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Nicholas Lockey, Italian Baroque instrumental music, Early Music, Volume 50, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 138–141, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/caac017
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Spanning from solo, duo and trio sonatas to solo concertos (and even adding two voices for a few psalm settings), this group of eight discs documents the inexhaustible richness of―and historical enthusiasm for―Italian Baroque instrumental music, both within and beyond the Italian peninsula. These albums also demonstrate the continuing interest in this repertory by period-instrument performers, including many relatively new artists tackling familiar and exploratory works.
The title of the disc Anonimo Venexian (Ramée ram1905, issued 2019, 72′) is a bit misleading because, despite appearing to be a celebration of anonymously preserved Venetian sonatas, three of the nine works carry attributions, and the performers―Inês d’Avena (recorders) and Claudio Ribeiro (harpsichord)―posit attributions for two additional works. This project is instead an excellent demonstration of how much compelling music survives amongst the unattributed or lesser-known works in Venetian manuscripts and printed collections of Venetian music. In addition to two sonatas (no.2 in G major and no.5 in E minor) from the Benedictine monk Diogenio Bigaglia’s op.1 sonatas, the duo has selected several works from their research in the archives in the libraries of the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. These include a Toccata di spinetta in D major for ‘Sig[no]ra Isabella’ by Francesco Gasparini, a harpsichord sonata in A minor from the same manuscript (which the performers attribute to Gasparini as well), another anonymous harpsichord sonata in D major, a particularly effective recorder sonata in By major, a shorter recorder sonata in C major, the slow third movement of another anonymous C major recorder sonata and a particularly impressive recorder sonata in F major that bears many fingerprints of Vivaldi’s style; the performers’ conjectural attribution to Vivaldi has not been officially accepted at present, although it remains a subject of interest. The performances themselves are much recommended. The acoustics of the music room of the Ospedale dei Derelitti in Venice provide just enough lift to add warmth without obscuring details and the balance between the performers means that these are heard as real duos. While it would have been nice if the liner notes included manuscript call numbers and foliation details for those who wish to track down these works more easily, the selection of instruments, choice of repertory, quality of the performances and overall presentation make this disc a winner.
