The six sonatas for cello and basso continuo in this volume all belong to the ?Fondo Correr? collection held in the library of the conservatory of music ?Benedetto Marcello? in Venice. This valuable collection consists of about thirty printed editions and some 1600 original manuscripts from various sources. The majority of these works is composed by Venetian musicians among them Bonaventura Furlanetto one of the last masters at the Ospedale della Pietà Gaetano Latilla Andrea Bernasconi Giovanni Porta Giuseppe Sarti and Antonio Martinelli. The latter (Antonio Martinelli) was one of the best known music teachers at the Ospedali Grandi in Venice. The three sonatas edited in this volume are his only compositions for cello accompanied by basso continuo that survive today. First edition.

These three pieces for cello and piano are meditations – personal secular and musical – on images from religious poetry. The title of No. 1 Angels bending near the earth comes from a carol which begins‘It came upon the midnight clear’ by the Massachusetts pastor and poet Edmund Sears. The full reference is to “angels bending near the earth/to touch their harps of gold” and this is the inspiration forthe music with piano arpeggios swooping down over the rich central band of sound produced by the cello. No. 2’s title In death’s dark vale is a brief paraphrase (from a Scottish hymnal) of Psalm 23; thefull quotation is “yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil”. The image here is of human life lived against the prospect of impending death. The cello plays a hasty self-absorbed continuo whilst around it piano motifs and chords of different height and depth create an evolving backdrop. No. 3 O sapientia is the only movement which quotes a musical original; Hildegard ofBingen’s hymn O virtus sapientiae –“O strength of wisdom”. This is a calm elegaic set of variations for the cello on Hildegard’s melody accompanied by mostly bright optimistic refl ections from thepiano. Commissioned by cellist Jonathan Miller of Boston MA. First performance on 23 September 2016 at Hamilton Hall Salem MA by Jonathan Miller (cello) and Randall Hodgkinson (piano)

In memory of Christopher Rowland. Originally a concerto for Cello and chamber orchestra now for Cello with a Piano reduction of the orchestral part.The concerto is in four movements which are played without a break: Meditation Intermezzo Toccata-Scherzo and Song. The work lasts for some 18 minutes and was scored for two oboes two horns timpani (doubling tubular bells) and strings(found here in a Cello/Piano form). It is organised in one large arch-shaped structure with two fast inner movements flanked by two outer slow ones. The solo cello opens the work reflectively and introduces core melodic material which is continuously developed throughout theconcerto. Gradually the strings enter then wind and timpani and build a pyramid twelve-note chord at the peak of which there is a dramatic climax. The music then subsides (solo cello again) but links to the two faster middle movements. The second movement Intermezzo has an ABA structure and in its middle section quotes the opening of Shostakovich's Third String Quartet (written in the same year as Christopher Rowland was born!). Indeed the ghost of Shostakovich looms large throughout the concerto in more ways than one. The Toccata-Scherzo is energetic and rhythmically-charged again using an ABA structure. Here the writing for solo cello is quite virtuosic but not I hope in a shallow sense. The music builds inexorably towards a powerful climax underpinned by the opening twelve-note chord's re-appearance together with a violent outburst from the timpani at which point a tonal resolution (on G) arrives through a pianissimo held chord on strings which leads directly to the final movement - Song. And so the music arrives at its emotional heart through a simple melody (present in other forms throughout the work) announced by solo cello at the very top of its register against a quiet backdrop of horns and strings. A solo oboe enters with cello in canonic reply and all the time the music builds in texture and

The sonatas published in 1732 in Amsterdam, London and Paris under Benedetto Marcello?s name are to the present day firmly established in the cello repertoire. Although Marcello?s authorship is not undisputed ? by this time, the composer had already specialised in sacred works ? the musical beauty of the sonatas is all the more captivating. This four-movement F major Sonata offers all cellists well-versed in the first four positions a good introduction to the classical literature and to reading tenor clef. In this Urtext edition, the figured continuo part is additionally furnished with an easy-to-play keyboard realisation by Wolfgang Kostujak. The enclosed solo part provides fingerings and bowing marks for the cellist ? and thus the optimal provisions for a class recital!

Beethoven's composition of sonatas for Cello and Piano was unprecedented; he had no models in the works of Haydn or Mozart. Only recently had the instrument begun to liberate itself from its role in the traditional basso continuo. The first two Sonatas in this book comprising Op. 5 were composed in 1796 while Beethoven was in Berlin. He would not embark on another such project until 1807 when he composed the Sonata in A (Op. 69). Eight years later he would return to the idiom to write the two last Sonatas (Op. 102). This is a Great Performers Edition edited by cellist Janos Starker.

A celebration of the development of the Cello which over the period of the 18th century progressed from its status as a continuo instrument and allowed it to fulfil a much more soloistic role. At this same time as these alterations were gradually taking place came a development in the Cello repertoire. The first solo sonatas hass appeared in the late 17th century but it was some hundered years later that a virtuoso repertoire gradually emerged inspired by the artists featured in this collection.

Etoiles filantes fait partie de la série facile de la chaîne, une série complète de pièces faciles par l'équipe de rédaction de la chaîne préférée de la planète, Kathy