Rolla: Viola Concertos, Symphony In D, Tantum Ergo

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Release Date: 11th Jan 2019
Catalogue No: 95504
Label: Brilliant Classics
Length: 62 minutes

Rolla: Viola Concerto in F Major, BI 550

Work length20:49

$5.00

$6.45

Simonide Braconi (viola)
Demetrio, Il
Maurizio Schiavo
Recorded: 27-29 January 2017
Recording Venue: Chiesa di S. Luca, Pavia, Italy

I. Allegro

Track length10:53

$3.00

$3.85

II. Largo sostenuto

Track length4:51

$1.00

$1.30

III. Rondò: Allegro

Track length5:05

$1.00

$1.30

Rolla: Tantum Ergo, BI 568

Work length8:32

$2.00

$2.60

Salvo Vitale (bass), Simonide Braconi (viola)
Demetrio, Il
Maurizio Schiavo

Rolla: Sinfonia in D Major, BI 533

Work length10:16

$3.00

$3.90

Demetrio, Il
Maurizio Schiavo
Recorded: 27-29 January 2017
Recording Venue: Chiesa di S. Luca, Pavia, Italy

I. Allegro

Track length4:38

$1.00

$1.30

II. Andante grazioso

Track length2:43

$1.00

$1.30

III. Presto

Track length2:55

$1.00

$1.30

Rolla: Viola Concerto in D major, BI 543

Work length23:00

$5.00

$6.45

Simonide Braconi (viola)
Demetrio, Il
Maurizio Schiavo
Recorded: 27-29 January 2017
Recording Venue: Chiesa di S. Luca, Pavia, Italy

I. Allegro

Track length11:35

$3.00

$3.85

II. Adagio

Track length6:07

$1.00

$1.30

III. Rondo

Track length5:18

$1.00

$1.30

About
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About

As both conductor at La Scala from 1802 to 1833, and a professor at the new conservatoire in Milan (from 1808, the year of its foundation, to 1835), Alessandro Rolla (1757-1841) was the heartbeat of Milanese music in the turbulent early decades of the 19th century. He was also an accomplished performer on both violin and viola, and his own compositional output reflects his instrumental mastery, filtered through his experience of leading the Italian premieres of quartets and symphonies by Beethoven as well as operas by Mozart: he was a complete musician of his time.

The F major Viola Concerto opening this attractive new album belongs to Rolla’s apprentice years in service to the ducal court at Parma. With its uncompromising technical demands and unwavering focus on the solo instrument, the concerto represents a missing link between the idioms of Tartini and Paganini. The dawn of bel canto may be discerned in the slow movement of the album’s concluding D minor Viola Concerto, which concludes with a charmingly bucolic Rondo.

Dating from Rolla’s Milanese years, the 1805 Tantum ergo also features a concertante role for the viola, in sinuous accompaniment to the vocal bass soloist: a highly original device perhaps prompted by Mozart’s famous Sinfonia Concertante. As a performer, Rolla reserved the most haunting melodies and moments for himself: After a vocal cadenza on the closing Amen it is the viola that sets the seal on the work with an intensely lyrical phrase and a brilliantly virtuosic stretta. The D major Sinfonia likewise belongs to the first decade of the 1800s – infused with Rossinian verve and bubbling with operatic drama in the quick outer movements.

The Milanese violist Simonide Braconi plays Rolla’s music to the manner born, being the long-standing principal violist at La Scala. He is accompanied here by a chamber orchestra based in nearby Pavia and specialising in Classical-era works by neglected composers.

Rolla: Viola Concertos, Symphony In D, Tantum Ergo

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