Album review - Locatelli's Concerto Grossi Op 1, No 1-6

It's been a while since I posted and may be a while till I post again, it's a tough time at the moment. But I thought I would take this opportunity to post an review I wrote which I posted on Classicsonline. It''s for a Naxos recording of Locatelli's Concerto Grossi Op 1 No 1-6 performed by Capella Istropolitana conducted by Jaroslav Krcek.

Locatelli’s Concerto Grossi is a vivid collection of the moods of the violin that never loses the liveliness we can expect from a virtuosic player-composer. They’re not violin concertos of course, but they make heavy use of the string section and feature many violin solos and it’s these that really give the overall Opus its character and separate it from the better known Concerto Grossi of Handel and Corelli.

While they also make good use of the strings, Locatelli’s violin glides effortlessly over the whole and produces the feeling of each movement, from the lively opening of No 1 to the graceful beauty of No 5’s Largo where the violin works in concert with an organ.

The movements are constantly shifting as Locatelli paints a colourful abstract that never allows you to fall into complacency. The movement following the Largo of No 5 is a racing Allegro with the strings rolling along beside a harpsichord.
Even the structures of the individual concerto grosso are disparate so there’s no risk of falling into a formula. Most do start with a livelier movement, usually an Allegro – in fact, most movements are Allegros – but No 6 opens with an almost haunting Adagio before plunging into an Allegro where the strings are split into two refrains which work together at the end for a harmonious whole, underpinned along the way by the harpsichord.

This performance by Capella Istropolitana is smooth and fluid, ranging over the differing movements effortlessly so we can enjoy the journey and never feel jarred. It is a masterful display of some lesser known but very deserving Baroque.

Baroque Composers IV - Corelli and Locatelli

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) was an Italian composer and violinist whose style of playing greatly influenced the performance of the instrument for years to come. He was born into a wealthy family and raised by his mother – since his father died a few weeks before he was born. Much of his life is confused by legend and anecdotes that have no evidence to back them up. We know he was in Rome by 1675 and there built an impressive career as a highly respected violinist. Interestingly however he didn’t like the high register and refused to play it.

Finding that out explains a fair bit about his Violin Sonatas, Op 5 which I recently bought the second half thereof from Classicsonline (it’s a set of 12 so there are two volumes). While demonstrating virtuosic elements throughout, they are much lower in tone than most violin pieces, which I find quite refreshing to be honest. The most famous part of them is No 12, which is known as La Folia, it is a one movement but as long as the others and it explores as much ground – if not more. It is a truly remarkable piece.

The lower register of the works also makes the slow movements that much more beautiful to my mind. He works the violin gently over the accompanying continuo or harpsichord to create a real sense of swoon (if you take my meaning). He even has a Sarabanda Largo; sarabandes are usually dances so this slow version is quite remarkable. It sounds at times like the violin part is being broken over the knee of the harpsichord, only gently.

His most famous composition however is his Concerto Grossi, a set of 12 concerto grossi which influenced a number of composers including Handel who wrote his own set instead of following the more modern (at the time) Venetian concerto popularised by Vivaldi. They’re best known because of the so-called Christmas concerto which is brilliant but the rest of them work equally as well. Here’s No 1 from the set. It opens with all the regal pomp you could expect of the age but soon goes into a questioning yet spritely phase that loses nothing of the ornamental beauty but is rich in feeling, if not deep emotion.

Pietro Locatelli (1695-1764) was another Italian violinist and composer who possibly studied under Corelli for a very short time just before Corelli’s death. He spent his early career in Rome , then spent five years travelling Italy and Germany before settling in Amsterdam for the last 30 odd years of his life. Strangely most of his compositions are from his travelling years; in Amsterdam he worked mostly as a teacher and performed publically and privately. In a nice quirk, he never allowed professional musicians into his performances lest they learn too much from him.

There aren’t a whole lot of works by Locatelli and they’re certainly not widely known these days. His Violin Sonatas and Concertos were virtuosic standards in Europe at the time however and he was quite famous as a consequence. I haven't heard much of them to be honest. This concerto (Op 3, No 12) is certainly very nice to begin with, then a couple of minutes in the violin begins some very interesting playing, quite unlike anything else I can think of in the Baroque/Classical repertoire. If that's typical of his works there's much to be explored here.

The first work I knew of his was actually his Opus 1, 12 Concerti Grossi. Of course, this was based on Corelli’s Concerto Grosso but there is a difference. Locatelli makes great use of the violin and string section, usually underpinned by harpsichord. There’s at least one movement where the organ and violin swim together through some beautiful refrains.

Both these composers are very Baroque, with precise playing and rich ornamentation. Corelli does evoke some emotions, particularly in his slower movements, but don’t have the depth shown in later periods. But the music is undeniably beautiful and rich. Well worth taking the time to explore, they also inspire me to find out more about similar composer/violinists of their day like Geminani, Torelli and Tartini who’s my next profile.

Glinka Album Review

If you follow this for long it will soon become apparent that I'm a big fan of Russian classical music. The father of that tradition is considered to be Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) who brought Western classical ideas to traditional Russian music and greatly influenced later compatriot composers like Balakirev, Mussorgsky and eventually Tchaikovsky. How much so on each I don't know.

Despite that there's only one piece of his which gets much recognition these days, the overture to his second opera Ruslan and Lyudmilla. It is an exciting overture with an awesome timpani part, but I always figured there had to be some more great work. Then this album came up as a weekend special on classicsonline and I couldn't pass it up. It proves Glinka wrote quite a lot of wonderful music, definitely classical but also distinctly Russian, with shifting themes and moods that never leave you bored.

So I reviewed it and the following is what I submitted to classicsonline.

When the opening dramatic and brooding strings and horns of the Capriccio Brilliante give way to a lively fare with softer strings and floating winds, you know you’re in for something special. This album leaves us with no doubt why Mikhail Glinka is considered the father of Russian classical music, but it does raise the question of why we mostly only hear one overture of his when so much of his work is musically brilliant and, more importantly, such fun to listen to.

Every time you think the tune has settled into one mode, it will take a turn. Light strings in the Souvenir from Madrid are suddenly punctuated with stirring percussion, only to fall back to the strings before a brief almost plaintiff clarinet and a rousing combination of the three. Themes are established, intertwined and mixed with seeming ease, and the themes are undeniably Russian but wonderfully wrought into the Classical mode. There are foretellings of almost every Russian composer to follow in this music, but none more so than Tchaikovsky himself.

Vassily Sinaisky leads the BBC Philharmonic on this exploration of Glinka’s Russia and cuts a deft path through the shifts and changes. The drama is captured without overwhelming the quieter moments which ring with poignancy. This is hands-down a magnificent introduction to the music of a highly influential composer who has so much more to offer than the overture to Ruslan and Lyudmilla; although when it comes to that … well, it is a triumph no doubt.