Son of a famous composer from Verona, Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco learned to play the cello as a young boy growing up in Munich, Germany at about the same time that Bach wrote his famous cello suites. A few years later, in 1729, Dall’Abaco found his first employment as a cellist, in Bonn at the court of the Elector of Cologne, and began a fascinating musical career that led him to prominence in London, Paris, Vienna, and other European musical centres. French grace, German logic, and Italian virtuosity come together in Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco’s fine cello sonatas and cello duos, a world premiere recording of works that offer a remarkable range of technical demands and musical variety.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE

With this recording, Federica Bianchi explores the development of music for keyboard instruments from the beginning of the 15^th century to the dawn of the Baroque period. The earliest works originate from the famous Codex Faenza (c. 1400-1420), a manuscript of secular songs arranged for keyboard instrument by composers such as Jacopo da Bologna and Guillaume de Machaut. The earliest printed collection (1517), devoted exclusively to music for keyboard instruments, marks another milestone in this development. Later works on this album include arrangements of Renaissance hits such as Ancor che col partire. Federica Bianchi’s exploration of this repertoire takes her to the toccatas of the late 16t^h and early 17^th centuries.

Federica Bianchi plays this repertoire on three instruments built after historical models: a clavicymbalum after a design from the first half of the 15^th century and two harpsichords after Italian models from the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE, IT

In Antonio Vandini: Complete Works, cellist Elinor Frey and Passacaille Records present the six sonatas and one concerto of one of the most noteworthy and fascinating Italian cellist-composers of the 18th century. Antonio Vandini’s works span from 1717 in Venice (just a few years before he taught at the La Pietà school alongside the legendary Vivaldi) to about the 1750s when his last sonatas were written (probably as he toured the world with his musical partner, the famous violinist, Giuseppe Tartini).

Captivated by Vandini’s ability to draw out some of the finest qualities of the cello by expertly blending both lyricism and virtuosity, Frey, cellist-musicologist Marc Vanscheeuwijck, and gambist Patxi Montero together explored Vandini’s particular playing techniques. As shown in drawings, portraits, and eye-witness accounts, Vandini was one of the last remaining cellists to continue to use an underhand bow technique. Harpsichordist Federica Bianchi joined the team for the recording, held at the at the Sala della Carità, a short walk from the St-Antonio Basilica in Padua where Vandini spent most of his musical life.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE

A new dynamic Italian Baroque Orchestra makes its debut with not mainstream symphonies. Choosing four of Bach’s sons, all born between 1710 and 1735 and programming their exploration of the then new genre between c.1755 and c.1770, when the five Sinfonie recorded here were composed.

Three keywords are essential: Galant Italian style, German Empfindsamer style and the European Sturm und Drang movement. It’s all about cantabile and sensitivity in the first two cases and about unbridled emotions announcing the romantic era in the third one.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE, IT

Booklet: EN, FR, IT, DE

Passacaille Records and cellist Elinor Frey, with harpsichordist Federica Bianchi, lutenist Giangiacomo Pinard, and cellist Mauro Valli, present the first recording of cello sonatas by Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco (1710-1805).

Dall’Abaco’s sonatas are full of cantabile melodies with the lightness of folksongs, passagework that demands brilliance and facility, and extraordinary slow movements that bring out the natural beauty of the cello’s tone. Dall’Abaco was a celebrated cellist-composer who participated in significant concerts in many of the major musical centres of Europe, among them London, Paris, Vienna, Verona, Munich and Bonn. In these five sonatas, we find individual movements devoted to regional styles and instrumental exoticisms such as La Zampogna (Italian bagpipe), Amodo di Arciliuto, and A modo di Viola da gamba. Frey’s recording includes the original version of the G Major Cello Sonata previously attributed to G.B. Sammartini by way of a borrowed version by Martin Berteau.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE