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Reviewer:
Charlotte Gardner
Regular readers
of these pages may spot that this is Giovanni Sollima’s second recording devoted
to Giovanni Battista Costanzi, the Rome-based cello virtuoso who served in the
household of Vivaldi’s famous patron Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. The first
recording (7/16) presented Costanzi’s cello sonatas; and while I reviewed that
one with enthusiasm, it’s just possible that I like this sequel even more.
What’s particularly surprising is how different the two discs are, despite the
fact that Sollima is again joined by fellow cellist Monika Leskovar and the
Arianna Art Ensemble. Because while there’s not much between Costanzi’s sonatas
and sinfonias in terms of form, their stylistic differences are surprisingly
profound, the sinfonias having a far more galant quality to them, along with a
more international, less Corelli-like feel. As a result, while we still get
plenty of the muscular panache and slightly rough-edged abandon that Sollima and
his 1769 Ruggieri cello brought so enjoyably to the sonatas, we’re also treated
to an abundance of warmly resonant, strong-toned singing lines, their
delectability heightened by the barelytamed-lion quality Sollima brings to them;
listen, for example, to the opening of the D major Sinfonia’s Adagio staccato.
Additional
programming spice comes by way of an entirely different-flavoured sonata da
camera of Costanzi’s for two cellos without basso continuo, in which the two
instruments imitate the sounds and melodic gestures of horns. This is much
lighter and more intimate than brass imitations might suggest, Sollima and
Leskovar playing as one, with some wonderfully atmospheric rumblings from
timpanist Gianluca Ubaldi.
Factor in
the same recording aesthetic as for the sonatas – immediate while not
overbearing – and this is a fantastic and genuinely contrasting successor.
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