Forza Azzurri!: Music by Dall'Abaco, Brescianello, Sammartini, Vivaldi and Zavateri

by Tabea Debus, Adrian Chandler, La Serenissima

Overview

The towering presence of Vivaldi's music in the Italian High Baroque has tended to almost completely obscure his contemporaries, several of whom found employment at foreign courts just as Vivaldi did at the end of his life. The title Forza Azzurri! ("Go Blue!"), the slogan of Italian soccer fans, is here deployed to suggest the pervasiveness of the Italian sound in the middle of the 17th century. The Venetian music specialist group La Serenissima and director Adrian Chandler set out to explore that sound with this collection of concertos and string pieces by Vivaldi and others. There are three concertos by Vivaldi, and they do show that he was head and shoulders above his competition in these late works that experimented with existing Baroque forms at every turn. They benefit from fine work by the soloists, especially Tabea Debus; hear her crisp work in the finale of the Concerto for sopranino recorder, strings, and continuo, RV 433. Debus is also heard in the Concerto for recorder, strings, and continuo of Giuseppe Sammartini (1695-1750), older brother of Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and this work approaches Vivaldi's ability to write idiomatically for soloists. There are also non-soloist works from Lorenzo Gaetano Zavateri, Evaristo Felice dall'Abaco, and Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello, not a one of whom is well represented on recordings, and the performances are vigorous and sharp. The music here is nowhere less than well-wrought, and Baroque music lovers will greet this release with great interest; enough did so to put this album on best-seller lists in late 2022. The Cedars Hall at the Wells Cathedral School makes an idiomatic venue for the music. ~ James Manheim

Product Details

Release Date:	11/11/2022
Label:	SIGNUM CLASSICS
UPC:	0635212070529

Tracks

1. Introducione for strings and continuo in G, Opus 1, No. 1~Largo e spicco - Allegro assai - Largo e spicco - Allegro assai - Largo e spicco - Adagio
2. Introducione for strings and continuo in G, Opus 1, No. 1~Allegro
3. Concerto for recorder, strings & continuo in F~Allegro
4. Concerto for recorder, strings & continuo in F~Largo
5. Concerto for recorder, strings & continuo in F~Allegro assai
6. Concerto XII for strings & continuo in D, Opus 6~Allegro
7. Concerto XII for strings & continuo in D, Opus 6~Grave
8. Concerto XII for strings & continuo in D, Opus 6~Allegro m¿¿ non troppo
9. Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in A, RV 353~Allegro
10. Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in A, RV 353~Andante
11. Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in A, RV 353~Allegro
12. Concerto for sopranino recorder, strings & continuo in C, RV 443~Allegro
13. Concerto for sopranino recorder, strings & continuo in C, RV 443~Largo
14. Concerto for sopranino recorder, strings & continuo in C, RV 443~Allegro molto
15. Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in e, RV 281~Allegro
16. Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in e, RV 281~Largo
17. Concerto for violin, strings & continuo in e, RV 281~Allegro
18. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Ouverture - Fuga
19. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Aria - Allegro
20. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Aria - Presto
21. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Rondeau
22. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Bour¿¿e
23. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Aria - Adagio
24. Overture-Suite for strings & continuo in D~Chiacona

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Tabea Debus   Primary Artist,Recorder
Adrian Chandler   Primary Artist,Violin,Conductor
La Serenissima   Primary Artist,Ensemble

Technical Credits

Benjamin Ealovega   Photography
Andrew Mellor   Editing,Engineer,Producer
Adrian Chandler   Editing,Liner Notes,Reconstruction
Robin Bigwood   Instrument Preparation,Photography
Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello   Composer
Lorenzo Gaetano Zavateri   Composer
Dave Rowell   Editing,Engineer,Producer
Simon Fox-Gal   Mixing,Editing,Engineer,Producer,Mastering
Evaristo Dall'Abaco   Composer
Giuseppe Sammartini   Composer
Antonio Vivaldi   Composer