Albinoni: Double Oboe Concertos & String Concertos, Vol. 2

Tomaso Albinoni (Composer), Simon Standage (Conductor), Collegium Musicum 90 (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Collegium Musicum 90
• Conductor: Simon Standage
• Composer: Tomaso Albinoni
• Audio CD (January 20, 1998)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Chandos
• ASIN: B000005X12
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,018 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

The earliest concertos, written in north Italy shortly before 1700, were composed exclusively for strings. This was natural enough, since this region was the main European center for the manufacture and playing of stringed instruments. The custom soon arose of using a principal violin distinct from the ordinary orchestral first violins. The solos taken by this instrument, at first short and structurally insignificant but later (especially following Vivaldi's example) very extensive and pivotal to the form, led to the creation of the violin concerto in the modern sense. An outgrowth of this practice was to introduce alternative solo instruments extraneous to the string ensemble. This step took time to materialize, since wind instruments and their players were relatively scarce in Italy, being much more numerous export of the concerto genre from Italy to Germany combined with the emigration to Italy of numerous German wind players led to the birth of the oboe concerto almost simultaneously in Italy and Germany in the second decade of the eighteenth century.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves to be reviewed., February 25, 2007

By 

Dustin Aber (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Albinoni: Double Oboe Concertos & String Concertos, Vol. 2 (Audio CD)

My review of this disc is the same as Volume I. You would be equally satisfied buying either (or both) discs.

This is one of my favorite discs and it's a pity that it hasn't been reviewed yet. If you're a fan of Italian baroque instrumental music, and especially the oboe, you owe yourself to buy this cd.

It isn't St. Matthew's Passion, but it's not meant to be. This is very pleasant, upbeat, and tuneful music. The conductor has mixed Albinoni's violin and double oboe concerti together - I suppose in an attempt to mix the music up a bit. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure that if you buy both volumes you'll be getting all of Opus 7 and 9.

The performers are excellent. I don't have any dynamic criticism as far as that goes. The different instruments have just the right presence, and are balanced very well (no single instrument is unduly pronounced or drowned out). On some recordings of period instrument music the oboe can easily get drowned out, or the baroque guitar is impossible to hear, but here (to my taste at least) everything is exactly right.

As far as recording quality goes this cd is very good. It's very clean; there isn't any sort of echo or distracting sounds that occasionally appears in some recordings.

AAM has recorded all the oboe concertos on a cd, which I have listened to, but I prefer this Collegium Musicum disc as I find the bass in the Hogwood to be a bit heavy, the violin a bit more distant, and I can't hear the guitar at all (if it's even there). Not that the AAM disc is poor, but this one just has more clarity.