of strikingly beautiful, yet little known chamber music from the baroque era. Jean-Marie Leclair (1697–1764) who trained as a dancer, lacemaker, violinist and composer and was murdered in Paris under obscure circumstances, laid the foundations for the French violin school. As a composer he is a master of mixed styles, providing a rare synthesis of Italian and French traits, of melodic beauty and dancelike vivacity. John Holloway has chosen sonatas from his “classical” period in which Leclair had gained a perfect balance of proportion, expressiveness and virtuosic display. (ECM Records) 

This came as quite a revelation. Choosing five sonatas from what he believes to be Leclair’s finest collection, and, along with his colleagues, performing them with deep understanding and expressive finesse, John Holloway makes a persuasive case for the French violinist as a major figure of 18th-century music. … All three players capture unerringly each movement’s rhetorical style, and are sensitive to the many expressive details of harmony and melody, while remaining natural and unaffected. … I urge you to listen. (Duncan Druce / Gramophone)