Rossi: Toccate and Correnti

Featuring

Sergio Vartolo
Michelangelo Rossi

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Composer Biography

Michelangelo Rossi, the composer, was known as 'Michel Angelo del Violino' due to his violin playing, in addition to being a keyboard composer.

Compositional Technique

Rossi's toccatas blend free sections with expressive, rhythmically accented intermediate parts and fugal elaborations, creating a unique toccata-canzona genre.

Performer Biography

Sergio Vartolo's recordings have received awards such as the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Choc du Monde de la Musique, and Diapason d'Or.

Performer Biography

Sergio Vartolo, the harpsichordist, has performed throughout Europe as a harpsichordist, organist, conductor, stage director, and singer since 1970.

Instruments

For this recording, Sergio Vartolo uses a copy of a late sixteenth-century Italian harpsichord and a wing spinet, an instrument known in Rome during Rossi's time.

Interpretation

The performer, Sergio Vartolo, uses a strictly meantone tuning for the instruments, with black notes adjusted as sharps or flats as needed.

Compositional Technique

Rossi's keyboard works combine the contrapuntal mastery of Frescobaldi with the chromaticism and sudden modulations characteristic of Gesualdo and Sigismondo d'India.