Corellimania
Works by JS Bach, Corelli, Handel, Telemann
Michala Petri (recorder), Hille Perl (viola da gamba), Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)
OUR Recordings 6.220682 75:46 mins
The title Corellimania needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The programme is a mixture of arrangements or transcriptions and, in the case of the two Handel items, pieces written for the instruments by which they are played on the album. Furthermost from Corelli’s violinist style are the four duets contained in the third part of JS Bach’s Clavier-Übung, here assigned to recorder and viola da gamba. The inclusion of his Fugue on a theme by Corelli, BWV 579, is contextually apposite. Corelli himself is represented by a Sonata da chiesa from his Op. 3 trio sonatas, and the popular Sonata based on the famous 17th-century Follia melody. Corelli wrote its 24 variations for violin but Michala Petri plays a version for recorder published in London early in the 18th century. The fourth composer featured is Telemann. His six Sonatas Corellisantes were published in 1735. Petri, Hille Perl and Mahan Esfahani have chosen the second in the set. In his accompanying essay Esfahani finds little in the music other than the order of movements that is particularly Corellian. I beg to differ for, while the Italian style is never strictly imitated it nevertheless provides a clear point of departure, sometimes featuring hallmarks of the older composer such as suspensions in the upper parts. The Trio, in A major, introduces galant gestures to
the programme.
Along with the Telemann, the Handel Sonata in D minor for treble recorder affords especial pleasure. Long known in Thurston Dart’s edition as one of the Fitzwilliam sonatas, owing to its autograph in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, it is a sparkling work of Handel’s youth. Petri’s fluent and modestly ornamented playing addresses itself to the varied humours of its seven-movements, while Perl and Esfahani provide discreet accompaniment. Nicholas Anderson