Luogo e data di registrazione		Bennebroek (Holland) - Novembre/Dicembre 1968
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		Wolf Erichson
	Prima Edizione LP		Telefunken "Das Alte Werk" | SAWT 9548-B | 1 LP - durata 59' 37" | (p) 1969 | ANA Telefunken "Aspekte" | 6.42638 AH | 1 LP - durata 59' 37" | (p) 1969 | ANA | Riedizione
	Edizione CD		Warner Classics | LC 04281 | 2564-69622-0 | 1 CD - durata 59' 37"  | (c) 2008 | ADD
	Cover		"Still Life with Musical Instruments", a painting by Pieter Claesz, who worked in Haarlem from 1617 until his death in 1660.
	Note		-

The Italian baroque pieces which make up this recording were composed between 1680 and 1780. The ricercata by G. B. degli Antoni and the canon by D. Gabrielli are among the earliest known works for violoncello. Both composers were members of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna, an important centre for instrumental music in the 17th century, where Archangelo Corelli, too, received his musical education. The Ricercata by degli Antoni is contained in an edition of 1687; Gabrielli’s Canon for two Violoncelli - a unique item in compositions for the ’cello - is taken from an autograph dated 15th January 1689, now to be found in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. Gabrielli, whose nickname was Dominico of the violoncello, was in fact one of the first masters of the cello. There is nothing at all “primitive” about this early music for ’cello. The Ricercata “sopra un soggetto” had become an accepted form since Frescobaldi’s time and the implied “polyphony” contained in a single melody, later to be so wonderfully developed by J. S. Bach, had long been practised in lute and gamba music. What is incomprehensible, however, is that these fascinating, beautiful pieces should so long have remained in obscurity. Around 1700, after Bologna, Venice - once again - played a leading role in the history of instrumental music. The great Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi, who was attached to the Seminario musicale dell’Ospotale della Pieta, a kind of orphanage for girls, composed for his pupils hundreds of concertos and sonatas for every conceivable instrument. Of the many works for ’cello that have come down to us the six sonatas published in Paris about 1740 are the most popular with ’cellists today. The Sonata in B flat major is the first of this group. Francesco Geminiani, a pupil of Corelli, whose style he developed and perfected, was - like Vivaldi - one of the best violinists of his age. He lived for many years in London, where, in 1747, he published six ’cello sonatas with basso continuo which, for their exceptional nature, occupy a special place among works for the 'cello. Geminiani was certainly not the only Italian musician living in London. During the 18th century there must have been dozens of them earning their living in a manner considered novel in those days: they held concerts, composed and gave tuition. Thus we find a mideighteenth century publication, “Six Solos for two Violoncellis composed by Sigr. Bononcini and other eminent Authors”. It contained six sonatas by six different Italian composers, no fewer than five ’cellists and one oboist, all working in London. Two of these sonatas are performed here, that of the oboist - the celebrated Giuseppe St. Martini, brother of the well-known G. B. Sammartini — and that of Giovanni Bononcini, who was an opera composer as well as a ’cellist. An 18th century copy of the Sonata in B flat major by Luigi Boccherini, lost to us for many years, recently turned up in a London second-hand bookshop. In its first and last movements this sonata to some degree calls to mind the Concerto in B flat major, of which, unfortunately, there is no autograph either. (This concerto is invariably performed today in the free - all too free - version by F. Griitzmacher, although a good modern edition is available.) Boccherini, who was also a ’cellist and must have had a stupendous technique, demanded the utmost virtuosity (rapidity) right into the uppermost register. He was the son of a double-bass player and in his youth had given concerts with his father, as for example in Vienna. The Sonata in B flat major, which, like Boccherini’s other sonatas, must be an early work - unlike the numerous quintets for two violins, viola and two ’celli - was almost certainly composed before 1780. This work, chronologically the last on our recording, rounds off the selection from a hundred years of Italian music for the ’cello. Anner Bylsma