Customer Reviews

Corelli: Violin Sonatas, Op. 5

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this is really fine music. corelli is the paragon of the "italian" style of baroque (at least until vivaldi caught bach's attention), and these sonatas are perhaps finer than the italianate sonatas by handel. there is marvelous poetry and variety in these pieces, brought forward by the spare instrumentation of violin, bass and harpsichord, and everything is wrapped in corelli's creamy, effortless, halcyon musical world.

my reservation is that manze at times takes these pieces with a raspy vigor that is better left for tartini. the "folias" variations in particular, while tremendous fun and inspiringly ornamented, omit that key (and historically correct) baroque attribute known as decorum. the equally virtuosic recordings by elizabeth wallfisch have the edge on that point.

by the way, if you enjoy this recording, i strongly urge you to get corelli's magnificent concerti grossi, a true pinnacle in the form and one of the great achievements of baroque music.

I usually think of Corelli as nice "background music," pleasant, but without the emotional depth of Vivaldi, Bach or Handel. However, with this disc I find myself stopping and losing myself in the beautiful tones of Manze's baroque violin. The playing is superb and subtle, revealing these pieces as intimate and poetic. Harmonia Mundi's recording quality is excellent as well. Highly recommended. I can't wait to see what the venerable English Concert does under Manze's new leadership.

Confession: I have never loved these sonatas. Respected them, yes, of course; but with a polite detachment that their exclusively intellectual and technical achievements seemed to merit.

Well, this album changed all that. It's a masterly performance, effortlessly virtuosic, that shows forth the music in all its lapidary clarity. More than that, though: it is also luminously expressive, replete with moments of such unadorned and lyrical tenderness that the heart opens up, amazed.

For those who think they know this music no less than those who know they do not, Manze and Egarr's achievement is an exquisite revelation.

There's something in the greatest of baroque music that it alone can do - a kind of grace in suspended passion, angular sour biting lines that somehow are sweet without being sickly sweet, a mathematical precision that is not arid. It's all here in Arcangelo Corelli's great and generous gift to us all.

I think this music is best listened to on a night when one is physically ill or one is simply too spiritually ill to go much furthur without some sort of stroking of the soul. When played at such times Corelli asks nothing and gives everything - but what a sweet everything he gives!

Full of light and air, a transfiguration that is not heavy, a thoughtfulness that avoids the perils and pains of excessive introspection. There's a reason why people call this music humane and if you'd like to find out why purchase this double CD set and put it on when the burdens of your humanity are a bit too heavy.

What does the Book of Job tell us? That humans are born to trouble as the sparks fly. Here's music that's a true comfort for the likes of Job while he waits for the answers to his rightful questionings.

I've listened to this three times through since receiving it two days ago. Stunning, like wiping layers of grime off an old, revered masterwork painting that's been sitting in a church storage bin for 300 years. The colors!

Third listening through, I keep hearing new things. This time through, the contrast between how seductive manze makes the slow movements, and how passionate (but never over-frenzied) the fast movements are.....consistent with descriptions from those contemporary observers who had the fortune to see Corelli perform these himself. There are still other, fairly dutiful versions of these sonatas out there...some are better than others, but this new set is the best.

Manze, Biondi, Podger...the creme de la creme of baroque violinists. You may not always appreciate what they're doing to your father's "sunday afternoon with hot cocoa" music, but man they ROCK!

The added bonus for me was buying this disc through Amazon's USED CD service. hats off to Amazon for offering us this alternative...hope they're making $$ on it. I got this disc for [cheap], and it was brand new.

Like a lot of Italian High Baroque music, the scores for these sonatas are rather minimalist, and played strictly as written, these pieces can come across as drab harmony exercises. Manze and Egarr take the score as merely a starting point, in true High Baroque fashion, improvising with an impressive combination of stylistic accuracy, control, and passion that one virtually never hears in classical music.

The fire and immediacy of these performances is exceptional - the sheer joy of the gigue from the A major sonata (no. 9) is something that will stay with you for a while, and the floating, delicate lyricism they give to the slow movements is simply haunting.

I've always thought that Corelli was, with the exceptions of Bach and perhaps Scarlatti, the best composer of the Baroque era, and this set stands comfortably with Trevor Pinnock's magisterial set of the Op. 6 concerti grossi as proof.

this is really fine music. corelli is the paragon of the "italian" style of baroque (at least until vivaldi caught bach's attention), and these sonatas are perhaps finer than the italianate sonatas by handel. there is marvelous poetry and variety in these pieces, brought forward by the spare instrumentation of violin, bass and harpsichord, and everything is wrapped in corelli's creamy, effortless, halcyon musical world.

my reservation is that manze at times takes these pieces with a raspy vigor that is better left for tartini. the "folias" variations in particular, while tremendous fun and inspiringly ornamented, omit that key (and historically correct) baroque attribute known as decorum. the equally virtuosic recordings by elizabeth wallfisch have the edge on that point.

by the way, if you enjoy this recording, i strongly urge you to get corelli's magnificent concerti grossi, a true pinnacle in the form and one of the great achievements of baroque music.

Corelli wrote at least two pieces of music that will last forever: his Christmas Concerto and the Sonata XII on this set. Now, he wrote lots of other fine and charming music (and I have it and enjoy it), but, as another reviewer says, Corelli often falls into the background music grab bag. Lovely and fun, pleasant, well-composed and sprightly, but not enough to hold your attention for an extended period.

And much of the music on these two discs falls into the same category. These sonatas have their moments, but to me at least (a non-performer) too many of them are a tad characterless. However, the playing is sensational. Manze clearly demonstrates why violinists love them. The ear focuses on that violin, with good reason. It is violent, raspy, poetic, exhilarating, and jubilant. Rippingly fast and achingly slow, Manze can send chills up your spine. But the harpsichord is also incredible. Savoring this has been a joy, as two world class musicians work together like a pair jazz improvisers, twisting and leaping and igniting.

Their performance of La Follia, the famous Sonata number 12, will send those chills up your spine, down your arms, and out through your toes. Exhilarating is too tame a word for this divine treat. I am not a Baroque expert, but a guy who's listened to a lot of this music with pleasure. And this CD will have me looking for their other collaborations.

This is wonderful chamber music by first class musicians. It's well produced, and the sound engineering is excellent.

Play this during a dinner party and your guests will be delighted. Play it while reading or meditating to raise your soul.

Great gift for people who are unaware of such beautiful music, assure them it's for quiet and relaxing moods and they'll appreciate it.

This recording was the first I heard of Manze's. The lively style was impressive at first. Yet I did not feel comfortable with his reading of the pieces.

Then I heard more of his recordings and it turned out that Handel sounded just like Corelli, indeed just like Manze's version of any other baroque composer. And here seems to be the problem: this is Manze's music much more than Corelli's. In the first six sonatas for example, each of which have a fugue in them, a bass instrument would be necessary to hear the bass line, which is musically meaningful not just in the fugues (in about half the variations in No. 12 for example as well), but Manze insists on not using one because it was not customary--according to him--in Corelli's time. ( I am not sure if this is new results from research or a reading of it driven by his own preferences.)

This leads to a problem with lots of original instrument playing: disrespect for the score in favor of things we know--or believe we know--about the performance practices of the baroque era. You find performances where people come up with outrageously complicated embellishments and spend a lot of time (and money) using all sorts of instrument combinations for the continuous basse, but with hardly a sign that somebody read and pondered the score properly. There are many such recordings where great music (assuming great music was chosen to begin with) becomes drab and boring, but where the players have bellyached a lot about being "correct", like exemplary but uninspired students.

Manze is different from those people: he is an inspired musician with his own style. What we hear are Manze's pieces following Corelli's harmonic progressions. A bit like the way a jazz musician would interpret a tune. This is perfectly legitimate (indeed you could say that Corelli did the same thing in no. 12), but it should not make the claim to be a faithful rendering of Corelli's scores.

If you want to characterize Corelli's sonatas (I know them quite well since I play the violin myself) you would say they are introvert, reserved, the composer keeps his distance (though some are more intensely emotional than others, no. 1 for example). An interpretation that conveys this character would therefor have to avoid flamboyance--and Manze is nothing if not flamboyant--and try to bring the pieces to life by the way the rhythm is handled, subtly and unobtrusively, especially in the dance- and dance-like movements, by avoiding overly slow tempi in the slow movements as well as too much rubato and by being modest with embellishments. The bassline has to be heard since it was composed with care. The most important source of a piece of music is always the score.