Caldara: Sonate à violoncello solo col basso continuo

Featuring

Gaetano Nasillo
Luca Guglielmi
Sara Bennici
Antonio Caldara

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Performer Biography

Gaetano Nasillo, the cellist on this recording, was deeply moved by a 1981 recording of Caldara's cantata 'Vicino a un rivoletto' featuring Anner Bylsma, which inspired him to dedicate himself to 17th and 18th-century repertoire.

Composition History

Caldara's cello sonatas were likely prompted by a commission from Graf Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn-Wiesentheid, an avid music-lover and cellist who collected music he could perform.

Composition History

The Graf Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn-Wiesentheid, who commissioned these sonatas, personally numbered and bound them into a volume, adding his own title page: "Sedici Sonate a Violoncello Solo, col Basso Continuo Del Sigr Antonio Caldara 1735. Originale".

Composer Biography

Antonio Caldara, the composer, began his career with instrumental music and returned to it briefly near the end of his life, despite vocal music dominating his output for most of his career.

Instruments

The fortepiano used in this recording is a 1997 replica by Kerstin Schwarz, based on a 1726 instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori, the inventor of the piano.

Composer Biography

Caldara was engaged as a cellist and alto singer at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice by the late 1680s, and on the title page of his 1693 publication, he called himself 'Musico di violoncello'.

Compositional Technique

Caldara's cello sonatas largely follow the older four-movement structure, with only three of the sixteen adopting the then-emerging three-movement (fast-slow-fast) sequence.