Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli - Sonatas for Violin and Continuo (Il Rosario)

Information

Composer: Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli (1624–c.1687)

• 6 Sonatas, Op. 3
• Il Raimondo
• Il Mauritio
• Il Catalano
• Il Monforti
• 6 Sonatas, Op. 4

Il Rosario

    Daniel Sepec, violin

    Hille Perl, viola da gamba

    Lee Santana, archlute, theorbo & baroque guitar

    Michael Behringer, harpsichord & organ

Date: 2024

Label: Coviello Classics

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His life, shrouded in mystery, offers plenty of room for speculation and fantasy: Large parts of Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli’s biography lie in unexplored and now probably also unexplorable darkness; he appears in various places, first secured in Innsbruck in 1660, then in Upper and Central Italy, he is preceded by a legendary reputation as a violin virtuoso, he publishes violin works, apparently without worrying about a stringent opus narrative, and the dramatic climax probably comes when he kills a fellow musician in a quarrel in Messina in 1675 and then flees to France and finally to Madrid. His sonatas are no less fascinating: To many they did indeed seem ‘baroque’, i.e. overloaded and bizarre, but today we recognise in them a fascinating link between the virtuoso Italian and the southern German-Austrian baroque instrumental style, with its typical harsh contrasts and surprise effects. Daniel Sepec and his colleagues present them with their usual precision.