Testori Mastroprimiano - Complete Cello Sonatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The only available complete recording; newly made by a stylish Italian early-music ensemble; of a landmark collection of Baroque chamber music. Antonio Veracini (1659-1733) was the uncle and teacher of his more famous nephew; the composer and violinist Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768); and one of the most important violin sonata composers of the generation that included Corelli and Torelli. His innovative music forms the bridge between the styles of Vitali; Bononcini and Stradella on the one hand; and the post-Baroque fashions of his nephew and of Tartini and Locatelli on the other. Even while working outside the patronage of the Medici family; Veracini played a central role in the civic musical life of Florence during the later 17th and early 18th centuries. Trained from childhood as a violinist; he wrote mostly with his own instrument in mind; and doubtless with a view to impressing noble audiences with his skill and virtuosic style. He must have succeeded; because he also became an owner of many superb violins and a dealer in their trade. Veracini's Opus 1 collection was published in 1692 and dedicated to his patroness; the Grand Duchess Vittoria. It consists of ten 'church sonatas' of the newer sort exemplified by Vitali's op.9 collection published two years later; though Veracini's style is also comparable with Corelli's church sonatas published during the 1680s. Most of the sonatas have two extended quick movements; each preceded by a slower and gravely expressive introduction. Dance rhythms infuse the finales with momentum; and Veracini is fond of trumpet-like fanfares and echo effects. These ten sonatas made a tremendous impression on Veracini's fellow composers at the time; and it is a wonder that they have only been recorded in selected form until now. The complete collection abounds in high-spirited diversity; especially in these recordings made by an e

Viviane Chassot - Sonatas [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/27/2009

This features the first complete recording ever of the cello sonatas of the Worms late romanticist Friedrich Gernsheim, with encores in the form of his only two cello pieces with piano. For the virtuoso parts in his three cello sonatas, Gernsheim could draw on his own brilliant piano technique, which he had demonstrated already in 1850 as an eleven-year-old child prodigy. The five works span five decades. The Sonata in D minor op. 12 from 1868 continues to follow the paths of Mendelssohn's two sonatas, while the Sonata in E minor op. 79 of 1906 is a dramatically charged work in the style of the turn of the century. The cello composition Elohenu of 1881 and the Andante op. 64bis from 1898 are situated between them chronologically. Two years prior to his death Gernsheim reworked the last movement of his Sonata in E minor and wrote two completely new movements for the first and second positions. The result was the Sonata in E minor op. 87 of 1914, the seventy-five-year-old composer's farewell to his epoch on the eve of World War I. Alexander Hulshoff and Oliver Triendl perform these works with aplomb.