Roncalli, L.: Sonatas for Baroque Guitar (Ludovico Roncalli)

Resenha do Álbum

The album cover here, with the composer and the work designation physically separated, is a bit confusing. This disc offers "sonatas" -- in the general sense, for they are all suites of dances -- by the Italian Baroque guitarist and composer Ludovico Roncalli, a shadowy figure active in Bergamo at the end of the seventeenth century. They show up from time to time, either complete or often in excerpts, on classical guitar recitals; limpid minatures, they make for relaxed interludes between the flashier numbers that are the guitarist's stock in trade. This recording by California-based Baroque guitarist Richard Savino, playing a copy of a Stradivari instrument (people forget that he built guitars, too), has much to offer guitar specialists and enthusiasts; recordings of a group of Roncalli sonatas aren't common, and Savino's notes discuss tuning issues and bourdon use (a bourdon is a string in a double course tuned to a lower octave, in case you were wondering; the term is not defined in the booklet, giving you an idea of the intended audience here). Other features of the music are also intriguing, including the classification of the pieces according to mode rather than key in their titles; the Sonata No. 3 has the unusual designation of "tuono transportato" for B minor. What is being transported, by whom, and to where? For the general listener the music may be less compelling; the short dances are elegant but similar to one another when heard together in a large group. The sound might be described as unpleasantly intimate. Recommended for large academic guitar collections.
© TiVo