| Dedicated to Baroque Italian composers, this CD embeds several pieces that will make us discover the diversity of styles, among which the famous Corelli's Follia interpreted by Gilles COLLIARD.
Italy, like Greece, may be considered as the mother of the arts. From the Renaissance to the Baroque period, which is the subject of this CD, the country was caught up in a real frenzy. The musical world witnessed an absolute flood of compositions to meet the changing tastes of an audience eager for novelty. Between 1700 and 1743 there were 432 new operas in Venice, along with thousands of known concertos and, no doubt, as many unknown, destroyed and lost forever. While France persisted in its love of the viola, Italy moved very early on to the violin, and the great instrument-makers, such as Amati and Stradivarius, are there to show us just how much Italian stringed-instrument making contributed towards the rapid change in styles, genres and forms. It invented the "sonata", a "sounding" piece for stringed and wind instruments, the "toccata", a "touching" piece for harpsichords, the "cantata", a "singing" piece, and heralded the arrival of the "concerto grosso", in which two groups of different sizes respond to and contrats with each other, then the concerto, which places emphasis on the soloist. "In music composed for the Italian taste, much is left to the wishes and abilities of the person playing it" (Quantz 1697-1773), which is why ornamentation, which is the art of decorating music, reached a level of refinement unknown in neightbouring coutries. The Toulouse Chamber Orchestra takes you on a journey to the heart of this luxuriance invite.
Violin and direction : Gilles COLLIARD.
Toulouse Chamber Orchestra website is here.
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