Paolo Pandolfo

Popular madrigals and chansons of the 16th century served as models for richly embellished “alla bastarda” versions on the viola da gamba. In this recording, the vocal originals are presented together with the extremely virtuoso instrumental versions which represent the first and hardly surpassed apex of solo literature for viola da gamba. For 25 years, Paolo Pandolfo has been one of the leading viola da gambists of his generation, researching and promoting the repertoire of his instruments in all directions. The thorough knowledge of all aspects of the viola da gamba repertoire becomes clear in his extensive discography. Not only has he recorded the most important works of the viol literature, but also very personal musical statements in which he combined the youthful experiences as a double bass player and guitarist with compositions and improvisations that are just as influenced by jazz as they are by the historical repertoire. With the “bastarda” diminutions, he now proffers an early milestone of the solo viol literature in which the exuberant virtuosity serves to present enchantingly beautiful music. On this very special project, with instruments built ad hoc, he is joined by some of the finest continuo players of the early music scene (Boysen, Granata, Chemin, Pedrini) and the exquisite vocal ensemble La Pedrina, together producing what definitely will be considered as a key recording of repertoire for the viola da gamba. © Glossa

During his lifetime, Carl Friedrich Abel was fêted all over Europe both for his supreme skills as a performer of the viola da gamba as well as for the quality of his compositions, and was responsible (along with J.C. Bach) for setting up arguably the first series of subscription concerts in the history of Western music, the “Bach-Abel-Concerts”. Even the prodigy that was Mozart benefited from Abel’s teachings (and was claimed as the composer of one of Abel’s own symphonies). Twelve years after his recording of pieces from the Drexel Manuscript (for solo viola da gamba), Paolo Pandolfo teams up with an exquisite ensemble to record a fine selection of Abel’s sonatas, many of them recently discovered and being recorded here for the first time. Often adding his own cadenzas and ornamentations, Pandolfo and his team offer a breathtaking and colourful display of virtuosism and sensibility. The contemporary painter Thomas Gainsborough wrote that Abel “excelled at feeling upon the instrument”, while the writer of one of his obituaries likened him to Laurence Sterne, famous as the author of Tristram Shandy: “The death of Abel occasions a great loss to the musical world. Sensibility is the prevailing and beautiful characteristic of his compositions. He was the Sterne of Music.” Thus, this recording is aptly entitled “A Sentimental Journey” – an exploration of the world of feeling paralleling Sterne’s unfinished novel A Sentimental Journey though France and Italy. © Glossa

Welcome to the mysterious world of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, the French Baroque composer who perfected the art of playing the viola da gamba and inspired a generation of virtuosos but left so little of his own music behind -- so much of it in a fragmentary and disorganized state that putting together a program requires not only a bravura technique, a rich tone, and a poetic soul, but a skillful application of musical intelligence. Fortunately, these are all qualities with which Paolo Pandolfo is generously endowed. On this Glossa disc of 28 pieces grouped by key into four suites, Pandolfo not only soars through Sainte-Colombe's most treacherous writing and plumbs the depths of his most expressive writing, but also successfully completes his incomplete continuo writing in a quarter of the works. Accompanied by the agile Thomas Boysen on either theorbo or Baroque guitar, Pandolfo's Sainte-Colombe disc nearly rivals the pioneering recordings of his teacher Jordi Savall from 30 years ago and sets the standard for Sainte-Colombe discs for years to come. Glossa's digital sound is clear, warm, close, and quite intimate. © TiVo