Seicento

Album review

There has always been a healthy emulation between instrument makers and composers, the latter benefiting from the former's innovations and vice versa. Although the violin was developed by Italian violin makers during the 16th century, it was only in the following century, the "Seicento" in Italy, that it would really take off and spread quite rapidly throughout Europe.
A new style, often called "stilo moderno", emerged in the early 17th century with the first works written specifically for the violin by composers who exploited all its expressive and virtuosic possibilities, making it sound as close as possible to the human voice. This is what Enrico Onofri and his Ensemble Imaginarium do here with this panorama of the violin sonata, an ideal sequel to their album "La voce del violino", which had already paved the way. In order to do so, they use for the first time in the world - and in accordance with the latest historical research - a pitch slightly higher than 440, skilful ornaments and an at times very wide vibrato that multiplies the fantastic and disturbing aspect tenfold, something which is already produced by the use of a highly expressive chromaticism.
A whole catalogue of affects is deployed here with, among others, works by Girolamo Kapsberger, Biagio Marini, Aurelio Virgiliano or Alessandro Stradella, composers who establish a new musical vocabulary through the violin by giving a big boost to the consorts of viols. The coup de grâce would be dealt to them at the end of this same century with Corelli's Opus V which would set in stone the supremacy of the new instrument and its family of the viola, cello and double bass, allowing for the birth of the modern orchestra. © François Hudry/Qobuz