Per Viola E Pianoforte. Par CALLIGARIS SERGIO. Sergio Calligaris was born in Rosario (1941), Argentina. He is one of the last musicians to incarnate the traditional 19th century figure of pianist, teacher and composer, inaugurated at the beginning of the 19th century by Muzio Clementi and carriedon after that by a sequence of famous names that the history of music has handed down to us. As a pianist, he began to give public performances at the age of 13, making his debut in his home town Rosario. Following this success, he embarked upon an extremely busy career as a soloist, giving numerous recitals in Buenos Aires and other citiesin Argentina. He continued to take advanced lessons with eminent exponents of the most prestigious international piano schools. In 1974 he became an Italian citizen and settled in Rome, teaching piano as principal instrument at the S. Pietro a Majella StateConservatory in Naples, the Luisa DAnnunzio Conservatory in Pescara and the Alfredo Casella Conservatory in Aquila. As a composer, he began - at just 9 years of age - to study in the rigorous school of Paul Hindemith, under the guidance of Father Luis Machado, from whom he inherited a love of counterpoint and a strong taste for harmony. He took a diploma incomposition, counterpoint and fugue at the age of 16 at the Amigos del Arte Society in Rosario, going on in 1964 to do an advanced course in 12-tone counterpoint at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The catalogue of his compositions, which has nowreached Op. 55, encompasses a huge range of instrumental/vocal chamber music and symphonic works: a vast and articulated catalogue, in which Sergio Calligaris’s composition expresses its inspiration through the dramatic development of a dialecticalcontrast between the two natures of the composer’s personality - the elegiac and the dithyrambic - which confront and interact with each other giving rise to artistic outcomes of a deeply moving nature. / Niveau : Intermédiaire / Date parution : 1905-06-19/ Répertoire / Alto et Piano

Brahms had already announced his ?retirement' from composition when in the spring of 1894 he played chamber music with the cellist Robert Hausmann and the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. This encounter apparently renewed his enthusiasm for Mühlfeld's much admired playing and inspired him to write two clarinet sonatas in the summer of the same year. It remains unclear when exactly Brahms drafted viola parts to his two sonatas. In any case the viola and clarinet versions of the works were first published by Simrock at the same time in 1895. Today there is no doubt about Brahms' authorship of the viola parts. They include important differences from the clarinet original in order to do justice to this string instrument.An important part of this edition is the extensive preface. Firstly it informs about the sonatas' origins, their compositional process, pre-publication performances, their publication history as well as early reception. Truly remarkable is the unique Performance Practice Commentary. Here the editors start from the premise that already a few decades after Brahms' death, a widening gulf developed between the composer's expectations and the performance practices of the early 20th century. On the basis of manifold sources which include memoirs by pupils and chamber music partners, treatises and essays, early instructive editions and historical recordings, the editors deal with key issues in understanding Brahms' notation. By a section-by-section analysis of rhythm and timing, dynamics and accentuation, dots and strokes, slurring and non legato, piano pedalling and overholding, piano arpeggiation and dislocation, string instrument fingering, string instrument harmonics and vibrato, the editors provide an indispensable assistance for a historically informed interpretation of the works.At the same time, the edition offers an exciting and often surprising insight into musical interpretation of the German Romantic Era in general.- A pioneering Urtext edition- With an unmarked Urtext part- With a second part including fingering and bowing based on the practices of contemporaries of Brahms- With an extensive Performance Practice Commentary- For further information on Romantic performance practice we recommend the text booklet: 'Performance Practices in Johannes Brahms' Chamber Music?, BA 9600 / Alto Et Piano