Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099422123
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BAROQUE MASTERPIECES
Description
Baroque MasterpiecesA. MARCELLOOboe Concerto in D MinorHANDELLarghetto from "Serse"ALBINONI (Giazotto)Adagio in G MinorHANDELArrival of the Queen of ShebaCORELLIConcerto No.8 in G Minor "Christmas Concerto"PACHELBELCanon & GigueHANDELAlexander's FeastThe first half of the eighteenth century brought the final flowering of musicin a style that later became known as the Baroque, a term borrowed from arthistory and originally pejorative in its suggestion of roughness andirregularity. The music of Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and Vivaldi, leadingcomposers of the late Baroque period in Europe, may seem now to be anything butthis.The present collection includes two composers from what is now generallyknown as the Middle Baroque period, the second half of the seventeenth century.In Italy Arcangelo Corelli had a position of importance in Rome as a violinistand composer, employed by the blue-stocking exiled Queen Christina of Sweden andby those princes of the Church, the Cardinals Pamphili and Ottoboni, enlightenedpatrons with whom Corelli established a satisfactory relationship. He died inRome early in 1713. His contribution to music was very considerable, with a setof twelve published Concerti grossi which served as a model for latercomposers such as Handel, a dozen sonatas for violin and basso continuo, six ofthem chamber sonatas and six in the more formal style of church sonatas, andforty-eight Trio Sonatas similarly divided. The Concerto grosso, Op.6, No.8 is the best known of all, with its extra final movement,establishing it as a Christmas Concerto, to be played on Christmas Eve andreflecting in the additional Pastorale the scene of the shepherds in thefields near Bethlehem. The concerto follows, otherwise, the normal form of theconcerto grosso, with a solo group of two violins, cello and harpsichord ororgan, the concertino, contrasted with the rest of the string orchestra.Pachelbel belongs to a similar period in South German music. Born in1653,hewas an exact contemporary of Corelli and won a high reputation as anorganist, notably in Erfurt and then, from 1695 until his death in 1706, in hisnative city of Nuremberg. The best known of his many compositions today is the Canonand Gigue for three violins and basso continuo. The three-voice canonunfolds over a repeated bass and chordal pattern, in the form familiar from the chaconne,so that it is in fact a set of variations in canon, as one part imitates theother.Albinoni, distinguished in Venice in particular for his then innovative oboeconcertos, is even better remembered today for a composition that was apparentlydevised by the modern Italian musicologist Remo Giazotto on material derivedfrom Albinoni, a moving and effective Adagio. Albinoni's Venetiancontemporary Alessandro Marcello, born in 1684, was a well known dilettante,dabbling in music, poetry and painting, as well as in philosophy andmathematics. His Oboe Concerto in D minor, transcribed for harpsichord byBach and once attributed to his youn
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
The Brahms Trio
Roman Fediurko
London Symphony Orchestra; Rafael Sanz-Espert
