Tartini: Violin Concertos, Sonatas Laura Marzadori

• Giuseppe Tartini (1692 - 1770): Sonata a quattro in D Major:
• 1 Sonata a quattro in D Major: I. Allegro assai 04:07
• 2 Sonata a quattro in D Major: II. Andante 04:47
• 3 Sonata a quattro in D Major: III. Presto 03:35
• Concerto for Violin and Strings in A Minor, It. 941GT a.06:
• 4 Concerto for Violin and Strings in A Minor, It. 941GT a.06: I. Allegro 05:00
• 5 Concerto for Violin and Strings in A Minor, It. 941GT a.06: II. Grave 05:38
• 6 Concerto for Violin and Strings in A Minor, It. 941GT a.06: III. Allegro 03:11
• Concerto for Violin and Strings in B-Flat Major, GT Bb.13:
• 7 Concerto for Violin and Strings in B-Flat Major, GT Bb.13: I. Allegro 04:11
• 8 Concerto for Violin and Strings in B-Flat Major, GT Bb.13: II. Adagio. Largo 04:17
• 9 Concerto for Violin and Strings in B-Flat Major, GT Bb.13: III. Allegro 02:58
• Sonata a quattro in D Major, No. 3:
• 10 Sonata a quattro in D Major, No. 3: I. Allegro assai 03:26
• 11 Sonata a quattro in D Major, No. 3: II. Larghetto 03:56
• 12 Sonata a quattro in D Major, No. 3: III. Allegro 02:56
• Total Runtime 48:02

Info for Tartini: Violin Concertos, Sonatas

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The two concertos are significant rarities, and have been specially prepared from unpublished manuscripts for this recording by its conductor, Massimo Belli; they are missing from even the compendious, 29CD box of Tartini’s ‘complete’ concertos on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, most elegantly dispatched here by Marzadori on her Guadagnini violin.

Giuseppe Tartini (Pirano d'Istria 1692 - Padua 1770) was a virtuoso violinist, composer, theoretician and teacher, a spider in the international cultural web in a time when Italy was the centre of the musical world, his violin school, the “School of Nations”, attracted musicians from all over Europe.

Tartini’s 4 part Sonatas are modeled in 3 movements, fast-slow-fast, and bear witness of the incredible skill of Tartini’s string playing. They are highly melodious works of great beauty and charm. The two Violin Concertos are virtuoso works, paving the way for the great concertos from the classical and romantic era.

Excellent performances by violinist Laura Marzadori and the Ferruccio Busoni Chamber Orchestra conducted by Massimo Belli, who already successfully recorded similar works by Czerny, Viotti, Rolla and orchestral works by Wolf-Ferrari.

Laura Marzadori, violin
Nuova Orchestra da Camera "Ferruccio Busoni"
Massimo Belli, conductor

Laura Marzadori
joined the Scala Theatre Orchestra as leader violin in 2014, at just 25 years. Before taking up this position she played only as a soloist and as a chamber music violinist, never in an orchestra. However, the commission members with Daniel Barenboim as its president, unanimously elected her as the Concertmaster. In this role she has already worked with some of the greatest conductors in the world: Barenboim, Chailly, Gatti, Harding and Pappano.

She began studying the violin a few months before her fourth birthday with Fiorenza Rosi, a teacher of the Suzuki method. At age 10 she studied for one year with Professor Enzo Porta, great violinist and pedagogue, before entering the Conservatorio G. B. Martini in Bologna from where she graduates magna cum laude in October 2005. Laura also studied until the age of 17 with Marco Fornaciari - for many years violin soloist of the Claudio Scimone ensemble “I Solisti Veneti”.

In 2004 she won the "Andrea Amati" National Contest for Young Violinists. The chairman of that jury was the famous violinist Salvatore Accardo who took her on to his prestigious international courses at the Stauffer Academy in Cremona and at the Chigiana Academy in Siena where for two consecutive years she was awarded the Honour’s Diploma granted to the best students.

In 2006 she attended a one year masterclass with Giuliano Carmignola as part of one of the Orchestra Mozart initiatives under artistic direction of M° Claudio Abbado.

Between the ages of 17 and 20 she studied, for three years, with the renowned violinist Pavel Berman at the International Academy Incontri col Maestro in Imola (Italy).

Since 2008 she has been studying with the great violinist Zakhar Bron and attended his violin class at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurich for two years.

In her teens she won many prizes including the National Arts Prize (president of the jury Uto Ughi), the aformentioned "Andrea Amati" contest, the second price at the Postacchini International Competition together with the special award for the best execution of Nicolò Paganini’s Capricci.

In 2005 she won the most important Italian Violin competition: the “Città di Vittorio Veneto” contest as well as the special mention Gulli Prize for the best Mozart execution.

Over the last two years she has been laureated at both the Sion International Violin Competition and the Buenos Aires International Violin competition.

She is a passionate chamber musician: she has collaborated with such extraordinary musicians as Accardo, Berman, Filippini, Bruno Canino, Meneses, Antony Pay, Lucchesini, Giuranna - with whom she performed the Bach Goldberg variations of the string version by Bruno Giuranna- and recently also with many colleagues of the Scala Orchestra. In 2013, as a member of the AMAR piano trio with Leonora and Ludovico Armellini, she was awarded the prestigious “XXXII Premio Abbiati” dedicated to Piero Farulli, by the Italian National Association of Musics Critics.

In 2010 she performed the world premiere of Ottorino Respighi’s violin concerto in New York, and recorded it for the NAXOS Label. The recording, released in the USA in May 2011, was well received by critics.

In April 2012, she played Italian première of the Violin Concerto op.26 by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari with the “Orchestra Città di Ferrara” conducted by Marco Zuccarini. This performance was recorded live by the TACTUS label and the CD was released in January 2013.

In the same year Shlomo Mintz invited her to record two violin lessons with him for his Online Music Academy; she also recorded a lesson with Salvatore Accardo at the Stauffer Academy in Cremona for the Dynamic Label.

Laura Marzadori plays the 1783 G.B.Guadagnini “ex-Kleynenberg” violin, kindly loaned by the Pro Canale Foundation of Milan.

Booklet for Tartini: Violin Concertos, Sonatas