Luogo e data di registrazione		-
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		-
	Prima Edizione LP		Telefunken - 6.42851 AZ - (1 LP) - LC 0366 - durata 50' 36" - (p) 1983 - Digital
	Edizione "Reference" CD		Tedec - 8.44011 ZS - (1 CD) - LC 3706 - durata 50' 36" - (c) 1988 - DDD
	Cover		"Die spanischen Musikanten", Porzellan. Modell von C. G. Lück, Frankenthal vor 1770. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.

The first decades of the 17th century saw an increasing output in Italy of instrumental music for small esembles - solos, duets, trios with continuo. Editions of this type of music, which frequently contained both vocal and instrumental pieces, were often adorned with poetic, indeed florid titles "Fiori musicali...", "lilia sacra---", "giardinetto di ricreatione...", "vaga ghirlanda di soavi, & odorati fiori usicali...". The present florilegium of Italian instrumental music is composed of the most usual types of pieces from the first half of the Seicento, both of the well-tried traditional kind and of the avant-garde of the day: dances, ostinato pieces, programme music, improvvisations and concerted sonatas, Though the Italian art music reperoire of the 17th century covered a wide rangt of instrumental genres, only a few of these proved capable of enduring and developing. Apart from the Canzona which was nooted in tradition, the improvisatory Toccata for solo performance, and the loosely knit dance suite that was assuming ever greater popularity, the Sonata was the most important type of early barique instrumental music. The structure of this early type of sonata was determined mainly by an increasingly standardised pattern of movements: the alternation of slow - fast - slow or fugato - chordal - dance-like sections of contrasting moods generally characterising the separation between Church and Chamber Sonata, which was completed by the end of the century. The extremes of emotion in this early type of sonata were the dance-like and the highly expressive. The alternation of sadness and joy, seriousness and jollity, urgency and repose provided the basic pattern of a "sonata da chiesa" with several movements. If the basic pattern was enhanced by the contrast between ensemble movements and subsections of a virtuoso nature, the resulting work was a "sonata concertata". In this kind of work the double meaning of the concept "concerto" is particularly apparent "agreement" on the one hand and "competition" (contentio o contrasto) on the oter do not have to be mutually exclusive, but can perfectly well "act in concert". This concerted element was not, however, confined to the sonata but spread to other types of music. Dances, and forms developed from the dance such as variations and ostinato structures, e. g. the Follia and Passacaglia, were just as likely to contain such features as was the "Battaglia" with its rich tradition. One of the most interesting composers of "Sonate concertate" was Dario Castello. There is a strange imbalance between his significance as a composer and the minute amount of factual information available about him. Almost the sum total of what is kown about him, some of that incorrect, is to be found in J. G. Walther's Lexikon of 1732. "Castello (Dario), a Venetian, a musician at St. Mark's also Capo di Compagnia de' Instrumentisti (his own description), has published concerted sonatas in 1, 2, 3 and 4 parts, the second volume of which was printed in folio at Venice in 1627 and dedicated to the emperor Ferinand II. In 1629 he had another 12 sonatas in 2 and 3 parts printed, and dedicated them to the choirmaster of the day, P. Giacomo Finetti." Castello attempted to translate the emotional models and ideas of Monteverdi, Grandi and others into the language of the ensemble sonata. His two collections "Sonate concertate in stil moderno" which were reprinted several times, contained sonatas for one or two instruments, trios and quartets of all manner of combinations. Of particolar interest in the tremendous variety of motifs and melodies and also the wide range of diflering emotions, the alternation of which in only indicated by the markings "alegro", "adagio", "presto", and quite often not at all. Even his "adagio" hat several interpretations: a many samply mean slow or heavy, as in a "grave" piece, but is may also indicate strong emotion sorrow, quiet, grief, excited accusation, theatening pathem, restrained melancholy, sweet suffering and charming singing. Castello also uned rests in all parts with dramatic effect, particularly after presto movements. His sonatas are arranged with considerable variety, with movements and sections of movements of widely differing lenght, intensity, motion and texture. Sonata IX, for example, is composed of five sections, the first of which has four subgroups, the fourth five, and the fifth three. The widest range of rhetorical freedorn and emotional expression is to be found in the violin sonata, which in full of idiomatic subtletics and sentiment. Although Venice was for a long time considered the musical metropolis of Europe, Rome and Naples, here represented by Johannes Hieronymus Kepsberger and Anbdrea Falconieri, also became important musical centres in Italy. Along with Frescobaldi and others, Kapsberger belonged to the cream of Roman virtuosi in the middle of the century. A German who spent mont of his life in Rome (from 1610 until his death in 1650), he was a lutenist, a prolifie composer and favoured the then newly invented chitarrone. In addition to a large arnount of vocal music and solo works for lute and theorbo, he left behind a number of pieces for chitarrone with organ accompaniment containing inter alia toccatas and dances. Andrea Falconieri was also a lutenist and composer. After a great dead of restless robing, including a visit to Spain lasting almost nine years, he was appointed director of music at the Sèamosh royal court in Naples. There he published, inter alia, a collection of instrumental works in one, two and three parts, all of which are remarkable for their originality and freshness. Particularly striking in their melodic invention and his astoishing handling of dissonances. His Battaglia takes up a number of typical motifs rapid repetitions occur frequently as a structural element. Falconieri was one of the first composers to expand ostinato works into larger designs. In the Follia and Passacaglia there are significant bass patterns over which traditional dances et al were improvised. In this context, ostinato is to be understood as "dirmation vy way of continuous, striking repetition of clearly defined rhythmic or melodic () or harmonic () material which structures the musical process, functions an a (variable) constant which links the strands, and the melody of which appears as a constructive element, usually in the part which is structurally the most important (tenore, bass) in the texture; repetition is linked with variation () of the additional elements and even of the material of the repetition itself,,," (H, H, Eggebrecht,) Dances with Spanish names and dedications round oft this picture of an important collection which furnishes impressive èrppf of the high standanrd attained by the "Fiori concertati" in th middle of the Seicento. Holger Eichorn Translation: Lindsay Craig The Musicalische Compagney, anensemble devoted to music of the 16th amd 17th centuriesm was founded in 1972 by Holger Eichhorn (cornettist and musicologist) and Klaus Eichhorn (church musician). Taking as a working title "An experiment in the real way to play historic music", the group strives to reconcilie a historically accountable - i. e. intellectually appropriate - presentation of the correlation of timbre, delivery and emotional expression with actual performance. The Musicalische Compagney had cosolidated its reputation as a rather special ensemble with numerous concerts in Germany and abroad (Belgium, Denmark, East Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, USA...), and with radio and television broadcasts and gramophone recordings, Among the major events in their work in recent years have been an hour-long television film, the first performance of Monteverdi's "Vespers" in the conjectural original version and an annual series of concerts which the group has now given several years running.