Tracklista:1. For the Second Time2. Yo Yo Man3. Louise4. Call the Tune5. Diesel On My Tail6. Amelia Earhart's Last Flight7. I'll Fly Away8. True Story of Amelia Earhart9. Even the Guiding Light10. Side Roads11. Raider
Without a doubt, Locatelli’s L’Arte del Violino (‘The Art of the Violin’), printed in Amsterdam in 1733, was one of the most influential musical publications of the early eighteenth century. It is a collection of twelve concertos for solo violin, strings and basso continuo, with a ‘capriccio’ for unaccompanied violin inserted into the first and last movements of each concerto as a sort of cadenza.Pietro Antonio Locatelli was born in 1695 in the small North Italian town of Bergamo, and was probably taught locally. Following brief employment at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in his home town, he travelled in the Autumn of 1711 to Rome, presumably in the hope of continuing his studies with the great Arcangelo Corelli. It is doubtful whether Locatelli ever actually took lessons from the master, who was already very ill in 1712 and died in January 1713. It is more likely that the young Locatelli was taught by the violinist and composer Giuseppe Valentini, of whose leaning to virtuosity there is documentary evidence. Locatelli worked with him for some time as a chamber musician in the household of a Roman aristocratic family, the Caetani. He seems to have left Rome in 1723, but reappeared in the Autumn of 1729 as a permanent resident of Amsterdam where he lived comfortably without any employment until his death on 30 March 1764. All his works were published in Holland.The years between his departure from Rome in 1723 and his settling in Amsterdam in 1729 were years of travel when the virtuoso journeyed from court to court and town to town. We find him at courts including those of Mantua, Munich, Dresden, Berlin and Kassel, where he was greatly admired on account of his consummate skill on the violin. His impressive artistry even enabled him to take liberties with crowned heads which bordered on impudence.Apparently Locatelli was in Venice some time between 1723 and 1729, as he recalled in 1733 when he dedicated the edition of his L’Arte del Violino to the Venetian patrician Gerolamo Michiel Lini. In the dedicatory preface Locatelli thanks the dedicatee because he ‘was so gracious as to come to listen to and praise [the concertos] when they were performed by that distinguished and incomparably large orchestra in those famous church services’. A performance of L’Arte del Violino in a liturgical context may well be assumed from the occasional direction ‘organo’ in the basso continuo part. ‘Famous church services’ are primarily associated with the Basilica of Saint Mark; there is evidence that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries extensive use was made of instrumental music during the Mass, namely after the Epistle (gradual), during the Elevation and during Communion. During the 1720s Locatelli, with his experience of conditions in Rome, cannot seriously have considered a permanent orchestra of some twenty string players ‘incomparably large’, but it was not uncommon to bring in additional players for particularly important occasions. There are, however, no traces of any such performance by Locatelli in the surviving documents of the Basilica.L’Arte del Violino is one of the so-called ‘art books’ (as was, for instance, Bach’s Art of Fugue) which proliferated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is no textbook, nor a volume of musical pieces systematically arranged according to ‘problems’ in the manner of studies, but a collection of twelve independent musical works which together present the panoply of technical possibilities of the violin. Obviously this means first and foremost what was technically possible for Locatelli—and at that time probably for no one else!On closer inspection Locatelli’s ‘Art of the Violin’ is seen even today to extend to the utmost limits of technique. Most striking are the high positions required (up to the 16th position) which caused a revolution in violin playing. (In Opus VI Locatelli actually rises to the 22nd position.) Hardly perceptible to the listener (if all goes well!), but all the more difficult for the soloist, are the many occasions on which the left hand is overstretched; the difficulties in intonation are obvious. Mention must also be made of the frequent double-stopping (for instance in the second Capriccio of the Second Concerto), the polyphonic writing (the second Capriccio of the Ninth Concerto), the trills (the second Capriccio of the Third Concerto), and the difficult bowing (the slurred staccato in the second Capriccio of the First Concerto). A complicating factor in all these problems is the generally fast tempo.In L’Arte del Violino we encounter the virtuoso par excellence—the type of musician who concentrates on making the maximum impression, who wants to be seen and admired, the performer and his outstanding technical prowess being the centre of attention. Surviving documents confirm this. At the Berlin Court, Locatelli appeared before the King of Prussia in a blue velvet coat embroidered with silver thread, with precious diamond rings and bearing a sword; he was not prepared to accept small fees. According to some English aristocrats who encountered Locatelli in Amsterdam in 1741, he was a ‘terremoto’ (an earthquake). He played the most difficult pieces with exceptional composure, never removing his coat—although he always performed standing up, sometimes for three hours at a time, with so much passion that he wore out a dozen bows a year. Apparently he never played out of tune; he used a short bow because he believed that no violinist need play with a long bow anything that he could play with a short one. According to a contemporary report he so dazed a canary by his playing of an Adagio by Corelli that it fell from its perch. Other sources describe Locatelli’s tone as coarse.L’Arte del Violino and the documents concerning Locatelli’s life paint in every particular the picture of a virtuoso which did not become familiar until the beginning of the nineteenth century. After the publication of L’Arte del Violino in 1733 it became the task of the international brotherhood of violinists to bridge the gap between the technique of the average player and the standards set by Locatelli. He had a great influence on French music, in which the first great technical developments occurred. It cannot be proved that Paganini knew Locatelli’s Capriccios, but certain resemblances (perhaps even the number 24) between the two sets make it very likely. Without Locatelli’s contribution many developments in violin technique would hardly have been conceivable. L’Arte del Violino was a significant catalyst in the musico-historical developments which led to the first half of the nineteenth century becoming the age of the virtuoso concerto.But beyond that, L’Arte del Violino also has attractive music to offer, in spite of the uneven quality of the Capriccios. The Concertos normally have three movements arranged fast–slow–fast. The fast movements frequently adopt the Vivaldian form of alternating soli and tutti. The Capriccio for unaccompanied violin always appears before the last ritornello, indicating a relationship with the cadenza. After the Capriccio Locatelli prescribes another cadenza, to be improvised by the soloist, as a transition to the final ritornello. The Fondazione Pietro Antonio Locatelli, which is preparing a complete edition of Locatelli’s works, made available for this recording photocopies of recently discovered manuscript cadenzas, written in 1743 by the Mainz-based violinist Gottfried Dominicus Reber. With these cadenzas from Locatelli’s own time, the maximum amount of historical information was made available for this recording.Albert Dunning © 1994English: Gery Bramall
Tracklista:1. Hiccups2. Hypocritical3. Molly Is a Babe4. You Don't Know What You Want5. Something More6. Modern Dilemma7. Second Guessing8. Secret Weapon9. What's the Point10. Stand By You
Tracklista: 1. Hey Grandma2. Fly Like a Bird3. Stone Fish4. Apartments for the West5. Pamela6. Words Appear7. The Troll8. The New Cochlear Sun9. The Chosen One10. Grandpa's House11. I Wanna New Rome12. Rush Morgue13. Big French14. Second Kid With You15. Better at Me16. My Angel
Tracklista:1. Dust Devil2. Semi-pseudo-sort-of Plan3. Sectionals in Mourning4. This Is Hi-fi5. Second Television6. Part the Sea7. Fell-->H2O8. ADD in Unison9. 7's10. What They Tell Me11. Opener
Tracklista: CD 1 1. Kemps Jig 2. Sir Gavin Grimbold 3. Touch Andf Go 4. Three Jolly Butchers 5. Pastime With Good Company 6. The Unquiet Grave 7. Estampie 8. Crossing The Stiles 9. The Astrologer 10. Tea Wrecks 11. Juniper Suite 12. The Devil And The Farmer's Wife 13. Midnight Mushrumps 14. The Ploughboys Dream 15. The Last Flash Of Gaberdine Tailor 16. Gulland Rock 17. Ethelion CD 2 1. Opening Move 2. Second Spasm 3. Lament 4. Checkmate 5. Down The Dog 6. Raindance 7. Mother Nature's Son 8. Le Cambrioleur Est Dans Le Mouchoir 9. Ormolu 10. Fontinental Version 11. Wallbanger 12. Don't Say Go 13. (Ein Klein) Heldenleben
Tracklista:1. I Was On the Back of a Nightingale2. The Roots Run Deep3. 'It's Called, Daisy'4. Ragman Roll5. Meridian Arc6. Navigator7. Burial8. A Second Life9. It Was Flood10. Whale Fall. A Journal11. Dreamlands12. Perfect Prime
Tracklista:1. Three Movements From 'Petrushka': 1. Danse russe. Allegro giusto2. Three Movements From 'Petrushka': 2. Chez Petrouchka3. Three Movements From 'Petrushka': 3. La semaine grasse. Con moto - Allegretto - Tempo giusto - Agitato4. Piano Sonata No. 7 In B Flat Major: 1. Allegro inquieto - Andantino5. Piano Sonata No. 7 In B Flat Major: 2. Andante caloroso6. Piano Sonata No. 7 In B Flat Major: 3. Precipitato7. Variations For Piano: I. Sehr massig8. Variations For Piano: II. Sehr schnell9. Variations For Piano: III. Ruhig fliessend10. Second Sonata For Piano: 1. Extremement rapide11. Second Sonata For Piano: 2. Lent12. Second Sonata For Piano: 3. Modere, presque vif13. Second Sonata For Piano: 4. Vif
Tracklista: 1. Love Is Emotional2. More Than One of You3. Chameleon Days4. Independence Day5. Alone6. Widow's Peak7. Second Nature8. The Law Is Always On Your Side9. Terrorise Me10. Serious in Love11. I Know Different
This is the fourth disc in our series dedicated to the orchestral works of Mieczysław Weinberg, performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Thord Svedlund. The cello soloist is Claes Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s leading cellists, who combines the post as Principal Cello of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with a brilliant solo career.After the Second World War, along with many other composers, Weinberg was subjected to a series of campaigns against so-called Formalism in the Soviet arts. As a result he turned his attention to concertante works, a medium less prone to censure than symphonies, sonatas, and quartets. The first movement of the Cello Concerto shares the tense, pensive lyricism found in the opening Nocturne of Shostakovich’s almost exactly contemporaneous First Violin Concerto. This later gives way to the rhythms of a habanera and some impassioned passages of Jewish klezmer, almost as if to guarantee a healthy quota of folk-rooted intonations (a required antidote to charges of Formalism), while at the same time allowing for deeper emotions too.In the 1970s, Weinberg’s symphonic production went in two distinct but complementary directions. One of these was at the patriotic end of the Socialist Realist spectrum, while the other was much more abstract. Weinberg’s highly austere five-movement Symphony No. 20 clearly falls into the latter category – challenging, perplexing, and unpredictable. In the second scherzo Weinberg quotes from his opera The Portrait, based on a short story by Gogol. In fact, the finale perfectly captures the mood of the opera’s closing scenes, in which the artist protagonist realises that he has betrayed his calling, and sinks into delirium and eventual death.A previous volume in our Weinberg series (CHSA 5089: Symphony No. 3 and Suite No. 4 from The Golden Key) was nominated for a Grammy this year, in the Best Engineered Album category.