Veracini: Sonatas

Francesco Maria Veracini (Composer), Lars Ulrik Mortensen (Performer), Japp ter Linden (Performer), John Holloway (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Japp ter Linden, John Holloway
• Composer: Francesco Maria Veracini
• Audio CD (March 29, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B0007R8FSU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,240 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprise gift, July 23, 2007

By 

HSIEH CHENG CHUNG "Alfred Hsieh" (Taipei, Taiwan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Veracini: Sonatas (Audio CD)

I had been listenned baroque music a few days, and gradually know and touch from famous composers ex Bach, Handel, vivaldi, to unknown composers. The latter music they often give me surprise and open my vision of music. For sample, violin sonatas music, these new style beginning during 1600 in italy, and developing until late baroque, we could find some outstanding composers, ex Geminiani, Locatelli and Veracini.
When I tried this CD, I don't know how to explain my feeling, it's very soft, smooth and beautiful. Sounds cheerfully to my heart, full of happiness.
Holloway, as other viewers described, I also had tried some, ex biber, schmelzer, they are all perfect, of course I should add Verachi in my satifying pool.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it (with apologies for the terrible pun :), June 7, 2007

By 

Jason Fisher (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Veracini: Sonatas (Audio CD)

This is one of those rare discs that is pretty much perfect. "Pure Baroque Magic", as the previous reviewer said. Like that reviewer, I wasn't familiar with Veracini until this disc. Too many wonderful composers from the Baroque period are overshadowed by their much more famous contemporaries (e.g., Bach and Vivaldi), but Veracini is definitely worth discovering!

The four sonatas on the disc are beautifully written and performed, and the clarity of the recording is top-notch. Holloway seems to channel the spirit of composer-violinist Veracini (think of Yo-Yo Ma performing Boccherini) in his mastery of extemporaneous melodic ornamentation (trills, turns, and mordents -- oh my!), which was usually not notated explicity in Baroque manuscripts but rather simply expected of a capable performer. Holloway is certainly that!

These aren't sonatas in the Classical (and later) sense of the term. Using later definitions, these might have been called trios. But the sonata form in the Baroque period was different. In the Vivaldian form, there were four movements, while in the form popularized by Corelli, there were five -- as opposed to the more common three-movement form in the Classical and Romantic periods. There are representatives of both Baroque forms here, one of which is an explicit homage to Corelli's Opus 5.

Those familiar with the later form of the sonata might also be surprised to see a harpsichord *and* cello here, but the two operate together as a continuo in most of the movements, which is typical of the period. There are occasions, however, where the cello and harpsichord get to "stretch their legs", so to speak, breaking out of the continuo model, as in the lovely opening movement of the Sonata No. 5 in C Major (track 6). Listen for the wonderful tinkling arpeggiation in the hapsichord part, making it sound more like a harp, while the cello part is beautifully spare, harmonically reinforcing the central violin solo.

Veracini also has the ability to surprise. In the liner notes, Holloway calls him "an innovative composer [with] an eccentric personality", and that comes through at many points. For example, in the downward chromatic progression in the Aria movement of the Sonata No. 1 in G Minor (track 2). But while he diverges from traditional harmonic and contrapuntal forms at times, Veracini also delivers passages that are wonderfully illustrative of Baroque character, as in the second movement of the Sonata No. 1 in D Major (track 11), which has the feel of a Bach canon. Think of the final Allegro of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, taken down in tempo, and you'll have a good sense of it. There are also remarkably lovely slower movements, as in the Largo of the Sonata No. 6 in A Major (track 18), which calls to mind echoes of Vivaldi and Albinoni.

So, if you like the Baroque -- and in particular, Vivaldi, Corelli, Scarlatti, and to a lesser extent Bach -- do yourself a favor and order a copy of the Veracini Sonatas.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars VARIEGATED VERACINI, December 16, 2010

By 

Melvyn M. Sobel "Melvyn M. Sobel" (Freeport, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Veracini: Sonatas (Audio CD)

Quite the inspired eccentric, Veracini; not Bach, nor Tartini; not Geminiani, nor Corelli (even when paying bizarre homage to the composer in the "Dissertazioni"); not Handel, nor Vivaldi. He seems very much an eerie synthesis of his contemporaries, but with a distinct symmetry all his own, and Holloway, the phantasmagoric empath through which Veracini's extraordinary and ethereal works take earthly form via a transmogrification that is both palpable and thrilling throughout. The sonatas, more like cryptic musings from some musical afterlife, are gripping and laden with a metaphysical angst that is nearly indescribable--- as if Veracini sought the transcendent nexus at which music, human existence and sublimity merge. It is all profoundly beautiful and moving, and the performances, full of depth, lyricism and equal amounts of pathos and restrained felicity, are emotionally wondrous. Special mention, too, should be made regarding the superb interplay of instruments, especially the contrast between Holloway's silky-toned violin and ter Linden's deep-throated cello, without which Veracini's sonatas could never attain such a splendid recording.

[Running time: 62:22]