Two months ago Taggart posted this album here and I was very intrigued for it. Then I' ve found a copy on amazon u.s. and even if shipment was expensive something ( :devil: ) said to my ear that I should buy it. As I waited I was listening to it in small doses on spotify and I really liked it. I just received it this week and just can say that this disc is one of my best purchases in a very long time. I`m really loving this music by this rather "mysterious composer". Now it´s time for an overdose of this beautiful and odd sonatas:
From the AMG review:
"Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi briefly surfaced at the Hapsburg court in Innsbruck in 1660 with the pair of violin publications performed here. Little is known of his life beyond what can be gleaned from the dedications and other matter associated with these two sets of sonatas for violin and continuo, and the downright bizarre quality of the music only heightens the air of mystery. British historical-performance specialist Andrew Manze, who has a very pleasing touch in the so-called stylus phantasticus of fantastic style of the later seventeenth century, writes in the notes that Pandolfi might be considered the "godfather" of the virtuoso violin tradition in the German sphere running from Biber down to the mighty unaccompanied sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach. The problem with this is that Pandolfi's sonatas do not sound much like Biber, even at his most experimental, or anyone else. Their nearest relatives are the works of Marco Uccellini, who may have been influenced by Pandolfi. If your tastes run to the extreme in the music of the seventeenth century, rest assured that it doesn't come much more extreme than this (...)"
