Pietro Locatelli - L'Arte del Violino, op. 3 - concertos 1 to 4  (71:18)
	01	#1 in D, 1st movement						03:17
	02	#1 in D, 2nd movement						02:19
	03	#1 in D, 3rd movement						04:33
	04	#1 in D, 4th movement						03:09
	05	#1 in D, 5th movement						03:24
	06	#2 in c, 1st movement						05:12
	07	#2 in c, 2nd movement						04:24
	08	#2 in c, 3rd movement						03:51
	09	#2 in c, 4th movement						02:53
	10	#2 in c, 5th movement						02:38
	11	#3 in F, 1st movement						05:10
	12	#3 in F, 2nd movement						03:31
	13	#3 in F, 3rd movement						04:19
	14	#3 in F, 4th movement						02:43
	15	#3 in F, 5th movement						02:25
	16	#4 in E, 1st movement						04:25
	17	#4 in E, 2nd movement						03:05
	18	#4 in E, 3rd movement						03:27
	19	#4 in E, 4th movement						04:04
	20	#4 in E, 5th movement						02:29
Pietro Locatelli - L'Arte del Violino, op. 3 - concertos 5 to 8  (67:16)
	01	#5 in C, 1st movement						04:36
	02	#5 in C, 2nd movement						03:35
	03	#5 in C, 3rd movement						02:07
	04	#5 in C, 4th movement						03:04
	05	#5 in C, 5th movement						03:36
	06	#6 in g, 1st movement						04:23
	07	#6 in g, 2nd movement						02:52
	08	#6 in g, 3rd movement						02:02
	09	#6 in g, 4th movement						02:58
	10	#6 in g, 5th movement						04:24
	11	#7 in B flat, 1st movement						03:41
	12	#7 in B flat, 2nd movement						03:40
	13	#7 in B flat, 3rd movement						04:37
	14	#7 in B flat, 4th movement						02:51
	15	#7 in B flat, 5th movement						03:20
	16	#8 in e, 1st movement						03:27
	17	#8 in e, 2nd movement						02:40
	18	#8 in e, 3rd movement						02:52
	19	#8 in e, 4th movement						03:08
	20	#8 in e, 5th movement						03:23
Pietro Locatelli - L'Arte del Violino, op. 3 - concertos 9 to 12  (73:59)
	01	#9 in G, 1st movement						03:21
	02	#9 in G, 2nd movement						02:57
	03	#9 in G, 3rd movement						03:16
	04	#9 in G, 4th movement						03:26
	05	#9 in G, 5th movement						02:23
	06	#10 in F, 1st movement						03:24
	07	#10 in F, 2nd movement						02:36
	08	#10 in F, 3rd movement						03:49
	09	#10 in F, 4th movement						03:31
	10	#10 in F, 5th movement						02:56
	11	#11 in A, 1st movement						04:08
	12	#11 in A, 2nd movement						02:57
	13	#11 in A, 3rd movement						03:50
	14	#11 in A, 4th movement						04:07
	15	#11 in A, 5th movement						03:04
	16	#12 in D, 1st movement						03:00
	17	#12 in D, 2nd movement						04:04
	18	#12 in D, 3rd movement						03:08
	19	#12 in D, 4th movement						07:44
	20	#12 in D, 5th movement						06:18

Recorded on 14-16 July 1992, 12-14 January 1993, 1, 2, 22, 23 June 1993, 20-23 September 1993
Recording Engineer
ANTONY HOWELL
Recording Producer
MARTIN COMPTON
Design
TERRY SHANNON
Executive Producers
JOANNA GAMBLE
EDWARD PERRY


Elizabeth Wallfisch, violin
The Raglan Baroque Players
Nicholas Kraemer, director
Hyperion Records Ltd., 1994 CDA66721


Pietro Antonio Locatelli
Country Italy
Birth Sep 3, 1695 in Bergamo, Italy
Death Mar 30, 1764 in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Period Baroque
Composition
Types All Works (122)
Chamber Music (59)
Concerto (45)
Orchestral Music (16)

Product Purchase Click here to buy sheet music

Biography
Locatelli was one of the leading Italian violinists and composers in the first half of the eighteenth century. At one time, he was known as the "Paganini of the eighteenth century" due to his 12 concertos and 24 caprices for violin. Although he was known primarily as a virtuoso violinist in the early part of his life, his abilities as a composer were far more important. Stylistically, Locatelli worked within the conservative forms of the composers of the Roman school (Corelli, for example), but incorporated many of the more progressive elements of the Venetian school (Vivaldi, above all). He wrote mostly sonatas and concertos for string instruments, although there is a set of flute sonatas, and a lost concerto for wind instruments with strings. With the exception of those flute sonatas, Opus 2, which occasionally have three movements, his other works were almost exclusively in the older four-movement format. Locatelli also made the written-out cadenza a standard part of his violin concertos, an innovation from the earlier practice of exclusively improvised cadenzas. In general, though, his style was a consolidation of existing trends, yet still original in the beauty and resourcefulness of its harmonies.
Very little is known about Locatelli's early life and training, other than that he held a post as violinist in Bergamo until 1711. By 1712, he was in Rome, probably studying with Giuseppe Valentini, Corelli's rival. During the subsequent years, Locatelli worked exclusively as a violinist, particularly at the basilica of St. Lorenza in Damaso, Italy. In 1725, he was appointed virtuoso da camera of Mantua, a position which allowed him free rein to travel as a virtuoso.

In 1729, Locatelli moved permanently to Amsterdam, where he devoted his attention to teaching and composing with an occasional concert tour. He was also involved in importing Roman violin strings and in publishing. By his death in 1764, Locatelli had been successful enough to leave behind a considerable estate, as well as a compositional legacy that remained fairly active until the beginning of the next century. -- Steven Coburn

AMG Selected Works (click on composition types above to see complete listings):
The Art of the Violin: Concertos (12) & Caprices (24) ad lib for violin solo, 2 violins, viola, cello & bass, Op. 3 Violin Concerto
Concerti Grossi (12) for 4 & 5 parts, for 2 violins, 1 or 2 violas & bass, Op. 1 Concerto Grosso
Concertos Concerto
Work(s) Overview Miscellaneous Music







The Art of the Violin: Concertos (12) & Caprices (24) ad lib for violin solo, 2 violins, viola, cello & bass, Op. 3
Composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli
Genre Violin Concerto
Description
Though its music is unknown except to a very few Baroque specialists and an even fewer violinists, Pietro Antonio Locatelli's L'arte del violino, Op. 3 (The Art of the Violin) [1733]) -- 12 concertos for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo -- is truly one of the most extraordinary works for violin ever conceived and penned, and as it turned out, a work that informed and continues to indirectly inform composers the world round. Locatelli was a master violinist, as were most of the Italian concerto composers, and the volume of concerti grossi released in 1721, as Op. 1, had elevated him from well-known virtuoso to famous virtuoso/composer. With L'arte del violino, Op. 3, he moved the role and technique of violin playing, and the solo concerto as a genre, into a whole new realm. Locatelli dedicated L'arte del violino to the Venetian patriarch Girolamo Michiel Lini, for whom he had performed while staying in the city and of whose orchestra Locatelli remarked upon the skill and "unparalleled size."
Ignoring, for the moment, the wonderful style and impeccable form of the Op. 3 concertos, the first thing one notices, when a performance of a concerto from L'arte del violino begins, is how extraordinarily difficult the solo violin part is, but this can hardly prepare one for the shock to come: at the end of the first and third movements of each of the concertos, just before the final tutti, Locatelli inserts a capriccio, or caprice, for unaccompanied solo violin. There are 24 in all, of fiendish and unprecedented technical difficulty. If the idea of 24 Caprices for solo violin rings a bell for violin lovers, it might be mentioned that it was after discovering a copy of Locatelli's L'arte del violino in Genoa that Paganini began to work on his own 24 Caprices for solo violin. Paganini even quotes one of Locatelli's (from the first movement of the Concerto in E major, Op. 3, No. 4) in his very first caprice. Locatelli's caprices, when performed at all, are usually extracted from the concertos and played as self-standing virtuoso truffles. When heard in this fashion one cannot enjoy the remarkable way that they sprout from the dramatic conclusions to the quick movements of the concertos. The manner of the solo concerto cadenza, especially, but not exclusively, the violin cadenza, was codified by Locatelli in ways only touched upon by earlier composers, like Vivaldi and Corelli. The effects on both concerto format and violin technique were far-reaching indeed.

The 12 concertos in Op. 3 are all constructed after the by-then venerable model of Torelli's solo concerto in three movements, but Locatelli's creative interplay between the soloist and the tutti ensemble goes beyond anything that earlier concerto composers had devised. His constant surprises and clever ensemble effects, though perhaps not striking to a modern audience, were a delight to audiences of his day. -- Blair Johnston

Albums with Complete Performances of this Work
Locatelli: L'arte del Violino Dynamic/394/1-3 (2001)
Albums with Excerpt Performances and/or Arrangements of this Work
Locatelli: L'Arte del Violino Hyperion/66721 (1993)


Work(s) Overview
Composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli
Genre Miscellaneous Music
Description
Locatelli's fame as a violinist was legendary, it having been said that while his great French rival Leclair played "like an angel," Locatelli played "like the devil." With the exception of a set of Flute Sonatas (12), published as Op. 2 in 1732, most of his works were composed for his own instrument, although his first publication (in 1721) was a set of 12 concerti grossi. These show the influence of the Corellian type of concerto, although their longer movements are more expansive than those of the Roman master. In 1732, Locatelli published in Amsterdam his important and influential L'arte del violino. A set of 12 violin concertos was issued as Op. 3, each cast in the typical Vivaldian three-movement form, some of the concertos being of the da chiesa type opening with a slow Largo movement (Nos. 4, 5, and 6), while others conform to the more traditional fast-slow-fast pattern. What makes the concertos of Op. 3 truly original, however, are the extraordinarily demanding sections for solo violin termed by Locatelli as capriccios and inserted into the concluding pages of the first and last movements of the sonatas, thus acting as a kind of extended (some nearly as long as the movement itself) cadenza. Taken as a whole, the concertos represent a compendium of the possibilities of violin technique at the time, including such effects as playing in very high positions, frequent trills and double stopping, and difficult bowing devices such as slurred staccatos. Locatelli's Op. 4 (1735) is perhaps more musically interesting. Consisting of a group of six "symphonies" called Introduttioni Teatrale and six concertos, Op. 4 represents a considerable advance on his earlier works with much longer movements whose rhythmic verve and wealth of musical ideas look forward to the Classical era. In his Op. 6, published in Amsterdam in 1737, Locatelli returns to his own instrument in a set of 12 sonatas for violin and continuo. Cast in the three- (rather than four) movement form, the sonatas are also progressive in outlook, particularly in regard to their harmonies, which in their simplicity look forward to the pre-Classical idiom. Locatelli's two final groups of concertos (Op. 7 and Op. 10) carry such traits further forward in three-movement works that betray many typical elements of galant style, such as concluding minuets. -- Brian Robins



Elizabeth Wallfisch undertakes a busy schedule of concerts, recordings and broadcasts, both as concerto soloist (often directing from the violin) and as a recitalist in regular performances with cellist Richard Tunnicliffe and harpsichordist/fortepianist Paul Nicholson. She regularly leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Raglan Baroque Players with Nicholas Kraemer and, occasionally, the London Classical Players under Roger Norrington.
With The Locatelli Trio (now re-named Convivium) she has recorded a series for Hyperion Records of early Italian violin sonatas. Other releases include Locatelli Opp 6 and 8, Tartini (two CDs) and Corelli (double-CD set), Albinoni, and Veracini (triple-CD set) recorded in association with WDR Cologne; Handel Sonatas Op 1 (with Paul Goodwin, Lisa Beznosiuk and Rachel Beckett). The Trio has also recorded for Hyperion's English Orpheus series.

In 1994 Hyperion released the first complete recording for over thirty years of the Locatelli Violin Concerti Op 3, 'L'Arte del Violino', performed by Elizabeth Wallfisch with the Raglan Baroque Players under Nicholas Kraemer. It was voted 'Best Recording: Solo with Orchestra (17th/18th Century)' by the panel of the Cannes Classical Awards and the honour was awarded at the 1995 MIDEM conference in Cannes.

While enjoying the reputation she has earned as a specialist in 'early' violin repertoire, Elizabeth continues to play works from the later periods, including Spohr's Concerto No 8 for the BBC with the Ulster Orchestra under Roy Goodman; the Brahms Double Concerto with her husband, cellist Raphael Wallfisch; the Viotti Concerto No 22 with The Hanover Band, and the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Sir Charles Mackerras.

Elizabeth Wallfisch makes regular visits to her native Australia where she has been welcomed as 'Artist in Residence' at Melbourne University. In 1995 she gave a series of concerts at the Sydney Art Gallery with The Brandenburg Orchestra of Australia, and returned in 1996 for performances of Vivaldi's Four Seasons at the Sydney Opera House and the Melbourne Concert Hall, as well as concerts with Richard Tunnicliffe and Paul Nicholson, including appearances at the Melbourne International, the Port Fairy and the Barossa Valley festivals.

Since 1993 Elizabeth Wallfisch has been a featured soloist and led the orchestra at the annual Carmel Bach Festival in the USA under Bruno Weil. Her teaching commitments continue at London's Royal Academy of Music and she holds the position of Professor of Baroque violin at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague.

November 1998




Contents:
COMPACT DISC 1 [71'27]

CONCERTO NO 1 IN D MAJOR [16'35]
Allegro [3'17] -
Capriccio [2'16]
Largo [4'33]
Allegro [3'10] -
Capriccio [3'15]
CONCERTO NO 2 IN C MINOR [18'51]

Andante [5'13] -
Capriccio [4'22]
Largo [3'50]
Andante [2'53] -
Capriccio [2'29]
CONCERTO NO 3 IN F MAJOR [18'01]

Andante [5'09] -
Capriccio [3'27]
Largo [4'19]
Vivace [2'43] -
Capriccio [2'14]
CONCERTO NO 4 IN E MAJOR [17'33]

Largo - Andante [4'05] -
Capriccio [2'30]
Largo [4'37]
Andante [4'05] -
Capriccio [2'30]
COMPACT DISC 2 [67'27]
CONCERTO NO 5 IN C MAJOR [16'52]
Largo [4'37] -
Capriccio [3'34]
Adagio [2'08]
Allegro [3'04] -
Capriccio [3'28]
CONCERTO NO 6 IN G MINOR [16'34]

Largo - Andante [4'23] -
Capriccio [2'51]
Adagio [2'00]
Vivace [2'58] -
Capriccio [4'24]
CONCERTO NO 7 IN B FLAT MAJOR [18'35]

Andante [3'42] -
Capriccio [3'39]
Largo [4'38]
Allegro [2'51] -
Capriccio [3'12]
CONCERTO NO 8 IN E MINOR [15'42]

Andante [3'27] -
Capriccio [2'38]
Largo [2'53]
Allegro [3'08] -
Capriccio [3'19]
COMPACT DISC 3 [74'12]
CONCERTO NO 9 IN G MAJOR [15'19]
Allegro [3'19] -
Capriccio [2'55]
Largo [3'16]
Allegro [3'25] -
Capriccio [2'14]
CONCERTO NO 10 IN F MAJOR [16'05]

Allegro [3'24] -
Capriccio [3'24]
Largo Andante [3'47]
Andante [3'31]
Capriccio [2'48]
CONCERTO NO 11 IN A MAJOR [17'58]

Allegro [3'08]
Capriccio [2'56]
Largo [3'52]
Andante [4'08]
Capriccio [2'54]
CONCERTO NO 12 IN D MAJOR [24'23]
Il Laberinto Armonico, facilis aditus difficilis exitus

Allegro [3'00] -
Capriccio [4'12]
Largo [3'08]
Allegro [7'45] -
Capriccio [6'18]