Tartini &Veracini Violin Sonatas Rie Kimura baroque violin Fantasticus RES10148 Tartini & Veracini Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768) Italian Violin Sonatas Sonata, Op. 2 No. 12 1. Passagallo [3:50] 2. Capriccio cromatico [3:03] 3. Adagio – Ciaccona [7:29] Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) baroque violin Sonata ‘Il trillo del Diavolo’ Rie Kimura 4. Larghetto affectuoso [5:57] 5. Tempo giusto della Scuola Tartinista [6:01] 6. Andante – Allegro assai [5:33] Fantasticus Francesco Maria Veracini Robert Smith baroque cello Sonata, Op. 2 No. 5 Guillermo Brachetta harpsichord 7. Adagio assai [3:59] 8. Capriccio [4:38] 9. Allegro assai [2:30] 10. Giga [3:53] Giuseppe Tartini Pastorale, Op. 1 No. 13 11. Grave [4:00] 12. Allegro [3:05] 13. Largo – Presto – Largo – Presto – Andante [3:52] About Rie Kimura: ‘Baroque violinist Rie Kimura performs with striking flair and musicianship’ Total playing time [57:58] The Strad ‘Rie Kimura commands a warm and husky gut-string sound, animating the tone so effectively’ International Record Review Tartini & Veracini: Italian Violin Sonatas (and his wife) and devote himself entirely to perfecting his own technique. Veracini, on the One of the most observant musicians in other hand, fed off the excitement of high eighteenth-century England was the society and unqualified adulation, and historian Charles Burney who published nowhere were the pickings richer than in his General History of Music in 1789. No early Georgian London. But not everybody recent composer or performer worth his was impressed. The music-writer and theorist salt escaped Burney’s notice, nor often Roger North heard one of Veracini’s first his censure. According to Burney, Francesco public concerts given shortly after his arrival Maria Veracini (1690-1768) and Giuseppe in 1714, and it sparked an extraordinary Tartini (1692-1770) were celebrated by rant against what North perceived as the their contemporaries as ‘[...] the greatest sudden and unwelcome influx of Italian masters of their instrument that had ever violinists with more ambition than taste: appeared; and their abilities were not merely confined to the excellence of their ‘[…] not better than insane; for sometimes performance, but extended to composition, they run, then they start, then they chatter, in which they both manifested great and not seldom fall into a whistling way of high arpeggio, much prized for the difficulty genius and science’. Yet Burney made the of handling, and then coming a little to important observation that it was ‘[...] themselves, incline to sleep out a short impossible for any two men to be more adagio, after which, stand clear; for tripla dissimilar in disposition: […] Tartini was comes, and tripla upon that, and devision so humble and timid, that he was never upon that, which snappes upon snaps like happy but in obscurity; while Veracini a dog in distraction. And after all ends with was so foolishly vainglorious as frequently what should be a dance called a jigg, but so to boast that there was but one God, swift, that no living man can run so fast as and one Veracini’. the measure is; it is impossible for a dancer to keep such time, and his whole action In July 1716 Tartini heard Veracini play at must be running about like a madman […] a musical soiree in the Mocenigo palace in And many persons that doe not well Venice. It was a life-changing experience. distinguish between real good and evill, but are hurryed away by caprice, as in a The young Tartini was so captivated by whirlwind, think such music is the best; Veracini’s style – especially his bowing – and despise those who are not of the that he decided to retire from the world same opinion’ Photography: Rudi Wells Veracini may have captivated many of his tendency to combine a variety of movement listeners with his whistling arpeggios and types (i.e. dances alongside more abstract or whirlwind caprices but the London public academic styles). was not as gullible as North feared. Clearly able to distinguish between ‘real good The last of Veracini’s four sets of solo violin and evill’ music, Charles Burney reckoned sonatas were his twelve Sonate accademiche, that discerning ears found Veracini’s Op. 2 issued in 1744 and dedicated to the compositions ‘too wild and flighty’ Elector of Saxony, Augustus III. The designation compared with Corelli’s much-loved ‘academic’ may refer both to their suitability sonatas which were widely regarded as for performance in private ‘academies’ as ‘models of simplicity, grace, and elegance’. well as their inclination to the intellectual. Even so, when Burney heard Veracini play It was this last quality which particularly in later years, he found much to admire. impressed Burney, who considered that ‘By travelling all over Europe he formed Veracini’s grounding in solid counterpoint a style of playing peculiar to himself’, the balanced his more eccentric flights of fancy – main strengths of which were rapid trills, ‘he built his freaks on a good foundation, a firm bow-hand and ‘a tone so loud and being an excellent contrapuntist’. clear, that it could be distinctly heard through the most numerous band of a Sonatas 5 and 12 from the Op. 2 set both church or theatre’. contain richly contrapuntal capriccios. In Sonata No. 5 in G minor Veracini contrasts Burney’s description of Veracini’s playing, two different themes, an archaic, repeated- taken together with the evidence of his note canzona idea, first heard in the violin, surviving music, actually paint a surprisingly and an answering, curvaceous figure, given in conservative portrait. By the 1740s his ‘loud the bass. The themes are sociably exchanged and clear’ tone might have struck some as between the parts and provide plenty of a little old-fashioned, though the dynamic material for melodic elaboration. There’s a indications in his published music suggest hint, too, of the concerto with some brisk he was also alive to the more nuanced and passage work and triple-stopping for the refined style currently sweeping Italy. violin, articulated by bold unison phrases Even so, many of his sonatas look back for treble and bass together. The twelfth to mid-seventeenth century German and final sonata of the set is an early and fashions in their use of multi stopping and ambitious attempt to achieve overall structural unity by linking all the movements like the distant sound of the hunt and the together with a common theme. This elegant pursuit. Following this, a sequence four-bar chromatic passacaglia subject is of short sections – slow and fast – take us announced by the violin at the opening, further into the countryside with hurdy-gurdy and as well as being treated melodically effects, droning shepherd’s pipes and the it also appears as a repeating ostinato bass. lilting rhythms and piquant harmonies of In the ‘Capriccio’ the chromatic theme al fresco music-making. To achieve the perfect reappears (with a slightly different rhythmic rural timbre, Tartini tunes the bottom two profile) both in its familiar descending form strings of the violin up a tone. and also in retrograde (i.e. backwards, and now ascending). The finale is a tour de force The most famous programmatic violin sonata of ingenuity in which Veracini combines of the eighteenth century – and Tartini’s only variations on both the chromatic passacaglia claim to fame in the nineteenth – was ‘Il and chaconne ground basses in a single trillo del Diavolo’. Surprisingly, perhaps, it movement. remained unpublished in the composer’s lifetime, and only saw the light of day in It seems that Tartini had two major changes 1798 when it was included in J.B. Cartier’s of direction during his career: the first treatise L’art du violon (the edition used by precipitated by his meeting with Veracini Rie Kimura). Cartier claimed he had picked in 1716; the second in 1744 when, according up a manuscript copy of the sonata in Rome to Charles Burney, ‘[...] he changed his style from a violinist who had studied with Tartini’s […] from extreme difficult, to graceful and favourite pupil, Pietro Nardini. But this wasn’t expressive’. Inhabiting a half-way house the first the musical world had heard of this between the two is the ‘bonus’ piece he dark sonata. Tartini’s own colourful account included at the end of his Twelve Violin of the circumstances surrounding its Sonatas Op. 1 of c.1732. This Pastorale composition was quoted in J.G. de Lalande’s ells moves effortlessly between two worlds – Voyage d’un François en Italie in 1769. town and country; virtuoso indulgence and rustic simplicity. We begin in civilised ‘One night I dreamt that I had made a y: Rudi W bargain with the Devil for my soul. company with a gracefully inflected ‘Grave’, Everything went at my command – my aph which leads into a hybrid movement novel servant anticipated every one of ogr contrasting simple multi-stopped chordal my wishes. Then the idea struck me to Phot writing with faster-moving passage-work – hand him my fiddle and to see what he ells could do with it. But how great was my twice flowers into the graphic ‘Trillo astonishment when I heard him play del diavolo al pie del letto’ – The Devil’s y: Rudi W with consummate skill a sonata of such Trill at the foot of the bed. aph exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest ogr flight of my imagination. I felt enraptured, © 2015 Simon Heighes Phot transported, enchanted; my breath was taken away; and I awoke. Seizing my Dr Simon Heighes is a musicologist, critic violin I tried to retain the sounds that and broadcaster with a particular interest I had heard.