Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56228 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2005-11-05
• Running time: 4791 seconds

Customer Reviews

A great C..D. of baroque violin music with harpsichord.
This C.D.contains Pandolfi's 6 sonatas from Opus 3 and 6 from Opus 4. These are virtuoso performances of some extraordinary music. Each sonata has its own descriptive subtitle and a movement layout.You really get your money's worth as the C.D. is 80 minutes long(Harmonia Mundi 907241).Andrew Manze is a superstar of the baroque violin. Richard Egarr is a sensitive harpsichordist accompaning Manze on this C.D. The music reminds you of Uccellini. A great C.D.

Beautiful violin sonatas of the "middle" baroque
Andrew Manze is an extraordinarily gifted violinst. Let me say right away that Manze's playing is not "squeaky" or "scratchy," as authentic performances of baroque violin music are often (sometimes with justification) said to be. Manze is clearly a virtuoso but he also plays the slower passages of these sonatas with great feeling.

Pandolfi's wonderful sonatas are from the middle baroque. Most popular baroque music, e.g., Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, etc., is from the late Baroque, i.e., the early 18th Century. Pandolfi's music sounds quite different from what most listeners, familiar with music of the late Baroque, will recognize as a typical baroque violin sonata. For one thing, each sonata is in one continuous movement, during which there are multiple changes of tempo and mood. And the playing seems to me to be considerably more varied than in the typical late baroque violin sonata. Pandolfi's sonatas are clearly not from the alleged "sewing school" of Italian baroque music, according to which view all Italian baroque music sounds the same (in my view, many of Vivaldi's sonatas do indeed sound the same). My personal favorite Pandolfi sonata is probably "La Melana," which, contrary to another reviewer's claim, does have a beautiful lyric melody.

I think it quite unfortunate that the Opus 3 & 4 are all we have of Pandolfi's music. I would gladly trade a few dozen Boccherini pieces for one or two more of Pandolfi's lovely violin sonatas.

If you like Pandolfi's sonatas, you will probably also like Uccellini's sonatas, many of which have been recorded by Manze on another of his CDs with Harmonia Mundi.

Inventive Baroque Violin Music
This cd introduced me to the work of a baroque composer that I had previously been unaware of. The liner notes say that almost nothing is known about Pandolfi, and that only his Op. 3 and Op. 4 (the violin sonatas on this album) have survived.
Most of the music is not lyrically beautiful; rather, I would characterize it as inventive and imaginative. If you ever get the feeling that all baroque violin music sounds more or less the same, try this disc. Pandolfi definitely has his own distinctive voice.
The playing is exceptionally good, as is usual with Manze and Egarr. The sound quality is also excellent. I would recommend this cd to anyone who wants to explore the work of less well-known composers.