PIETRO NARDINI (1722-1793)

Sonata in sol maggiore

Allegro

Adagio

Allegro Assai

GIUSEPPE CAMBINI (1746-1825)

Sonata Seconda in sol maggiore

Allegro

Adagio

Rondò Allegretto Brioso

MUZIO CLEMENTI (1752-1832)

Sonata Prima in sol maggiore op.13

Allegro moderato

Rondò Allegretto

GIOVANNI BENEDETTO PLATTI (ca. 1700-1763)

Sonata in sol maggiore op. III n. 2

Grave

Allegro

Largo

Allegro Molto

PIETRO ANTONIO LOCATELLI (1695-1764)

Sonata Decima in sol maggiore

Largo

Allegro

Minuetto (con variazioni)

Durata: 01h 01’

ALAIN MARION 

At the age of 14, Alain Marion passes with flying colours the finals of the Conservatoire at Marseille, the town where he was born, and where he had been studying with Joseph Rampal. He comes to Paris to have lessons with Jean-Pierre Rampal, and in 1961 is a prise winner at the International Music competition at Geneva and gives several concerts for the J.M.F. (Musical Youth of France). In 1964, he is appointed first flute in the French radio Chamber Orchestra. As a founder-member of the Orchestre de Paris, then soloist in the Orchestre National de France as well as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Alain Marion has had the opportunity of working with such renowned conductors as Charles Munch, Bernstein, Martinon, Karajan, Celibidache, Boulez, Maazel, Ozawa, Giulini, Boehm, Klemperer, Solti, Mehta, etc. His concert tours have taken him not only across Europe but also into North Africa, Central and North America, the Near and the Far East. He performs both classical and modern works, and has played as soloist under Claudio Scimone, J. Marinon, J-F Paillard, K. Ristenpart, Karl Richter, and Berio, Ivo Malec, Marius Constant, Pierre Boulez and Michel Tabachnik. Alain Marion is a soloist for Radio France and many other foreign radios. He has been invited to take part in the festivals of Bordeaux, Menton, La Rochelle, Aix-en-Provence, Hong-Kong, Winegards, and others. Alain Marion also plays chamber music with Jessye Norman, YoYo Ma, Pascal Roge, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Alexandre Lagoya, etc. He teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and is a teacher at the International Summer School in Nice, as well as teaching at the Academy of the Mozarteum in Salzburg where he was invited by Rolf Liebermann. Shortly to appear: a video cassette produced by Frédéric Rossif and Télé Hachette, Mozart with the Polish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk. (CBS - Sony). In 1986 he will give two recitals at the Carnegie Hall one of which will be at the invitation of Jean-Pierre Rampal. Alain Marion has been invited to be director of the "Nouvelle Académie International d'Eté de Nice" as of summer 1985. 

DANIELE ROI

Daniele Roi studied with Micaela Mingardo Angeleri and then with Paul Badura-Skoda, Franco Gulli and Enrica Cavallo, Huguette Dreyfus. His musical activity has developed as soloist, with orchestras and above all in the field of chamber music, playing for national and foreign radio-television corporations and collaborating also with Riccardo Chailly, UtoUghi, Bruno Giuranna, Peter Lukas Graf, Kenneth Gilbert, Alain Marion, Jean Pierre Rampal. He also has activity as harpsichordist in many chamber orchestras with concerts in Europe, south America and Australia, and recordings about instrumental and vocal music. He has been the harpsichordist in the opera by Vivaldi "Orlando Furioso" in Paris, at the Theatre du Chatelet with Marilyn Horne. Daniele Roi was borne in Padova where he teaches piano. 

Nardini, Clementi, Locatelli, Platti, Cambini

The eighteenth-century Italian works presented on this record are typical of a certain style of instrumental music which, in the latter half of the century, became an immediate reference point for Classical composers. This was not only responsible for the expanding fame of Italian virtuosos throughout Europe, but also for the diffusion of a new spirit which was to define a fresh musical aesthetic. While employing certain techniques characteristic of Baroque music, such as the bass continuo, (Clementi is the only exception to this on the record, and he was writing comparatively late), these composers aimed at writing music that was linked to the sensibilities; music that was created around virtuosic abilities, soloistic individualism and sentimentalism. Thus, it was enlivened by the desire to awaken calm and pleasant emotions, free from trauma and problems. As in the field of melodrama, (which should be considered to be the true stylistic and idealistic reference point of instrumental music of the eighteenth century), where the "Neopolitan" model was triumphant, instrumental writing was becoming increasingly committed to simplicity. Thus, we find symmetrical and simplified melodies, harmonies based on elementary modulations, regular and repetitive structures, thematic elaborations based on ornamental criteria, and so on. With the exception, once again, of Clementi, the Italian composers present-ed here document the transition between the Baroque and Galant eras. The essence of these changes was to be taken up and developed by those European, but most notedly German, composers to whom we owe the compositional and aesthetic models that were to last into and beyond Romanticism. For example, anybody interested in historical perspective can here perceive concrete evidence of an anticipation of "Sonata Form", that is of the structural organization typical of Haydn and Mozart. However, one must be careful that this does not lead to a belittlement of the earlier composers for the fact that their "Sonata Form", when it appears, is rather erratic compared to later examples. It is much more interesting to understand that the variety of modifications in form, (the use of a double rather than a single theme, the division into three rather than two sections), was a direct response to individual expressive necessity without yet being constrained by structural definition. The record also documents the rise in importance of instruments other than the violin to a soloistic level. During the Age of Enlightenment, the flute, for example, enjoyed great popularity to the point of often being indicated in scores as an alternative to the violin itself. It is significant that many composers who wrote for the flute were themselves violinists (Nardini, Cambini, Locatelli and Platti). Violinistic ornamental devices were also applied to the flute, a large part of which were improvised extemporisations. Marion and Roi demonstrate this, particularly in the ritornelli. The Sonata by Pietro Nardini (b. Livorno, 1722; d. Florence, 1793), shows a complete adhesion to these new ideals. The counterpoint has disappeared; the composition hinges on ornate melodic lines and on a clear and simple harmonic structure which is barely enlivened by the odd "surprise" which, by dint of it's rarity, leaps out at the listener. The themes are hardly developed, and this is evidence of the fact that Nardini preferred to focus on an effect derived from their immediate characteristics rather than the quality of elaboration. If the two outer movements, (Allegro and Allegro assai), are based on two thematic elements and on brilliant ornamentation, the essence of the central Adagio lies in the flowery cantabile of the soloist. The Sonata by Muzio Clementi (b. Rome, 1752; d. Evesham, England, 1832), is a miniature composition in the style of the Sonatinas which were popular in the latter eighteenth century when the increasing number of amateur players demanded works which were less technically exacting. This piece is one of a number of Sonatas for keyboard with instrumental accompaniment - (this was the usual expression) - as it was the former which played an essential role; the latter could just as well have been omitted. Even within these limits, the piece is a typical example of the taste of the day, not so much as a result of the bass continuo having disappeared, but rather that the spontaneous grace, simplicity, and "drawing-room" cantabile style were so characteristic of the time. Structurally, the two movements are respectively a "Sonata Form" (with some exceptions to the rules), and a Rondo, the penultimate passage of which is in a characteristic minor key. Pietro Locatelli b. Bergamo, 1695; d. Amsterdam, 1764), is an exceptional product of the Italian violinistic tradition of Corelli, and his work brings us back to the move away from Baroque style. In fact, the first two movements seem to be Vivaldian, both on an expressive (the Largo), and a virtuosic (the Allegro) level. However, the closing Minuetto with variations is wholly "galant" in style and, in this case, considerably less interesting than the preceeding movements, due to the rather unimaginative variations on a theme being time after time based on a sole expedient. During the past ten years, the invention of "Sonata Form" has been at-tributed to Giovanni Benedetto Platti (b. Venice, ca. 1700; d. Wurzburg Germany, 1763). If this, for obvious reasons, no longer valid, it must be acknowledged that the Venetian was responsible for positive innovative moves towards the aesthetics Classicism, not only regarding form, but also content. This is clear in the Sonata on the record which, while presenting a Baroque exterior (the order of movements found in the Church Sonata, the use of the continuo, and so on), also opens up new eighteenth century ideals with the captivating grace of the opening movement, the noble and even dramatic sentimentalism of the third the brilliance of the finale but, above all, with the graciousness of the second movement in which a modern approach to form is discernable. With the Sonata by Giovanni Giuseppe Cambini, (b. Livorno, 1746; d. Bicetre, Paris, 1825), we are confronted with a 'facile" style which plays between a typically "galant" violinistic virtuosity (as in the case of the first movement in Sonata Form, whose dynamic brilliance is at times interrupted by emotion-al passages), and pure sentimentalism which, as in the second movement, is compelling in it's melancholic cantabile. The Finale, a gracious Rondo, consists of the usual principal theme which alter-nates with two others. 

Federico Marri 

Translation by Nicola Swallow