Jolanta Sosnowska & Friends - Antonio Caldara Violin Sonatas

1. Sonata in F Major, I. Largo 01:33
2. Sonata in F Major, II. Allegro 01:51
3. Sonata in F Major, III. Largo 01:13
4. Sonata in F Major, IV. Allegro 01:39
5. Sonata in F Major, V. Allegro 01:55
6. Sonata in F Minor, I. Largo 02:19
7. Sonata in F Minor, II. Allegro 02:19
8. Sonata in F Minor, III. Largo 01:05
9. Sonata in F Minor, IV. Allegro 01:39
10. Sonata in F Minor, V. (-) 01:57
11. Sonata in E Minor, I. Preludio. Largo 02:55
12. Sonata in E Minor, II. Allegro 01:48
13. Sonata in E Minor, III. Allegro 01:44
14. Sonata in F Major, I. Preludio. Adagio 01:48
15. Sonata in F Major, II. Allegro 01:46
16. Sonata in F Major, III. Allegro 02:11
17. Sonata in A Major, I. Andante 04:23
18. Sonata in A Major, II. Allegro 01:34
19. Sonata in A Major, III. Allegro 01:30
20. Sonata in D Minor, I. Preludio 02:50
21. Sonata in D Minor, II. Allegro 02:01
22. Sonata in C Major, I. Preludio (Aria). Largo 04:11
23. Sonata in C Major, II. Allegro 01:18
24. Sonata in C Major, III. Allegro 01:54
25. Sonata in B Minor, I. Preludio. Largo 01:14
26. Sonata in B Minor, II. Allegro 01:50
27. Sonata in B Minor, III. Presto 01:44

Jolanta Sosnowska – baroque violin
Philipp Comploi – baroque cello
Erich Traxler – harpsichord

Antonio Caldara’s violin sonatas are completely forgotten works by one of the most talented Italian composers of the Baroque period. The eight sonatas – which I recently discovered in the archives of the Austrian National Library (hereinafter: ANL) in Vienna – constitute the composer’s complete works for violin. The pieces have a natural lightness, and their extraordinary melodiousness is almost identical with the composer’s lyrical idiom, familiar to listeners from Caldara’s masses and oratorios. The composer’s creative imagination is reflected in the virtuosity of the violin parts and the brilliantly wrought polyphony. Antonio Caldara’s complicated life, and also the journeys travelled by his violin works duplicated by “copyists”, demand a level of caution when attributing some or all of the music material to him. However, this reservation might be seen as caution carried too far, if only because attributing these works to other artists (Vivaldi, Corelli?) would have been even less self-evident. The violin sonatas and those for violin and cello only survived to our times as manuscripts thanks to a stroke of providence, currently forming a closed ANL collection known as Estensische Musikalien. These extremely fascinating issues have been analysed in detail by the accomplished musicologist Herbert Seifert (see excerpt below), but we need to keep in mind that – in order not to argue a world composed of nothing but doubts – we have to make assumptions. At this point it is impossible to fully verify or, above all, to disprove Caldara’s authorship. The present album is the phonographic world premiere of this material. The music was recorded on period instruments by musicians whose artistic paths have long been interweaving in the performance of Baroque music from Austrian archives. (Jolanta Sosnowska) 

(...) The content of the [Estensische Musikalien] Mocenigo-Sanguinazzi-Obizzi-Habsburg collection of music (from the first half of the 18th century) is only partly dated from ca. 1680 until 1727 and is related to Venice and the surrounding regions. The manuscripts of the Caldara sonatas originate from two different copyists, one of them being the dilettante Nicolò Sanguinazzi (sonatas in F minor and F major), the other is the anonymous copyist of the other six violin sonatas. Sanguinazzi copied the music into a score, while the anonymous copyist copied out parts only. Sanguinazzi’s score contains no figured bass, while the anonymous cello part is completely figured, as was the standard practice, when a keyboard instrument would have been in use. Both these sources are very different in a stylistic sense. The two single sonatas have five movements and share similarities with Antonio Vivaldi’s concerto type: ritornellos in the main keys alternating with figurative and virtuosic violin solos. The bass accompaniment with its short repetitive notes already anticipates a later musical era. The style of the other six three-movement sonatas is more orientated towards the earlier Arcangelo Corelli and Vivaldi’s early violin sonatas, Opus 2. One finds the violin and cello alternating and imitating each other’s motifs. In Sonata 6 though, the cello is purely used as a harmonic continuo instrument. The last Presto–Finale is reminiscent of Corelli’s trio sonata structure with its continuously running bass line and dissonant ligatures in double stops in the violin.
In an attempt to date these eight pieces, the aforementioned date of origin of the Este collection is of some help. In relation to the fact that only a few purely instrumental works by Caldara have been handed down, it gives one the impression that he didn’t compose more for this genre in Vienna from 1716 onwards. Due to the distinctly different stylistic alignment of the two individual sonatas, one could even imagine that they come from a later composer. The possible incorrect attribution to Caldara would find numerous parallels in this collection, especially to well-known composers such as Vivaldi. (Herbert Seifert)

Recorded on 30–31 July 2020 in the Parish Church Am Schüttel in Vienna (Austria). 

Recording engineer: Viktor Seedorf || Mix & master: Viktor Kisten || Design: For Tune®

Cover photo: Johannes Fijt (1611–1661) Bird Concert, National Museum in Warsaw

label: ForTune 2022
cat. No: 0159(003)
format: CD, digipack