A unique collection of Italian violin sonatas from the 19th and 20th centuries in stylish, native, modern studio recordings.
The chamber-music traditions of France and Italy are being comprehensively explored by Brilliant Classics in boxes dedicated to violin and cello sonatas composed by celebrated and unfamiliar composers. In composing violin sonatas during the 19th and 20th centuries, Italian composers were naturally drawing on an unrivalled heritage of violinistic writing dating back not only to Paganini but to the virtuoso violinists of the Baroque era, such as Corelli and Geminiani.
By the middle of the 19th century, however, the sonata for two instruments had become associated with forms and styles developed in Germany and Austria, especially in the generations after Beethoven. Italian composers sought to balance these influences in their own writing; to demonstrate a fusion of native-Italian cantabile writing for the violin with larger-scale ambitions of form adopted from Germany.
The composers in this set all accomplished such a fusion in their own style. As a phenomenal virtuoso himself, Antonio Bazzini wrote primarily with display in mind, yet his Sonata is elegant constructed along Classical lines.
Ferruccio Busoni had moved to Germany by the time he wrote his pivotal Second Sonata, but the wild spirit of the tarantella still infuses its Scherzo. He and Respighi both drew on Bach and the Baroque era as a source of inspiration for a new spirit of neoclassicism.
Meanwhile other composers such as Wolf-Ferrari and Pilati wrote long-breathed narratives in a Brahmsian vein. Even well into the 20th century, Brahms remained the model for chamber-music composers who rejected modernist fragmentation, such as Sinigaglia and Bartolucci.
The rich chromaticism of César Franck held its own attractions for composers such as Margola who were more open to Wagnerian innovation. A Parisian influence can be felt on several composers such as Esposito and Santoliquido. Finally a knottier approach to harmony in the vein of Bartok’s writing for the violin brings the sonatas by Castenuovo-Tedesco and Riccardo Malipiero up to date with their own times.
All these recordings are drawn from previous Brilliant Classics albums which have been praised for the finesse of their engineering and performances. Compiled in this box, with a new essay by
Peter Quantrill, they tell a vividly engaging story of the evolution of the Italian violin sonata across a century and more.
- A new instalment in the series “Italian Romantics”, paying tribute to the rich heritage of instrumental (as opposed to vocal, operatic) music by Italian composers in the Romantic/Late-Romantic era.
- This comprehensive 7-CD set presents violin sonatas by Bazzini (1818-1897), Busoni (1866-1924), Castenuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), Esposito (1913-1981), Malipiero (1882-1973), Margola (1908-1992), Pilati (1903-1938), Respighi (1879-1936), Santoliquido (1883-1971), Santorsola (1904-1994), Scalero (1870-1954), Sinigaglia (1868-1944) and Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948). A generous survey of full-blooded romantic music, often rooted in German Romanticism but always ablaze with Mediterranean passion and warmth.
- Played by Italian musicians of international renown: Mauro Tortorelli, Luca Fanfoni, Davide Alogna, Fabrizio Falasca, Carmelo Andriani and others.
