L'altra Venezia: Violin and Cello Sonatas Scaramuccia

• Diogenio Bigaglia (1676 - 1745): Violin Sonata in C major. Grave:
• 1 Bigaglia: Violin Sonata in C major. Grave 00:00
• Violin Sonata Sonata in C major. Allegro:
• 2 Bigaglia: Violin Sonata Sonata in C major. Allegro 00:00
• Violin Sonata Sonata in C major. Largo:
• 3 Bigaglia: Violin Sonata Sonata in C major. Largo 00:00
• Violin Sonata in C major. Allegro:
• 4 Bigaglia: Violin Sonata in C major. Allegro 00:00
• Antonio Caldara (1670 - 1736): Violin Sonata in F major. Largo:
• 5 Caldara: Violin Sonata in F major. Largo 00:00
• Violin Sonata in F major. Allegro:
• 6 Caldara: Violin Sonata in F major. Allegro 00:00
• Violin Sonata in F major. Largo:
• 7 Caldara: Violin Sonata in F major. Largo 00:00
• Violin Sonata in F major. Allegro:
• 8 Caldara: Violin Sonata in F major. Allegro 00:00
• 9 Caldara: Violin Sonata in F major. Allegro 00:00
• Tomaso Albinoni (1671 - 1751): Violin Sonata in B flat major. Adagio:
• 10 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in B flat major. Adagio 00:00
• Violin Sonata in B flat major. Allegro:
• 11 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in B flat major. Allegro 00:00
• Violin Sonata in B flat major. Adagio:
• 12 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in B flat major. Adagio 00:00
• Violin Sonata in B flat major. Allegro:
• 13 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in B flat major. Allegro 00:00
• Giorgio Gentili (1669 - 1737): Cello Sonata in A major. Allegro:
• 14 Gentili: Cello Sonata in A major. Allegro 00:00
• Cello Sonata in A major. Grave:
• 15 Gentili: Cello Sonata in A major. Grave 00:00
• Cello Sonata in A major. Allegro:
• 16 Gentili: Cello Sonata in A major. Allegro 00:00
• Cello Sonata in A major. Presto:
• 17 Gentili: Cello Sonata in A major. Presto 00:00
• Cello Sonata in A major. Minuet:
• 18 Gentili: Cello Sonata in A major. Minuet 00:00
• Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Allegro:
• 19 Gentili: Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Allegro 00:00
• Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Adagio:
• 20 Gentili: Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Adagio 00:00
• Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Allegro:
• 21 Gentili: Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Allegro 00:00
• Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Presto:
• 22 Gentili: Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Presto 00:00
• 23 Gentili: Capriccio 11, Op. 3. Presto 00:00
• Cello Sonata in G major. Adagio:
• 24 Gentili: Cello Sonata in G major. Adagio 00:00
• Cello Sonata in G major. Allegro:
• 25 Gentili: Cello Sonata in G major. Allegro 00:00
• Cello Sonata in G major. Grave:
• 26 Gentili: Cello Sonata in G major. Grave 00:00
• Cello Sonata in G major. Presto:
• 27 Gentili: Cello Sonata in G major. Presto 00:00
• Cello Sonata in G major. Allegro:
• 28 Gentili: Cello Sonata in G major. Allegro 00:00
• Tomaso Albinoni: Violin Sonata in G minor. [Adagio]:
• 29 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in G minor. [Adagio] 00:00
• Violin Sonata in G minor. Balletto:
• 30 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in G minor. Balletto 00:00
• Violin Sonata in G minor. Corrente:
• 31 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in G minor. Corrente 00:00
• Violin Sonata in G minor. [Giga]:
• 32 Albinoni: Violin Sonata in G minor. [Giga] 00:00
• Giovanni Battista Reali (1681 - 1751): Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Grave:
• 33 Reali: Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Grave 00:00
• Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Allegro:
• 34 Reali: Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Allegro 00:00
• Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Grave:
• 35 Reali: Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Grave 00:00
• Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Allegro:
• 36 Reali: Violin Sonata N.7 Op.2. Allegro 00:00
• Total Runtime 00:00

Info for L'altra Venezia: Violin and Cello Sonatas

World premiere recording of violin and cello sonatas by Albinoni, Bigaglia, Caldara, Gentili, and Reali. Scaramuccia Ensemble.

Two Albinoni sonatas recently discovered by Professor Michael Talbot and the only two extant cello sonatas written by who was the concertmaster of San Marco in Venice are just some of the works that have been recorded for the first time on our latest album. This is a unique recording that brings us to Venice at the beginning of the 18th century. If you think that in those years Venice is just Vivaldi, this album will surprise you.

In 1709, the French François Raguenet wrote about the best violinists in Italy: “in Rome: Corelli and Montanari, in Venice: Giorgetto and Albinoni…”. He was referring to Giorgio Gentili and Tomaso Albinoni. However, the young Vivaldi, who by then was already Maestro di Violino in La Pietà and who would publish his second opus of violin sonatas that year, is not one of the best violinists for our French narrator. Our recording unearths the music of some of the greatest Venetian masters who at the dawn of the 18th century forged the style of the new century, and who are today overshadowed by the great Prete Rosso. This is wonderfully explained by Michael Talbot in the notes that he himself has kindly prepared for our album:

The centrality of the unusually versatile figure of Vivaldi – who began to move out of the category of ‘Interesting Historical Figure’ into the Pantheon of great composers only about a hundred years ago – to the musical culture of Venice in the first half of the eighteenth century is undisputed. Yet it would be a mistake to regard the many gifted musicians contemporary with him born or active within that city as merely ‘within Vivaldi’s orbit’. Venetian cultural life encouraged plurality, not least because the state and its metropolis were not a dynastic autocracy with a single courtly hub but a republic in which political power and cultural orientation were widely dispersed. This encouraged a climate of innovation and experimentation, which were nourished by Venice’s exceptionally wide international connections through commerce and – the term is not anachronistic – tourism (Prof. Michael Talbot, L´Altra Venezia, notes)

The recordings on this album were made with a proprietary microphone technique, called ECA, that was developed by our sound engineer in order to achieve maximum sound fidelity, with very good positioning of the instruments in the virtual space that is being created between your speakers. The mixing and mastering process has been performed with an almost fully analog equipment chain in order to maintain the complex tonal character of the sound of gut strings and the harpsichord. This results in a musical vividness and three-dimensional sound that is rarely heard in acoustic music recordings.

Scaramuccia

Ensemble Scaramuccia
was founded on the initiative of the violinist and musicologist Javier Lupiáñez. It debuted at the fringes of Bruges and Utrecht festivals in the summer of 2013 and met with a very positive reception from the audiences and organizers. Since then, the ensemble has gained reputation within the European Early Music scene, often praised for its uniqueness. Among other festivals and venues, Scaramuccia has performed at Internationaal Kamermuziek Festival Utrecht – Janine Jansen and Friends, Kasteelconcerten and Musica Antica da Camera (The Netherlands), Fora do Lugar, Encontros de Música Antiga de Loulé Francisco Rosado and Sente a História (Portugal), Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro de Madrid and Teatro Kursaal de Melilla (Spain), Museum Vleeshuis and Philarmonie de Namur (Belgium), Maldon Festival of Arts (United Kingdom) as well as Festival Echi Lontani (Italy).

In its zeal to discover new music, Scaramuccia had the privilege of being the first ensemble to have attributed the RV 820 and the RV 205/2 to Vivaldi and performing both pieces as a world première in an interview and a live concert broadcast in the programme De Musyck Kamer of the Dutch radio station Concertzender in the summer of 2014. These works, together with other lately-discovered pieces by Vivaldi for violin and basso continuo, were recorded for Ayros in 2015 as part of the ensemble’s first album.

Scaramuccia was awarded the Audience Prize in the Göttinger Reihe Historischer Musik 2015/2016 competition.

The ensemble is currently working on “The Cabinet II Project”, which will take the Listeners on a journey to Dresden, following the footsteps of the great Konzertmeister Johann Georg Pisendel and rediscovering his manuscripts preserved in Schrank II. The project includes a broad range of elements, such as unearthing the musical works, live performances, publishing sheet music and musicological texts as well as CD recordings.

1717. Memories of a Journey to Italy, released in 2018, is the first disc of the series. It has been acclaimed by reviewers all over Europe and nominated for the 2019 ICMA Awards. The second album of the series, Pisendel. Neue Sonaten, has been released in winter 2020. Both albums were launched with the ensemble’s own recording label: Snakewood Editions.

Booklet for L'altra Venezia: Violin and Cello Sonatas