12 Fantasias for solo violin by Luigi De Filippi

Georg Philipp Telemann

Luigi De Filippi

12 Fantasias for solo violin

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917267921
Catnr: CC 72679
Release date: 27 November 2015
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917267921

Catalogue number
CC 72679

Release date
27 November 2015

"" [...] In this great presentation by the magnificant violist Luigi de Filippi you can hear how well he knows his instrument from the inside out. [...] ""

Luister, 06-5-2016

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About the album

Telemann’s solo violin Fantasias were published in 1735, some fifteen years after the appearance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin; we do not know if Bach’s masterpieces were known to Telemann, but he certainly didn’t share Bach’s preoccupation to demonstrate how a simple solo instrument could handle very extended forms, and how contrapuntal writing could convey the impression of polyphonic constructions. If anything, Telemann’s gems remind one of Bach’s cello suites: clever music, overflowing with melodic wealth and charm. Telemann also moved swiftly from one source of inspiration to another, pouring out with unhampered ease exquisite melodies, sketches of learned fugues, folk-like cantilenas, nursery rhymes tunes. Each Fantasia consists of three or four short movements, with a duration which goes from as little as four minutes to a maximum of 11 minutes: nothing to be compared with Bach’s divine verbosity. Fantasia no 12 contains a lovely parody of Giuseppe Tartini’s “Didone abbandonata “, published the year before in Italy: here Telemann echoes (and makes fun of) Tartini’s shrill dissonances, derived from the Istrian folk repertoire: one more demonstration that these great men were fully aware of all the latest developments that took place in the whole of Europe.

Meesterwerken in de vioolmuziek
Samen met Johann Sebastian Bachs sonates en partita’s voor viool, behoren de fantasia’s van Georg Philipp Telemann tot de absolute meesterwerken in de vioolmuziek. De fantasia’s van Telemann werden in 1735 gepubliceerd, zo’n vijftien jaar nadat Bachs werken voor soloviool verschenen. Het is onbekend of Telemann de meesterwerken van Bach kende, maar hij deelde in ieder geval niet Bachs vooringenomenheid om te laten zien hoe een enkel solo instrument uitgebreide structuren aankan en hoe het contrapunt een impressie van meerstemmige muziek kan geven.

In plaats daarvan doen Telemanns werken meer denken aan de cellosuites van Bach: intelligente en charmante muziek. In het werk van Telemann zijn meerdere invloeden te horen wat zich uit in uitgebreide melodieën, schetsen van aangeleerde fuga’s en verwijzingen naar volksmuziek en kinderliedjes. Elke fantasia bestaat uit drie of vier korte delen, met een duur van vier tot elf minuten: in niets gelijk met de lange stukken van Bach. In Fantasia nr. 12 horen we een aanvallige parodie op Giuseppe Tartini’s Didone abbandonata, die een jaar eerder werd gepubliceerd in Italië. Hier gebruikt (en ridiculiseert) Telemann dezelfde, schelle dissonanten die Tartini gebruikte.

Ondanks de muzikaliteit zijn deze stukken zelden opgenomen. Op dit album horen we een uitvoering van Luigi De Filippi op een historische viool. De Italiaanse De Filippi is een gerenommeerde violist die al meerdere albums op zijn naam heeft staan. Hij is een meesterviolist op zowel moderne als historische violen en speelt in het vermaarde Italiaanse trio Voces Intimae.

Seine letzte Aufnahmen mit Solo-Sonaten von Tartini sorgten für Aufsehen. The Strad schrieb: “In ausgezeichneter Form entlockt er seinem Instrument atemberaubende Klänge mit einer in erster Linie sicheren Intonation […].” In dieser Aufnahme widmet sich Luigi de Filippi den Fantasien für Violine solo von Telemann, die 1735, ca. 15 Jahre nach Bachs Violinsonaten und Partiten, erschienen sind. Unklar ist jedoch, ob Telemann Bachs Kompositionen kannte. Nur eines haben sie gemeinsam: es sind raffinierte Kompositionen, voll melodiöser Vielfalt und Charm.
Telemann ließ sich von vielen Einflüssen inspirieren und sprang unterer anderem ungehindert zwischen ausgewählten Melodien, Fugen und Cantilenen munter umher. Jede Fantasie umfasst drei bis vier kleinere Sätze und hat damit eine maximale Dauer von elf Minuten. Die zwölfte Fantasie enthält sogar eine liebevolle Parodie auf Tartinis “Didone abbandonata“, welches ein Jahr zuvor in Italien veröffentlicht wurde.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 – 1767) è una figura di compositore insolita: contemporaneo di Bach, Haendel e Domenico Scarlatti fu autodidatta e imparò a suonare numerosi strumenti senza particolari aiuti esterni. Scrisse qualcosa come tremila pezzi, di cui in tarda età si ricordava appena. Un tratto caratteristico della sua musica è l’estrema mobilità, e una incessante curiosità di prendere spunti dalle influenze più disparate, che vanno dalla dottrina musicale più stretta alla musica popolare di vari paesi dell’Europa centrale, all’eleganza un po’ frivola della musica di corte e alle immancabili influenze italiane e francesi.
Le 12 Fantasie per violino solo abbondano in episodi ispirati a stili molto diversificati, con rapide sterzate da una citazione a un’altra anche all’interno di una stessa breve Fantasia. Ne segue che anche l’esecuzione deve assecondare elasticamente i vari influssi, e questo piccolo ma versatile strumento che è il violino viene trasportato dal pubblico della chiesa a quello dell’aristocrazia per finire magari a quello della taverna. E a questo proposito va ricordato che Telemann eseguì numerose sue composizioni in una caratteristica locanda affacciata sul porto di Amburgo, chiamata “Baumhaus” perché un albero era cresciuto al suo interno.
Le atmosfere delle Fantasie cambiano continuamente, ma vi si riconosce un predominante buonumore: le fughe, che sul violino solo possono diventare assai ostiche, non durano mai più di pochi secondi, e le cantilene malinconiche si arrestano un secondo prima che l’ascoltatore si intristisca. Particolarmente gustosa è la parodia della Didone abbandonata di Tartini, pubblicata l’anno prima, con cui Telemann caratterizza l’ultima Fantasia – a dimostrazione di quanto questi grandi artisti fossero aggiornati sulle ultime tendenze della musica in tutta Europa.
Il violino d’epoca, con le sue innegabili attrattive e i suoi altrettanto innegabili limiti, sembra il più adatto a questa musica. Nell’interpretazione della musica di Telemann (forse anche perché non c’è tutta l’imponente discografia di quella di Bach) sembra abbastanza naturale andare a ricercare quelle che presumibilmente erano le intenzioni e gli ambiti che appartenevano al compositore. L’accordatura un po’ più bassa rispetto al violino moderno e l’uso delle corde di budello naturale sembrano rendere l’esecuzione più cordiale e colloquiale.
Luigi De Filippi

Artist(s)

Luigi de Filippi

A violinist and conductor, Luigi De Filippi has studied violin, piano and composition, showing an early interest in jazz and contemporary music. He subsequently appeared as concertmaster in such orchestras as the Rome Opera House, La Fenice Theatre in Venice, the London Mozart Players, the Flanders Orchestra in Antwerp. In London he made his debut as conductor with the London Mozart Players, and he appeared as soloist – conductor at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona. In 2007 he soloed in the Auckland Festival (New Zealand). He has conducted Antonio Salieri’s opera “Prima la musica, poi le parole” at the Minoritenkirche...

A violinist and conductor, Luigi De Filippi has studied violin, piano and composition, showing an early interest in jazz and contemporary music. He subsequently appeared as concertmaster in such orchestras as the Rome Opera House, La Fenice Theatre in Venice, the London Mozart Players, the Flanders Orchestra in Antwerp. In London he made his debut as conductor with the London Mozart Players, and he appeared as soloist – conductor at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona. In 2007 he soloed in the Auckland Festival (New Zealand). He has conducted Antonio Salieri’s opera “Prima la musica, poi le parole” at the Minoritenkirche in Vienna, the very church for which Salieri wrote all his sacred music. Luigi De Filippi is the violinist of the Voces Intimae piano trio, a leading ensemble which has performed extensively throughout Europe, has toured the USA and China and is among the official cultural testimonials of the Italian Republic. Voces Intimae records for Challenge Classics: a complete issue of the Schumann trios is now available, the first Cd having appeared in 2011 (winner of the “Period instrument choice” by BBC Radio 3 and “Cd of the month” by the Italian magazine “Suonare”), and the second having been released in 2015. In 2013 Challenge released the piano trios of Théodore Gouvy. Voces Intimae has also recorded three Cds for the label Symphonia: the trios of Schubert and Mendelssohn, and a selection of Fantasias based on Vincenzo Bellini’s operas; in 2004 Warner Classics issued a double CD of the complete trios of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, which was elected “CD of the year” for 2006 by BBC Radio 3.
De Filippi is the music director of the Da Ponte Ensemble: with the DPE he has recorded Giacinto Cornachioli’s La Diana Schernita of 1629, for the label Bongiovanni. In 2012 a Cd of rare pieces of Ruggero Leoncavallo, Brise de mer, and in 2013 a selection of violin and orchestra Fantasias titled Il Violino & l’Opera – Hommage à Verdi, have been released by the label Mediterranea Classica. Luigi has taken part in the first ever recording of music of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, for the label Edipan; For Warner – Fonit he has recorded some orchestral music by Francesco Saverio Mercadante; for Gold & Lebet Delphin Alard’s violin Fantasias based on five Giuseppe Verdi operas. In 2012 Luigi has started a collaboration with Challenge Classics as soloist: the first issue featured a selection of Giuseppe Tartini sonatas for solo violin, followed in November 2015 by a Cd of the splendid Fantasias for unaccompanied violin by Georg Philipp Telemann.

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Composer(s)

Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann (14 March 1681 – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually settled on a career in music. He held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of the city's five main churches. While Telemann's career prospered, his personal life was always troubled: his first wife died only a few months after their marriage, and his second wife had extramarital affairs and accumulated a large gambling debt before leaving Telemann.
Telemann was one of the most prolific composers in history (at least in terms of surviving oeuvre) and was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time—he was compared favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally. Telemann's music incorporates several national styles (French, Italian) and is even at times influenced by Polish popular music. He remained at the forefront of all new musical tendencies and his music is an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles.

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Press

" [...] In this great presentation by the magnificant violist Luigi de Filippi you can hear how well he knows his instrument from the inside out. [...] "
Luister, 06-5-2016

music 3,5*, sound 3,5*
Fono Forum, 01-3-2016