I MUSICI
- Violini: Antonio Anselmi, N. Amati 1676 Cremona
- Marco Serino, N. Amati - 1661 Cremona
- Ettore Pellegrino, G. Cappa - 1675 Saluzzo
- Pasquale Pellegrino, G. Cappa - 1691 Saluzzo
- Claudio Buccarella, G. B. Ceruti - 1796 Cremona
- Gianluca Apostoli, G. Pressenda - 1821 Torino
- Viole: Massimo Paris, F. Fasser - G.P. Maggini 1600 Brescia Silvio Di Rocco, M. Blaurock - A. Amati 1574 Cremona
- Celli: Vito Paternoster, L. Carcassi - 1780 Firenze
- Pietro Bosna, L. Storioni - 1791 Cremona
(per gentile concessione del M P. Lacchio)
- Contrabbasso: Roberto Gambioli, X. Jacquet - 1860 Mirecourt Cembalo: Francesco Buccarella, F. Bettenhausen
copia Rukers 1993 Haarlem

Conceived and produced by: Giulio Cesare Ricci
Recorded by: Giulio Cesare Ricci
Recorded at: Volterra (PI) Teatro Persio Flacco
Recording date: Marzo, March 2011
Music assistant Alessandro Buccarella
DSD Workstation responsible / Digital DSD editing: Antonio Verderi
Equipment:
Valve microphones: Neumann U47, U48, M49
Mike pre-amplifiers: Signoricci
line, digital, microphone, supply cables: Signoricci Recorded in stereo Direct Stream Digital (DSDTM)
on the Pyramix Recorder using dCS A/D and D/A converters

Sixty years have passed since twelve young graduates, mainly from the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, got together to give voice to their passion. Thus was born a rarity of its time, a chamber group without a conductor. This apparent lack could have been their Achilles heel when the great Toscanini heard them, but their enthusiasm brought out the strong and affectionate words: “Bravi, bravis- simi...(very good, excellent) music wont die! ... from him. Time has passed quickly, yet the sound that travelled these decades still lights up the eyes of those who were participants in this extraordinary cavalcade as if it had lasted only a moment. For I Musici time hasnt flown and paradoxically, the future is behind their shoulders as for the Aymara people. It turns the traditional western concept upside down and without giving it a lot of thought, creates a vortex of thought that makes its mark. Nowadays not one of the foundation members still forms part of the group but this isnt the reason that the original spirit has been lost. Over the years the new elements were able to assimilate the impulse from the older members, similar to an incredible wave of energy that has always characterised I Musicis concerts. They, in their turn transmitted it to the newer members. We could say that theres a true and actual DNA that has passed down from one generation to another. For some years I Musici have recorded for the Italian label of Fon. This recording company has done quality and technologically avantgard work. They already have two discs to show from this collaboration. The present and third one is dedicated to celebrating I Musicis sixtieth anniversary. This last one, more than the others surely, underlines the groups beauty of sound and its expressive capacity. The style is fresh and mod- ern but the warmth of the sound is traditional. The ability to unite the typically Italian expressive and melodic spirit, with a great interpretative quality that has won over many generations of listeners, is probably the secret to the groups long and successful career.
We hope that they continue to do this for many years yet to come. Congratulations, I Musici!

VIVALDI, I MUSICI and HISTORY by Alberto Cant
The Milan Quartet Association, 1956-1957 season, Wednesday 20th Febru- ary 1957, “9.30pm precisely, Gloria Cinema Hall, 18 Corso Vercelli, were the temporary headquarters in one of the many postwar pilgrimages of the Milan institution before finding more suitable accomodation in the Conservatory Great Hall. This was printed on the programme of the second (the first one was in 1953) of many concerts that I Musici held for the historical, prestigious insti- tution “founded in 1864 under the auspices of Verdi, even though he wasnt fond of Quartet Associations. Arcangelo Corellis Concerto Grosso op. VI (one of the twelve) was played that 20th February in the cinema hall. Corelli was the father of eighteenth century violin playing, having created the Trio Sonata, concerto for solo instrument as well as the concerto grosso. His compositions were fundamental in the history of music but already by the middle of the twentieth century they werent heard frequently anymore. The Neapolitan composer born in 1744 and brother of Tommaso, Giuseppe Giordanis Concerto in C major for piano and strings also featured. This opened the way to eighteenth century Ital- ian music that was I Musicis vocation, which included Antonio Vivaldi, flag in the newly formed group. The Four Seasons, Vivaldis best known composition was on the programme. In this work four descriptive sonnets give rise to the most scintillating instrumental and musical expression. The Four Seasons, proposed to the Quartet were publicised on yellow tissue-paper, inserted into the sober pro- gramme where the original Ricordi, Decca and Garzanti presented a work unlike any other, in 1500 pages, elegantly bound in leather: the World of Music.
On the tissue-paper was also noted that the instrumental group I Musici recorded exclusively for Phillips. This contract continued for decades and sold the Guin- ness record amount of over 25 million copies of the seasons, with the first violins or leaders, alternating or succeeding each other in the sixty years of the history and the life of the group that is now being celebrated in 2011-2012. In alpha- betical order the leaders were Salvatore Accardo, Federico Agostini, Felix Ayo. Pina Carmirelli, Roberto Michelucci, Antonio Salvatore, Mariana Sirbu and Franco Tamponi.


They were of the very best Italian musicians and violinists as soloists and cham- ber musicians and the ensemble was able to truly benefit from them in the various ways of making music. The outstanding violists were Bruno Giuranna, Dino Asciolla and Aldo Bennici. The notable cellist was Enzo Altobelli, the unforget- table double bassist Lucio Buccarella and Maria Teresa Garattis touch on the keyboard was delicate but strong. In the fifties the group included Ayo, Cesare Casellato, Italo Colandrea, Annamaria Cotogni, Walter Gallozzi and Micheluc- ci (violins), Carmen Franco and Giuranna (violas), Altobelli and Mario Cen- turione (cellos), Buccarella (double bass) and Garatti (harpsichord and piano). The violinists came from the Remy Principe School with its many inspired and extraordinary pupils. In the original programme, the biographical notes explain with the fervour of times gone by and well-defined ideas, that “I Musici, an instrumental group of young concert performers, presented by the Santa Cecilia Academy in 1952, consists of twelve young instrumentalists, who are starting their concert careers, soloistic and otherwise with a careful and fervid ensemble discipline. They play without a conductor as in the past times of antique Ital- ian music, where there was the violin leader-conductor or harpsichord maestro- conductor and they are singularly committed to going more deeply into detail of the musical values of the works studied and performed. The following is a list of the countries visited during the first stormy concert tours: France, Ger- many, Holland, Scandinavia, United States, South Africa after the blessing of an emotional and well-wishing Toscanini of over eighty (“bravi, bravissimi: no, music wont die!). The rediscovery of Vivaldi happened in the twentieth cen- tury even if it was rooted in the Bach Renaissance of the nineteenth century. If Vivaldi is extremely popular today, in the nineteenth century he was unknown and his works were considered lost. If one talks of him its because at “Concerti vivaldiani (concerts based on Vivaldis compositions), Bach transcribed various works for organ or harpsichord. This continued until the musicologist Alberto Gentili fortunately managed to track down and miraculously obtain the two blocks of compositions signed by Vivaldi, originally one block, owned by the Marquis Giacomo Durazzo, a collector of music, who at the end of the eighteenth century acquired these Vivaldi manuscripts at the Ospedale della Piet where the Red Priest had taught. In the years 1927-30 the Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino (Turin National Library) bought the Fo-Giordano Collection (the sur- names of the two patrons). In 1939, Vivaldi made his modern “dbut at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. After the war Ricordi began the publishing of the first edition of the critique of Vivaldis works.
Here is where I Musici step in, as pioneers. With discipline and imagination and the warm and singing Italian sound of its members. They were “musicians play- ing within the context of the written music score. “Musicians with the Baroque idea where the love and interest in period instruments and antique procedure are not yet fashionable. They had the neoclassical approach, alert to the Allegro rhythms and noble in the lyrical parts of the Adagios. Clarity, intensity and as Vivaldi imposed, “harmony and “Invention (from Il cimento dellarmonia e dellinvenzione): to restore the “correct way of composing and the “unforeseen inspiration.
Having made their debut with Vivaldi, I Musici return to his music with this cel- ebratory cd of their sixty years after having magnificently recorded works from the twentieth century (and their popularity also lies in the fact they were the first to record a cd for “their Phillips, which no longer exists).
The twentieth century pieces are the Concerto grosso by Luis Bacalov, a remake by Ennio Morricone for I Musici of Once upon a time in America and the Con- certo for strings that Nino Rota composed for the Roman group in 1965. They possess a solid background and tradition like an old oak, as the group has been described, the roots of which have also given way to the growth and luxuriance of new branches and leaves. Ill continue to follow the musical developments of I Musici both in 2011-2012 and in a future that is theirs yet to discover.


TITEL

Concerto in Re Magg. RV 123
1 Allegro 1'56" / 2 Adagio 1'34" / 3 Allegro 2'15"

Concerto in re min. RV 127
4 Allegro 1'22" / 5 Largo 1'32" / 6 Allegro 1'02"

Sinfonia in Do Magg. dal "Giustino" RV 717
7 Allegro 2'17" / 8 Andante 2'20" / 9 Allegro 0'46"

Concerto in do min. RV 119
10 Allegro 2'09" / 11 Largo 1'22" / 12 Allegro 1'19"

Sinfonia in Sol Magg. RV 149 "Il coro delle Muse"
13 Allegro molto 1'38" / 14 Andante 1'19" / 15 Allegro 2'39"

Concerto in Do Magg. RV 114
16 Allegro 2'22" / 17 Adagio 0'20" / 18 Ciaccona 3'04" (Allegro, ma non troppo)

Concerto in sol min. RV 156
19 Allegro 2'29" / 20 Adagio 1'17" / 21 Allegro 1'33"
Concerto in La Magg. RV 158

22 Allegro molto 2'20" / 23 Andante molto 2'11" / 24 Allegro 2'48"
Concerto in sol min. RV 157

25 Allegro 1'47" / 26 Largo 1'21" / 27 Allegro 1'57"
Concerto in Sib Magg. RV 163 "Conca"

28 Allegro molto moderato - Allegro molto - Tempo I - Allegro molto 2'29"
29 Andante (molto) 0'48" / 30 Allegro 0'52"

Concerto in Sol Magg. RV 151 "alla Rustica"
31 Presto 1'13" / 32 Adagio 1'07" / 33 Allegro 1'33"

Delivery status: in stock	Item No.: Fone 074 CD	19,50 € (inkl. 19% MwSt.)	Quantity: order