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CD reviews
"Cabinet of Wonders, Vol. 2"
Kinga Ujszászi, violin;
Tom Foster, harpsichord
rec: May 12 - 14, 2021, London, Church of the Ascension, Plumstead
First Hand Records - FHR121 (© 2022) (57'15")
Liner-notes: E
Cover & track-list
Spotify
Henricus ALBICASTRO (c1660-1730):
Sonata in f minor ;
anon (?Girolamo Nicolò LAURENTI, 1678-1751):
Sonata in a minor;
anon (?Antonio MONTANARI, 1676-1737):
Sonata in f minor;
Martino BITTI (1655/56-1743):
'Dresden' Sonata No. 1 in C (TalB SV 9);
'Dresden' Sonata No. 4 in A (TalB SV12);
'Dresden' Sonata No. 5 in B flat (TalB SV13);
Carlo FIORELLI (c1673-?):
Sonata in g minor
Johann Georg Pisendel takes an important place in music history, not so much as a composer, but mainly in two other capacities. First, for many years he played a leading role in the court orchestra in Dresden, from 1730 until his death as its concertmaster, turning it into the most brilliant orchestra of its time. Second, he was an avid collector of music, and to him we owe many compositions which may have disappeared for ever, if he had not purchased or copied them. They are now preserved in the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden, as part of the so-called Schrank II.
From early on Pisendel had a lively interest in the Italian style, undoubtedly due to his teacher Giuseppe Torelli in Ansbach. When he was in Italy, in the retinue of Frederick Augustus, Crownprince of Saxony and son of his employer, who visited Venice as part of his grand tour, he took the opportunity to contact some of the leading representatives of the Italian style, such as Antonio Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni and Benedetto Marcello. He had the opportunity to visit other cities as well, such as Bologna and Rome. During his career he not only purchased music; he received music as a gift from Vivaldi and Albinoni, and copied many works that were performed at the court in Dresden and became part of the Schrank II collection. The disc under review offers seven such pieces.
The main composer in the programme is Martino Bitti, who was born in Genoa, and studied the violin in Rome, probably with Carlo Mannelli. In 1685 he joined the court orchestra in Florence, where he often performed operas and oratorios. According to John Water Hill, in New Grove, "[his] surviving music shows that he was a composer of modest talent and limited imagination." Apparently, his contemporaries thought differently, and so does Michael Talbot, the author of the liner-notes to the present disc: "He earned a deservedly high reputation among his contemporaries as a composer and teacher of the violin."
The Sonata No. 1 in C consists of three movements; in the third movement he explores the high register of the violin. The Sonata No. 4 in A, on the other hand, has six movements, opening with a grave and closing with a giga; these embrace a sequence of slow and fast movements. The double stopping attests to the composer's own skills. The second movement is a fugue, whereas in the penultimate movement the violin moves to the high register. The Sonata No. 5 in B flat is the most 'conventional', and, according to Talbot, well within the grasp of amateurs.
Henricus Albicastro, whose name is a Latin-Italian translation of his true name, Johann Heinrich von Weissenburg, is a bit of a mysterious figure. The title-pages of his works suggest that he was born in Bieswangen in Bavaria, but he may also be from the nearby Weissenburg. His oeuvre shows a mixture of the Italian and the South-German/Austrian style. He was registered as musicus academiae at the University of Leiden in 1686, meaning that he became head of the musical establishment there. Between 1700 and 1709 he published nine collections of music. In the latter year he joined the army of the Dutch Republic, which meant the end of his musical activities. To date very little of his music has been recorded. The Sonata in f minor in Schrank II is a copy by an unknown hand. It consists of three movements, but the first is divided into three sections: adagio - presto - adagio. The last movement is a passacaglia, but a rather odd one, as it has "neither a ground bass nor a fixed sequence of harmonies, but instead a pair of thematic snippets that through their frequent restatement act as a kind of refrain" (Talbot).
Carlo Fiorelli has no entry in New Grove; little is known about him, not even the year of his death. He was Pisendel's predecessor is assistent leader of the Dresden orchestra, a position he held from 1709 to 1711. He moved to Venice, but later he seems to have spent most of his time in Germany. Very little music from his pen has been preserved; the Sonata in g minor is in four movements in the traditional order.
A number of sonatas in Schrank II omit the name of the composer. Javier Lupiáñez has suggested that some of such pieces may in fact be from Pisendel's own pen. Apparently that is not the case with the two sonatas included here. The Sonata in a minor can be attributed to Girolamo Nicolò Laurenti, who was from Bologna, where he worked all his life. He was a member of a family of singers, instrumentalists and composers. In 1698 he was admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica, and in 1734 he became director of the orchestra of the S Petronio basilica. As Pisendel visited Bologna, it is certainly possible that he encountered Laurenti and had the opportunity to copy this sonata, which is technically challenging. The opening adagio is capricious, with a very busy basso continuo part. In the second movement the composer uses the form of the variation, and the first half of the closing movement is repeated in the way of a double.
The Sonata in f minor is attributed to Antonio Montanari. He was from Modena and spent some of his formative years in Bologna. In he settled in Rome, where he played in the orchestra which in 1707 performed Handel's oratorio La Resurrezione, under the direction of Corelli. He also worked in Cardinal Ottoboni's orchestras; Montanari's ties with the Cardinal started as early as 1693. He was highly respected; the painter Pier Leone Ghezzi portrayed him, and called him a "most excellent violin player", who had "angelic manners". The sonata comes in three movements; the second and third include double stopping, the latter also sudden tempo changes. In the first and third movement the composer makes use of chromaticism. Recently I reviewed a disc which included three 'Berlin' sonatas by Montanari; it is a matter of good fortune that the present disc offers a different sonata.
This is a most interesting and intriguing production, which includes several meaningful additions to the repertoire of Italian violin sonatas. It also sheds light on Pisendel and his repertoire; there can be little doubt that he copied these sonatas to play them himself. Musically speaking each piece is of high quality, in different ways, and each composer represented here deserves to be better-known and to be better represented on disc. Kinga Ujszászi is a brilliant violinist, whose first disc with the same title, also including pieces from Schrank II, greatly impressed me. That is not any different this time. It is again a winner. Stylistically the hits the nail on the head, with strong rhetorical playing, a clear articulation and marked dynamic differences. Tom Foster is the perfect partner at the harpsichord, delivering excellent realizations of the basso continuo part. This is music making of the highest order.
As Schrank II includes 1,750 instrumental works, and is a cabinet of wonders indeed, let's hope more of that is going to be recorded.
Johan van Veen (© 2024)
Relevant links:
Kinga Ujszászi
Tom Foster