The debut album from a Spanish string-bass ensemble with a mission to revive lost treasures of chamber music from the Baroque era.
This world premiere recording presents four sonatas and four duos by Giovanni Battista Cirri (1724-1808), a cello virtuoso and teacher whose reputation took him across Europe – including to London, where for a time during the 1760s he was employed by members of the Royal Family, and took part in the first concert given in the English capital by the eight-year-old Mozart.
By now, however, Cirri’s name has been almost forgotten, save through an edition of dubious scholarship from the 1950s of a viola concerto which is in fact an arrangement of one of his London cello sonatas. His set of six cello concertos Op 14 has been recorded before now, revealing his creative gifts to be not dazzlingly original but always pleasing, and superbly conceived for his own instrument.
All cellists of an adventurous disposition will accordingly be drawn to this new collection, which contains work dating from after his return to Italy in 1780, and to his native Emilia-Romagna region. The Breaking Bass ensemble has selected four of the 12 Sonate di camera, and alternated them with four of the Eight Duets for two cellos to make a satisfying contrast of genre and texture within the album.
The solo parts of the sonatas bristle with technical challenges as well as attractive melodic writing, and the duos are full of lively exchange between the two instruments, revealing a far more theatrical side to the composer, with the two instruments taking on solo roles and sharing the limelight on equal terms. They were clearly designed for pedagogical use to be performed by teacher and pupil.
Giovanni Battista Cirri (1724-1808) was born in Forli, a town in northern Italy between Bologna and Rimini. He quickly became a virtuoso on the cello and began to write his first compositions, which is why in 1760 he decided to travel to Paris and present some of these works at the Concert Spirituel, where he met great musicians and cellists of the time, such as Duport. After this three-year stay in Paris, he travelled to London where he became a renowned artist, giving public and private concerts, even once sharing the stage with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then still a teenager. After 1780 Cirri returned to Italy, specifically to Rome and Naples, and finally retired to his native city with the title of Maestro di Capella del Duomo.
Cirri’s music is in the best tradition of the first Viennese School of Mozart and Haydn, the strong classical form as basis for charming and appealing melodies, as well as instrumental brilliance.
The Cello Sonatas were composed after his return to Italy, and are influenced by the experiences he gained during his travels and his contact with other European musicians. In addition to the sonatas we hear a selection of the Duets for two cellos, in which the two voices develop a soloist role in equal parts and have a clear pedagogical purpose to be performed by student and teacher.
Breaking Bass Ensemble is a group specializing in the historically informed interpretation of the baroque and classical repertoire. The instruments in the group are baroque cello, double bass and harpsichord/organ.
