New Recording of 17th Century Violin Music from Modena

The irrepressible violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved is busy preparing quite a number of recordings, of both modern and ancient music, solo and with his Kreutzer Quartet. Next in line from the Athene label is a fascinating and historically informative collection of music from the cultural centre of Modena, around 1690.

The album contains eight pieces from the collection of partitas, Op. 13, by Giovanni Battista Vitali, 14 items by Giuseppe Colombi from a compendium of works published in or near Modena, and four pieces from the Rost Codex, by an anonymous hand. Several of the Vitali works have been recorded in their version for chamber ensemble, but it is believed that this is the first recording of all the works for the solo instrument. The album booklet will contain a note about the ‘crossover’ between solo and ensemble variants of works from this part of the late 17^th century.

The recording was completed in February and is to be scheduled for release in the autumn, the exact date to be announced in due course.

Peter Sheppard Skærved has built a formidable reputation for his musicological research, as well as his writing, teaching, and concert and recording performances, and has access to some of the world’s most treasured instruments, several of which are featured in Athene’s ongoing ‘Great Violins’ series. On this recording Peter plays a recently rediscovered Andrea Amati violin from 1572 and an even earlier, though anonymous, instrument from Brescia. The album is in a way a sequel to the recent ‘Florish in the Key – the Solo Violin in London 1650-1700’ (Athene ATH 23211).

Athene Records was originally founded in 1993 to issue recordings of historic square pianos; it was acquired by Divine Art and is the group’s main home for early and baroque music and historic instruments.