LOLLI Complete Violin Concertos Dynamic CDS527/1-3 [GPu]: Classi... http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2008/Jan08/lolli_cd...

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Advertising Rates Site Map Antonio LOLLI (c.17251802) Visitor stats Concerto No.1 in E flat major, Op.2 No.1 MusicWeb International has over 21,000 Classical CD More Reviews (c.1740) [17:21] reviews on offer Concerto No.2 in C major, Op.2 No.2 (c.1740) How to find a review [18:08] Concerto No.3 in A major, Op.4 No.1 (c.1766) Classical CD Review Archive [17:03] Concerto No.4 in B flat major, Op.4 No.2 Gerard Hoffnung Concerts & The Bricklayer Story Book Reviews (c.1766) [19:19] Concerto No.5 in E major, Op.5 No.1 (c.1768) Film Music Reviews [17:17] Concerto No.6 in D major, Op.5 No.2 (c.1768) Jazz CD Reviews [18:38] Nostalgia Concerto No.7 in G major (c.1775) [20:15] Concerto No.8 in D major (1776) [17:02] Comment Concerto No.9 in C major (c.1776) [17:48] Concerto in E flat major (attrib. Lolli) [13:26] Norman Lebrecht Luca Fanfoni (violin, conductor), Reale Weekly Concerto rec. April and July, 2006, A. Boito Arthur Butterworth Writes Conservatory, and Church of San New Releases Silvestro, Parma alternatively Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS Phil Scowcroft's DYAMIC CDS527/13 [3 CDs: 53:32 + Garlands 55:16 + 68:32] New Releases

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Announcements Lolli has received relatively little attention in modern times. I haven’t, for example, been able to trace a single reference to him in the pages of MusicWeb International. Don't Go Here! Despite this he holds a rather prominent place in that line of Italian violin virtuosi which runs from a figure such as Biagio Marini through Corelli and Tartini to Community Paganini and Viotti. The musicologist Albert Mell has, not unreasonably, written of him that he “was from many points of view the most important violin virtuoso before Bulletin Board Paganini” ( Musical Quarterly , Vol. 44, 1958) and Simon McVeigh (in The Cambridge Companion to the Violin ) has described him as “the archetypal Web Ring travelling virtuoso”. Reviewers Lolli was born in Bergamo, at a date not precisely known. Nor do we know anything Helpers invited! of his early musical training or associations. Real knowledge of him begins only with documents relating to his appointment as solo violinist in the Kapelle in Resources 1758. From surviving correspondence it is clear that his friends and supporters included Padre Giovanni Battista Martini - could Lolli have studied with him in Quiz ? - and Niccolò Jommelli. Lolli was based in Stuttgart until 1774, though he also toured and performed in many other parts of Europe during these years. He had British Composers a spectacular success in 1764, playing as a soloist at the Concerts Spirituels in . MusicWeb sells the Polish The year before that he had met with considerable success in – Dittersdorf, catalogue CDAccord £10.50 post free W-W

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who had been in at the time, writes in his autobiography that on his return his British Light Music older brother “could not say enough about the sensation caused everywhere by his Composers playing”. From 1774 to 1777, and again from 1780-1784, Lolli worked in St. MusicWeb sells the Other composers Petersburg as ‘concertmaster’, performing, composing and teaching. Not all his Arcodiva catalogue energies went into music, however. For a while at least he was numbered amongst £12.00 post free W-W Indexes the lovers of Catherine the Great – until warned off by the secret police, supposedly Label acting under instructions to kill him, stuff him and mount him in a display case! Masterwork While many admired his playing, and while his showmanship guaranteed plenty of Discographies popular success, there seem always to have been some who found his performances too ostentatiously showy and gimmicky. Salieri wrote of the “ravishing, magical Price Reduction: £11.75 On-line Music post-free [Download sites] energy of Lolli’s playing” at his best, but felt that, especially later in his career, he was prone to the excessive use of portamento . Other contemporaries talked of his Themed Review pages playing in terms of eccentricity and oddity. In the booklet notes to the present CD Our Classic Classics Danilo Prefumo quotes Charles Burney’s observation that “so eccentric was his MusicWeb can now offer style of composition and execution, that he was regarded as a madman by most of you discs from the following catalogues: Online books his hearers. Yet I am convinced that in his lucid intervals he was, in a serious style, a Prices include postage MWI Classical very great, expressive, and admirable performer. In his freaks nothing can be Encyclopaedia imagined so wild, grotesque, and even ridiculous as his compositions and [Acte Préalable £13.50 ] Gilder Dictionary of [Arcodiva £12.00] performances”. It should be remembered, however, that Burney was writing after [Ashgate Music Books ] Composers hearing a performance in 1785, when Lolli seems to have been past his best and [Avie from £6.25] MWI Pop [British Music Society increasingly given to attracting attention by his ability to use his instrument to £13.49] Encyclopedia [CDACCORD from £10.50 ] Other Complete imitate a variety of improbable sounds, such as bagpipes, the crowing of a cock and [ClassicO £12.50] the barking of a dog. [Hortus £14.99 ] Books [Lyrita ONLY £11.75 ] [Onyx £12.00 ] Programme Notes [REDCLIFFE £11 ] We don’t know what music Burney heard him play in 1785. It is hard to believe that [Tactus £11.50 ] it can have been the concertos heard on these discs, to which no one, surely, would [Talent from £12.00 ] apply the adjective eccentric. These, surely, are examples of what Burney thought of [Toccata Classics £12.50 ] as his “serious style”. There are no farmyard impressions to be heard here. All of the British Music Society MusicWeb Performers concertos are in three movements, and in the quicker movements there is much that Recommended The BBC Proms is pretty orthodox galant style. There are substantial technical demands, since the Recordings 2008 Musical WWW pages soloist is required to spend a good deal of time at the higher end of the fingerboard Classical Music Online and there are many double-stopped passages. But this never seems to be mere DISCS OF THE Recording Companies bravura – it comes closest to being so in the first two concertos. But even here there YEAR 2007 and Retailers is a certain (admittedly not exceptionally individual) poetry, and in almost all of the Agents and Marketing slow central movements there is some attractively lyrical writing. But, in truth, this Publishers is, for the most part, pleasant, rather than dazzling music, very much of its time. If it Non-Classical Web was with these concertos that Lolli wowed his audiences he must, one presumes, pages Orchestra Web Sites have played with greater freedom, with more sheer self-display, than the excellent Newsgroups Luca Fanfoni allows himself. Fanfoni plays throughout with great assurance and Web News sites etc control, with lucid phrasing and purity of tone. I wonder, indeed, if he doesn’t play too ‘correctly’, given what we know (or think we know) about Lolli’s performance strategies?

Editorial Board Lolli was a man addicted to gambling, who thereby lost much of the fortune he had Classical Editor acquired as a virtuoso. Perhaps there was more ‘gambling’ in his playing than our Rob Barnett Seen & Heard contemporary expectations encourage? Or, on the other hand, should we assume Editor and that – as both Salieri and Burney seem to imply – that there was a serious, ‘straight’ Webmaster side to Lolli and, on the other hand, a vulgarising side, ready to put on a freak show Bill Kenny for those best satisfied by such? In that case, one has to say that Lolli the serious MusicWeb composer was, on the evidence of these concertos, less distinguished than Lolli the Webmaster virtuoso. Len Mullenger Assistant One slight puzzle remains. In addition to the nine published concertos by Lolli, Webmasters Fantoni and his ensemble play an additional concerto apparently discovered in Patrick Waller David Barker Dubrovnik by the soloist. On what grounds he attributes it to Lolli we are not told. Even Prefumo, in his notes, comments that “the authenticity of this concerto, whose PotPourri writing and style are significantly different from those of the previous nine A pot-pourri of concertos, must at present be considered doubtful”. articles MW Listening Room MW Office All in all, this is a useful and pleasant set, a valuable documentation of an unduly Helping MusicWeb neglected figure. Yet, in all honesty, it may not be one that the listener rushes to take Advice to Windows Vista users from the shelves all that often. Fanfoni’s evident talents might, dare one say it, have Questionnaire been employed on more substantial materials. Site History What they say about us What we say about us! Where to get help on the Glyn Pursglove Internet CD orders By Special Request Graphics archive Currency Converter Dictionary Magazines Newsfeed Web Ring Translation Service Rules for potential reviewers :-) Do Not Go Here! April Fools

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