NEAPOLITAN CELLO CONCERTOS
Leo, Fiorenza, De Majo, Sollima

Leonardo Leo (1694-1744)
Concerto di violoncello con violini (D minor) – Naples, 1738
01 Andante grazioso
02 Presto con spirito
03 Amoroso
04 Allegro

Nicola Fiorenza (c.1700-1764)
Concerto per violoncello ed archi (Bb major) – Naples, 1728
05 Largo
06 Allegro
07 Largo
08 Allegro

Giovanni Sollima (1962)
“Fecit Neap. 17..” per violoncello, archi e continuo – Naples, 2011
dedicated to Antonio Florio

Nicola Fiorenza
Sinfonia a 4 violini e basso continuo (C minor) – Naples, c.1730-40
10 Largo
11 Fuga
12 Largo
13 Allegro

Giuseppe de Majo (1697-1777)
Concerto per violoncello ed archi (F major) – Naples, 1726
14 Comodo
15 Grave
16 Allegro

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About this CD

Giovanni Sollima has been successfully pursuing a twin career as cellist and as a composer and it is in both capacities that the Palermo-born musician appears now on a new recording from Glossa. Sollima teams up with I Turchini of Antonio Florio in a captivating demonstration of virtuoso concerto treasures from Leonardo Leo, Giuseppe de Majo and Nicola Fiorenza. The quality of their committed music-making is underscored by Dinko Fabris who, in an accompanying essay, provides yet another lucid exposition of a musical climate unknown to many.

Giovanni Sollima’s empathy with the spirit of the 18th century concerto allows him not only to provide – and to play masterfully – elegantly appropriate cadenzas for the works of his forebears but to compose a modern work comfortable and at ease with its Neapolitan past (and entitled “Fecit Neap. 17..”, mirroring the frequentlyfound ascription found on manuscripts in the 18th century).

With a solo cellist in Giovanni Sollima, who is equally at home in the musical worlds of Patti Smith, Claudio Abbado and Philip Glass, and a director in Antonio Florio, who is equipped with his own masterful overview of Neapolitan music from the Baroque onwards, this new disc was recorded in a venue, the old Santa Anna dei Lombardi monastery complex in the heart of Naples, which serves to point up how powerful a forging ground for cello music Naples was from the end of the 17th century and into the 18th, as well as in our own time.