Bal 5.05.18 - Corelli: Violin Sonatas Op. 5

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

9.30
Building a Library: Corelli's Violin Sonatas Op 5 with Hannah French.
These exhilarating and inventive sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli were published in Rome in 1700 . They are subdivided into church sonatas and chamber sonatas and the last sonata is the famous "Follia", which contains 23 variations for solo violin.


Available versions:-


Rémy Baudet, Pieter-Jan Belder

Pauli Beznosiuk, Avison Ensemble (SACD)

Lina Tur Bonet, Musica Alchemica

Lucy van Dael, Bob van Asperen

François Fernandez, Glen Wilson

Enrico Gatti, Gaetano Nasillo, Guido Morini

Arthur Grumiaux, Riccardo Castagnone

Monica Huggett, Trio Sonnerie

Sigiswald Kuijken, Robert Kohnen

Andrew Manze, Richard Egarr (harpsichord) *

Yehudi Menuhin, George Malcolm (harpsichord) *

Stefano Montanari, Ottavio Dantone (SACD)

Enrico Onofri, Imaginarium

Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider, Ulrik Spang-Hanssen

Elizabeth Wallfisch, Paul Nicholson




* Download only

[doversoul1]

Very much looking forward to this BaL. Enrico Onofri and Imaginarium are my latest discovery. I’ll be interested in how they score or if they even get mentioned.

A couple of variations/curiosities
Michala Petri (recorder) & Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)
Luis Beduschi (flute) & Philippe Grisvard (harpsichord)

I don’t expect these to be reviewed as serious BaL contenders.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Very much looking forward to this BaL. Enrico Onofri and Imaginarium are my latest discovery. I’ll be interested in how they score or if they even get mentioned.

A couple of variations/curiosities
Michala Petri (recorder) & Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)
Luis Beduschi (flute) & Philippe Grisvard (harpsichord)

I don’t expect these to be reviewed as serious BaL contenders.

I stumbled across these too, though I don't think Petri plays the whole set.

[richardfinegold]

I have Manze and Egarr. It’s hard to imagine topping them, unless Rachel Podger gets around to it

[BBMmk2]

I have the Andrew Manze/Richard Egarr recording. Two of my favourite artists combine!

[Richard Barrett]

I guess one of the points of contention here will be about ornamentation. Most performers use a 1710 edition of the sonatas which contains written-out ornamentation, whereas Manze eschews this in favour of inventing his own. I can see arguments on both sides here, but in the end I would say that it's a choice between something that could have been played in the early 17th century and something that wasn't, and personally I find the former more enlightening (like Süssmayr's completion of the Mozart Requiem, which has its infelicities compared to more recent ones but at the same time the massive advantage of coming from the same period that the music was originally written in). I bought the Manze/Egarr CDs as soon as they came out, but found their ornamentation often a bit jarring and unidiomatic (maybe just in comparison with knowledge of the more frequently performed version) and discarded it after a couple of listens. The more recent recording by Lina Tur Bonet (with a mixture of ornamentations from different sources including but not confined to newly improvised ones) seems much more convincing to me.

Out of the others I've heard I would put Chiara Banchini's (not listed but available from Qobuz) near the top, and I remember Monica Huggett's also being very much to my taste, but there are a few there I haven't heard like Beznosiuk and Kuijken which must be worth a listen.

PS - having now listened through the whole of the set with Lina Tur Bonet, this recording immediately becomes my own top recommendation. Wonderfully and imaginatively played and constantly throwing fresh new light on music I thought I knew well.

[Mal]

I have Manze and Egarr. It’s hard to imagine topping them, unless Rachel Podger gets around to it

I can imagine Arthur Grumiaux topping them, but I'm an old fashioned chap! Is Grumiaux easy to find on CD? I was looking for his Vivaldi ("Il Favorito" etc.) recently, as I listened Manze's take, and although Manze was interesting I felt a yearning for Grumiaux. Anyway couldn't find Grumiaux, except at silly second hand prices.

[Pulcinella]

I can imagine Arthur Grumiaux topping them, but I'm an old fashioned chap! Is Grumiaux easy to find on CD? I was looking for his Vivaldi ("Il Favorito" etc.) recently, as I listened Manze's take, and although Manze was interesting I felt a yearning for Grumiaux. Anyway couldn't find Grumiaux, except at silly second hand prices.

Silly new price but surely not bad s/h?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corelli-12-Sonatas-violin-harpsichord/dp/B004768A1Y

[vinteuil]

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http://amzn.eu/dr9cpF9

,

[Richard Barrett]

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http://amzn.eu/dr9cpF9

I listened to some of that yesterday too. Very nice playing to be sure. But I didn't so much appreciate the somewhat unadventurous (and, I think, not entirely historically justified) approach to continuo instrumentation.

[kea]

PS - having now listened through the whole of the set with Lina Tur Bonet, this recording immediately becomes my own top recommendation. Wonderfully and imaginatively played and constantly throwing fresh new light on music I thought I knew well.

That's definitely a strong recommendation. I only have the Wallfisch, which uses the 1710 edition + a second version of no.9 ornamented by Geminiani. It's a recording I like a lot, but I also definitely like Lina Tur Bonet & will queue hers up for listening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Hey! Time to wake up!

This is tomorrow.

[MickyD]

I got Wallfisch first of all back in the 90s and liked it a lot.

The Kuijken/Kohnen selection is seriously marred by a strange out of focus recording - unusual from the normally fine Accent team.

I am now content with Manze, but was interested to learn about the L'Oiseau Lyre recording, flagged up by Vinteuil - that passed me by unnoticed.

[Richard Barrett]

Hey! Time to wake up!

... and smell the Corelli, as they say.

I've listener to most of them now and my personal recommendation remains the same. I think it would be interesting to combine the published ornamented versions and newly improvised ones, by using one the first time a passage is played and the other in the repeat. Some performers who use the published ornamentations play them more or less identically in the repeat of a passage, which has to be the wrong way to do things.

[BBMmk2]

The Andrew Manze, Richard Egarr set is available on the box set "The Art of the Violin", not only as a download. £38, though. But has some rather good playing of Vivaldi, Rebel, an album called Concert for the King of Poland", and Mozart VCs. I have this set. Strongly recommended.