PROGRAMME

Friday, 22 May, 7.30pm Cound Church, nr Shrewsbury

ELIZABETH WALLFISCH
baroque violin, classical violin, viola d'amore

DAVID MILLER
chitarrone, baroque guitar, nineteenth century guitar

'MUSIC FOR ITALIAN LOVERS'

Sonata a due, no.l (Libro I)	Giovanni Paolo Cima c1570-1630
Sonata 'detta La Luciminia contenta'	Marco Uccellini b. c1603
Sonata No. 2	Dario Castello fl first half of 17th c (Sonata concertate in stil moderno, Libro II)
Pieces for solo chitarrone	Giovanni Kapsperger c1575-1661 (Preludio, Toccata, Toccata Arpegiatta, Kapsperger)
Sonata 'La Castella' (op.4)	Giovanni Mealli fl 1660-69
Chiacona in partite variate	Alessandro Piccinini 1566-ca. 1638
Sonata 'La Cesta' (Op.4)	Mealli
From ' Ayrs for the violin'	Nicola Matteis d? 1707 (Preludio, II Russignolo, Giga 'Al Genio Turchesco', Sarabanda Amoroso, Scaramuccia)
Guitar Suite in C major	Francesco Corbetta c1615-1681 (Preludio, Almanda, Sarabanda, Corrente Francese, Chiacona)
Sonata in A minor for viola d'amore and continuo	Attilio Ariosti 1666-1740 (Pozato, Andante, Corrente, Air en Rondeau)
Duo for violin and guitar Op.84	Mauro Giuliani 1781-1829 (Introduzione [Andante Sostenuto], Thema [Allegretto] & Variations)
Cantabile	Nicolo Paganini 1782-1840
Study in Amajor	Matteo Carcassi 1792 -1853
Tarantella	Paganini

With grateful thanks to the PCC who are pleased for the Church to be used for this event.

PROGRAMME NOTE

This programme of Italian music takes us from the intimacy of the earliest known violin sonata to the exuberant work of one of the greatest violinists of all time, Paganini.

Cima came from a large family of musicians and was a leading musical figure in Milan. A contemporary of Monteverdi and Frescobaldi, he was director of music and organist at the S. Maria Chapel of S. Celso in Milan. While his church music was largely conservative in style, his instrumental works were much more innovative. For example, he was the first known composer to publish his own trio sonatas for one and two treble instruments with basso continuo. The Sonata a due is the earliest known violin sonata written as 'art' for the violin, being neither church music nor the popular street music where the violin had its beginnings.

Castello worked in Venice, where he was both composer and player (a cornettist). Whilst even his birth and death dates are unknown, we know from the title page of his publications that he worked at S. Marco in Venice at the time that Monteverdi was maestro di cappella. Certainly, Castello's use of the stile concitato - quick repeated-note figures - reflects the influences that Monteverdi and others had on his music. Some 29 separate compositions by Castello survive showing an inventive style, both colourful and technically challenging. Strictly worked polyphonic sections alternate with dramatic recitatives, in keeping with the description in the title of his publications: in stil moderno. At the same time he also uses the older canzona technique in which short sections of highly contrasting texture, and active rather than lyrical melodic lines, are played as a continuous 'sonata'. Unusually for the time, he often specifies the instrument for each part, calling for cornetti, violins, sackbutts and dulcians.

The movements that make up Corbetta's guitar suite are selected from his collection entitled Varii scherzi di sonateper la chitara spagnola published in Brussels in 1648 and dedicated to the Habsburg Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. The music reveals Corbettas's move from an Italian to a French compositional style, later fully realised in his La guitarre royalle books of 1671 and 1674 dedicated to Charles II and Louis XIV respectively.

Ucellini is another composer about whom we know very little. He became capo degl' instrumentisti of the Este court in Medina from 1641 to 1662, and was maestro d'cappella first at Modena cathedral from 1647 to 1665 and then at the Farnese court in Parma until his death. At court he composed operas and ballets but sadly this music does not survive. His sonatas are vivid examples of the canzona style. Although the origins of their titles are unknown it is possible they were the names of patrons, or perhaps the wives of patrons.

Mealli was an Italian composer and violinist who worked as a musician in the court of the Habsburgs in Innsbruck. His Op.3 and Op.4 sonatas for violin and basso continue are dedicated to the Tyrolean Princess Anne of Medici and the Archduke Franz Seigmund, and they bear the individual names of active musicians at court. The two performed here refer to Antonio Castello and Antonio Cesti.

Moving forward a century, we have far more biographical information on Paganini than the earlier composers in today's concert. One of six children, he was horn in Genoa and received music lessons from his father before he was six years old. He was soon performing in public and composed his first sonata in 1790. In 1795 he went to Parma to study, but the teachers there told him they could do nothing more for him so he began a course of self-training so rigorous that he often practiced for 15 hours a day. In 1797 he began concert touring which brought him triumph after triumph. From 1805 to 1808 he was the court solo violinist at Lucca, but in 1809 he became a freelance soloist performing his own music at concerts throughout Europe. His playing offender passages was so beautiful that his audiences often burst into tears and yet he could perform with such force and velocity that at Vienna one listener became half-crazed and declared he had seen the Devil helping the violinist. Paganini was in fact bedevilled by a host of chronic complaints including Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - an excessive flexibility of the joints enabling him to perform astonishing double-stoppings and roulades since his wrist was so loose that he could move and twist it in all directions. His music for violin and guitar is primarily lyrical and pleasing, displaying more of his cantabile style than the flamboyantly virtuosic.


Elizabeth Wallflsch is in demand worldwide as a soloist and director on both modern and period instruments. Her playing has taken her from the Lincoln Centre in New York, where she led the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the opening concert in the 2003 Handel Festival, to Zimbabwe, where she appeared as soloist with the Harare Symphony Orchestra (and brass band from the local police department) in a performance of Brahms Violin Concerto. She has appeared with and directed Les Musiciens de Louvre, Tafelmusik, Apollo's Fire, L'Orfeo Barokorchester, The Hanover Band, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque and many others. Over the years she has built up close collaborations with ensembles such as the Purcell Quartet, Convivium (formerly Locatelli Trio) and her newly formed Wallfisch Band. She has recently begun a project with fortepianist Gary Cooper, exploring the languages of Schubert, Beethoven and Brahms on period instruments. For 15 years she has been the concertmaster of the prestigious Carmel Bach Festival in California and in 2007 she was the Music Director of National Music Camp Australia. Her long and impressive discography offers a window onto her expansive musical world. From the high baroque Italian violinist-composers such as Vivaldi, Corelli, Veracini, Tartini, Geminiani, and the classical and romantic greats from Mozart to Mendelssohn, she also embraces the music of their lesser-known contemporaries such as Myslivic'ek and Abel. She has explored the music of Paganini and Viotti and has recorded most of the music of the great baroque tradition, from the earliest Italian violin music of Cima to Biber, Telemann, Bach and the rich sensual music of the French Baroque. She has recently recorded Vivaldi's L 'Estro Armonico with Tafelmusic in Toronto. Future guest-directing engagements include Concerto d' Amsterdam, the European Union Chamber Orchestra, the Music of the Baroque in Chicago, Les Violons du Roy, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver, and the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. As well as teaching at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, she has written a treatise on fundamental aspects of baroque violin playing: The Art of Playing Chin-off for the Brave and the Curious (published by King's Music).

David Miller has a flourishing career that encompasses both the early music world and the modern musical scene, performing as soloist, accompanist and continue player on lute, theorbo and early guitars. He has received assistance from the British Council for solo recitals in Bohemia, has given solo recitals in Essaouira, Morocco for the Festival du Printemps Musical des Alizes, and has appeared as a solo artist for the inaugural National Trust Music Festival at Sea, playing John Dowland in Denmark. He performs and records with all the principal English period instrument orchestras and with many of the finest ensembles; over the past seven years he has worked extensively with English National Opera and more recently with English Touring Opera, hi 2007 he maintained a busy recital schedule with such artists as Robin Blaze, James Bowman, Michael Chance, Catherine Bott and Elizabeth Wallfisch, as well as performing at many prestigious European festivals, including Aldeburgh, Brighton, Flanders, Leipzig, Potsdam, Spitalfields, Stour and York. He performs annually at the BBC Proms and appeared three times in 2007 with the BBC Singers, English Baroque Soloists and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts. Last year included performances at Glyndebourne and the BBC Proms of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Popped with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; performances with Elizabeth Wallfisch and Chicago's Music of the Baroque of Vivaldi's concerto for lute and viola d'amore; and Purcell's King Anher in a collaborative production between New York City Opera and the Mark Morris Dance Company, conducted by Jane Glover. Among his numerous recordings are several CDs of English songs and lute music, including John Dowland discs with James Bowman and with Charles Daniels, as well as the complete works of John Danyel with Nigel Short. He also plays on the BBC television soundtracks of Francesco da Mosto's Venice and The Canterbury Tales, as well as Bob the Builder. He is Professor of Lute at London's Guildhall School Music and Drama and Trinity College of Music, and is also a tutor for the European Union Baroque Orchestra, the Dartington International Summer School and the Royal Welsh College for Music and Drama.