Disk of 2023 > [Archived] Classic
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Old music ensemble "Giardino di Delizie" - CD Review, March 1st - 2nd, 2023
The forgotten music of a 17th century Italian maestro, in the interpretation of the musical group "Giardino di Delizie", one of the most acclaimed old music ensembles in Europe at present - this is what the album released on the 1st of March at Brilliant Classics Record Label entails. It is about a double record that incorporates trio sonatas, a musical genre that always brings us new discoveries and true forgotten gemsof the Italian musical library. This album reunites the op. 3 trio sonatas of Carlo Mannelli, a composer from Rome that we don't know much of. Unfortunately, many of his music sheets remained unpublished, and thus, were lost to time.
The composer Carlo Mannelli was born in the year 1640 in Rome; his life revolved around this city, where he also died in the year 1697. He was responsible for staging opera performances and religious events in Rome. For a few years, he had been the director of the famous Santa Cecilia Congregation, to which he bequeathed his fortune in order to aid the more unfortunate members of the monastery; furthermore, Carlo Mannelli is remembered as an exceptional violinist.He performed as a soloist with the most important ensembles of those times in Rome. According to the writings of the famous composer Arcangelo Corelli, who depicted Carlo Mannelli as one of the most influential professors of the Baroque Italy,he also worked as a violin a teacher. The musician composed hundreds of instrumental works and some vocal ones, yet most of them remain lost. Out of them, only two sets of trio sonatas are known today, op. 2, which came out in 1682, and op. 3, which dates from 1692, both having been published in Rome. The first volume was dedicated to the cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, and the second one to the prince Domenico Rospigliosi. The works originating in the op. 3 set are defined by formal freedom and variety, but also by melodic ingenuity, surprising and daring harmonies for the Baroque period, chromatic passages,elaborated violin writing and an exceptional tonal richness. Compared to other composers of those times, Carlo Mannelli managed to stand up by creating more eccentric musical works, more distinct ones, detaching himself from the stringency of composer Arcangelo Corelli and some other Italian musicians from the second half of the 17th century. In the case of Carlo Mannelli's works, the succession of tempos is unpredictable; they don't follow the usual Baroque patterns. Mannelli's op. 3 collection had its premiere on record, in the interpretation of the ensemble "Giardino di Delizie". The musical group is responsible for having brought forward valuable musicthat had been neglected for over three centuries; moreover, the interpretation using period instruments, the elegance of discourse, the contrapuntal ingenuity and the attention to stylistic details of Carlo Mannelli's music make these recordings as a reference for international discography.
The ensemble "Giardino di Delizie"was founded in 2014 in Rome and it is led by Polish violinist Ewa Anna Augustynowicz. The ensemble encompasses musicians from Italy and Poland: Anna Skorupska - project manager and Baroque violist, Valeria Camponnetto - violinist, violoncellists Agnieska Oszanca și Valeria Brunelli,Sofia Ferri și Giorgia Zanin at theorbo, lute and Baroque guitar, and Elisabetta Ferri -at harpsichord, organ and fortepiano. The musical group has as its main purpose the discovery and emphasis of less-known Italian and Polish Baroque works; as a result, the ensemble has released seven albums as of now, which include works by Mikolai Zilenski, Alessandro Stradella, Carlo Ambrogio Lonati and Isabella Leonarda. In the year 2019, the ensemble recorded its first debut album, having its world premiere - instrumental works by Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, and a year later it dedicated a record to Polish Baroque music. In 2021, it released two CDs - with works by Italian composersLelio Colista and Alesandro Stradella. Last year, the ensemble released two more records - the first one with Baroque works inspired by Polish folklore and the second one, which encompasses all trio sonatas by Isabella Leonarda. Moreover, the seventh most recent album of the musical group "Giardino di Delizie" is dedicated to the music of Carlo Mannelli.
Translated by Adelina-Maria Mănăilescu,
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I
Corrected by Silvia Petrescu