Pietro Antonio LOCATELLI (1695-1764)
Sei Concerti a Quattro Opera VII [79:52]
Ensemble Baroque “Carlo Antonio Marino”/Natale Arnoldi
rec. August 2020, Chiesa SS. Fermo e Rustico di Cornale di Pradalunga, Italy
TACTUS TC691203 [79:52]
I do not enjoy negative criticism but on this occasion I have to state up front that I found this one a real trial to listen through. Neither performances nor recording are up to the standards one has grown to expect on CD and certainly not from the usually reliable Tactus label. However, on the bright side it did cause me to pay special attention to these Opus 7 concertos by Locatelli, a set I had not previously heard. The earlier sets, particularly Opus 1 and Opus 3, are much more familiar territory and having discovered this, the last set extant, Opus 9 having been lost, my listening turned into a voyage of pleasurable discovery.
Locatelli was born and raised in Italy becoming a pupil possibly of Corelli but more likely Valentini before departing in his early 30s to live in Amsterdam where most of his works were published. His Opus 1 concerti , though dated 1721, were not published until he reached The Netherlands. All other sets followed from his Amsterdam publisher save for this Opus 7 set of six concertos which were issued in Leiden in 1741. What is striking about his music is the degree of virtuosity expected, especially from the first violins. One explanation I have heard, from a leading Vivaldi player, for the comparative lack of performances and recordings is that they are very hard to play and need a lot of rehearsal. It certainly sounds a valid reason because music of this quality demands far greater exposure than it gets. Enjoyable as it is, Locatelli’s music is in a field already crowded with figures like Bach, Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi and Corelli, not to mention a host of other, not exactly minor names like Geminiani, Veracini and Torelli. Locatelli does lean to the flashy end of virtuoso display. His earlier Opus 3 set of concertos L’arte del violino gained him the retrospective label of the Paganini of the 18th Century. By the time he was composing Op 7 he displayed more than a hint of the Galante style that was soon to lead into the classical period. Contemporary critics were not entirely complementary, Burney declaring his music excited “more surprise than pleasure” and another commenting that his playing was “unbearable for delicate ears”!
Oddly it is this characteristic that suggests I might have just such delicate ears, for the playing sounds rather rough and screechy. If I believed it intentional that would be OK, but sadly I think it comes down to unrefined ensemble playing, not helped one bit by a curiously echoey recording well below the standards for this label. I stopped for a break after just three concertos and had to force myself back for the rest and for a subsequent rehearing. I tried it out on a trusted fellow enthusiast to be sure I had not misjudged; he too was dismayed.
There are few alternatives for Op 7 but one in particular shows the music to be performable and really very attractive, that from the Ensemble Violini Capricciosi on Brilliant Classics, though it appears to be available only as a multi-CD box with all the Concerti Grossi, Op 1, Op 4 and Op 7, (review) where my colleague Stuart Sillitoe agrees as to its qualities. He also dismisses the old Berlin Classics recording for the same reason I do, “laboured”.
This new Tactus CD ought to have been welcomed but I fear it must be rejected.
Dave Billinge
