Philips / Norman / Price - An Englishman Abroad - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The latest from renowned period ensemble La Serenissima celebrates the life and work of Nicola Matteis the Younger. Born in London to an Italian father and English mother, Matteis was immersed in the style of Henry Purcell before leaving England in 1700 for the Imperial Court in Vienna. All of the music on the album is - rather fortuitously - Carolean; either written for Charles II of England, or for (or in the realm of) Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. It is all too easy to think that the English style and English musicians were unknown on the continent in the early C18, but this selection of music shows that this wasn't (always) the case. There are some jubilant dances and dance suites featured here as well as a ravishingly beautiful Vivaldi concerto and two superb Chaconnes, one by an Englishman, and one by an Italian.

Victor Feldman - An Englishman Abroad The First Us Albums 1957-61 [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/27/2025

The violinist, cellist, flutist and oboist Robert Valentine (Leicester, 1671 - Rome, 1747) was a prolific author of sonatas - especially for recorder - and an instrumentalist engaged in the musical life of Rome, the city where he moved, in a period between 1693 and 1700, from his native England.1 Valentine belonged to a group - not very large but quite important for their excellent performative qualities - of virtuosos of wind instruments (oboe and also flute) who in the first half of the eighteenth century moved to Italy, also to make up for some shortage of instrumentalists in this sector, even if recent researches show, especially in Naples, a great vivacity of local schools even for what concerns wind musicians. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, between Rome, Naples and Florence, we discover the presence of at least four foreign instrumentalists the oboists / flutists Ignatio Rion (active in Venice, Rome and finally in Naples), Ignazio Sieber (Venice), Ludwig Erdmann (Florence) and finally Robert Valentine. The work of this English-born musician greatly fostered the development of flute music in Italy. His work as a composer and performer places him among the most prolific authors of original music for recorder of the period.