This 25CD set presents the most famous, iconic and best-loved works from the Baroque Era, works which are part of our common musical heritage and conscience, eternally young and cherished for their charm, beauty and deeply human emotions, shared by audiences all over the world.
Played by specialized Early Music Groups like L’Arte Dell’arco, Musica Amphion, Violini Capricciosi, Musica ad Rhenum and many others.

There is a story about Arnold Schoenberg that bears retelling now. He was in the midst of teaching a class at UCLA when a colleague burst in excitedly proclaiming "Arnold! I am just hearing Verklärte Nacht mit HORNS!" Amid much startled posturing the two rushed out to destinations unknown, leaving the class unacknowledged. But all the various arrangements of Schoenberg’s work (I’ve never heard it with horns, but the string orchestra version with timpani is quite a good one) don’t begin to compare with the numerous outrages wreaked upon this helpless Vivaldi composition.

Federico Guglielmo whittles down his ensemble L’Arte dell’Arco to just three or four players for his latest release of Vivaldi’s music. Unlike other Vivaldi performers, Guglielmo is keen to return to the transparency of the Prete Rosso’s music, stripping away the ornate embellishments that have encumbered recent recordings, allowing the fluid lines to speak for themselves. In these Violin and Trio Sonatas, Guglielmo and his fellow musicians once again establish themselves as some of the foremost interpreters of the Italian’s music. For the most part bright and jolly, these sonatas demand to be played with charm and joie de vivre, which L’Arte dell’Arco certainly supply in abundance.

Antonio Vandini was born around 1690 in Bologna, the city where the cello knew its first glories as a solo instrument. He held several assignments in Bergamo, Venice and later Padua, where he developed a friendship with Giovanni Tartini. His virtuosity was brought to fame by Charles Burney who defined him the famous old Antonio Vandini on the violoncello who, the Italians say, plays and expresses a parlare, that is in such a manner as to make his instrument speak. Vandinis cello works are the apex of the instruments output of his time, for the persistent exploration of the high register, the frequent use of double stopping, arpeggios and chords even in unusual combinations, a variety of bowing techniques, and rapid passages.

After the enormous success of Vivaldi’s earlier collections La Stravaganza and L’Estro Armonico, his publisher Estienne Roger was eager to capitalise on the composer’s soaring popularity. With that in mind, Op.7 was published in 1720 containing 12 new concertos, ten for solo violin and two for solo oboe. However, it seems unlikely Vivaldi either authorised or approved of this publication, and recent research has even discovered that the authenticity of the concertos is doubtful, with at least the two oboe concertos certainly not by Vivaldi. The concertos may not bear the traditional Vivaldian hallmarks, with movements simplified or moved around, but they are still a worthy tribute to the composer, whether penned by the ‘Prete Rosso’ himself or not.

If we think of Albinoni beyond the ubiquitous and apocryphal Adagio (not so much arranged as concocted by a 20thcentury musicologist, Giazotto), we may remember collections of lively oboe and violin concertos, maybe also some trio sonatas and works featuring solo flute and trumpet. But Albinoni, the composer of cantatas and operas?
This quartet of Italian musicians puts the record straight with a new recording of secular cantatas. In fact Albinoni married a soprano, Margherita Raimondi, and apparently had a fine singing voice himself.

L'Arte dell'Arco now at last has recorded more instrumental works by the composer Francesco Veracini for cpo. The first release met with a unanimously enthusiastic response: »Here everything fits perfectly; here instrumentalists perform with passion; here a very great ensemble is revealed. The team effort is fascinating; here musicians, friends, and kindred spirits are at work. CD of the Month« (Toccata 1/10). The goal of this project is to record Veracinis complete overtures and violin concertos and to combine them with a selection of his most interesting sonatas from the collection without opus number (1716) and his Opus 1 (1721). When these three groups of works are juxtaposed, Veracinis various stylistic characters come into even clearer view.

During Albinoni’s lifetime (1671-1751) four separate collections of sonatas with violin were published under his name, though only the Trattenimenti armonici Op.6 were prepared by their composer. The works in Op.6 have accordingly dominated the record catalogues and obscured the virtues of the others, which Federico Guglielmo presents here with his customary flair and feeling for the Italian Baroque which has previously yielded the much-praised Brilliant Classics collection of Vivaldi’s Opp 1-12 (95200) as well as the Op.1 Trio Sonatas (94789) by Albinoni himself.