First recordings of concertos by a legendary virtuoso of the Italian Baroque.

Concert master at the Teatro alla Scala since 2014, Laura Marzadori studied with Salvatore Accardo and Giuliano Carmignola, as well as playing in the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado. She has given chamber-music concerts with internationally renowned soloists such as Antonio Meneses, Andrea Lucchesini and Bruno Giuranna, and worked as a concert master for some of the world’s great conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly and Antonio Pappano. She gave the world premiere performances of Respighi’s Violin Concerto in 2011, followed by a warmly received recording of the piece. She has also recorded the beautiful but little-known concerto by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari.

Now she makes her debut on Brilliant Classics with an album of music from the Baroque era, focused on the devilish virtuosity of Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770). Her selection ventures beyond the ubiquitous ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata, however, to include pairs of concertos and chamber sonatas in which she is joined by the young musicians of a dynamic Italian chamber orchestra, playing on modern instruments, who have Tartini’s idiom at their fingertips.

The two concertos are significant rarities, and have been specially prepared from unpublished manuscripts for this recording by its conductor, Massimo Belli; they are missing from even the compendious, 29-CD box of Tartini’s ‘complete’ concertos on Dynamic; this album thus makes a significant contribution to the library of Italian Baroque violin concertos, especially since the pieces concerned are so attractive, featuring solo parts that freely converse with individual voices within the orchestra.

Laura Marzadori pairs these delightful discoveries with two D major sonatas written not for the standard trio-sonata disposition of violin, bass and harpsichord, but rather an instrumentation that anticipates the string quartet. Their writing is full of bold harmonic moves as well as typically brilliant figuration for the violin.