Marco Ceccato & Anna Fontana – For the King of Prussia – Beethoven: Sonatas for Fortepiano and Cello, Op. 5 (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Marco Ceccato & Anna Fontana – For the King of Prussia – Beethoven: Sonatas for Fortepiano and Cello, Op. 5 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:04:10 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana

Marco Ceccato and Anna Fontana are well-known performers on the international baroque circuit and familiar faces thanks to their recordings for Outhere labels Alpha, Arcana and Zig-Zag Territoires (including Marco’s 2015 Diapason d’or Award winning recording of Boccherini with Accademia Ottoboni). Now they have come together to tackle the two revolutionary works for piano and cello composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1796 and dedicated to King Frederick William II of Prussia. Their interpretative approach deepens our understanding of the final years of that century when a young Beethoven, a child of the 18th century, was grappling with one of his most extraordinary stylistic innovations. These two expert performers have set out to reconstruct historically reliable versions of the works, linking Beethoven’s revolutionary harmonic solutions with the 18th-century stylistic features that were still in vogue, from phrasings to Beethoven’s meticulously notated articulations.

(more…)

Read more

Marco Ceccato, Anna Fontana – Il violoncello del cardinale (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Marco Ceccato, Anna Fontana – Il violoncello del cardinale (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:25 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Cardinals Benedetto Pamphili and Pietro Ottoboni played a prominent role in Rome at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with their patronage of the three most important composers of the day, Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti and Handel. At that time, numerous musicians converged on Rome, and the large orchestra directed by Arcangelo Corelli at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi included several famous cellists, among them G. L. Lular, N. F. Haym, F. Amadei and G. M. Perroni. As well as notable virtuosos, these men were often also composers of oratorios, vocal music, and pieces for their own favourite instrument, though very few of these have survived. It is to their music, often unpublished, that Marco Ceccato and his Accademia, winners of a Diapason d’Or of the year in 2015, introduce us here, along with works by the composers who subsequently formed the core of this group after Handel left for London: G. Bononcini, P. G. P. Boni, and G. B. Costanzi, who was later to teach Boccherini.

(more…)

Read more