Il DIARIO DI CHIARA
Music from La Pietà in Venice in the 18th century

Giovanni Porta (c.1675-1755)
Sinfonia for strings in D major (rev. Fabio Biondi)
01 Allegro
02 Largo
03 Allegro

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Sinfonia for strings in G major, rv 149, “Il Coro delle muse”
04 Allegro
05 Andante
06 Allegro

Nicola Porpora (1686-1768; active at the Pietà in 1742)
Sinfonia a tre in G major (Ms. Dresden)
07 Adagio
08 Allegro

Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto for Violin in B flat major, rv 372, “Per la S.ra Chiara”
09 Allegro
10 Andante
11 Allegro

Antonio Martinelli (c.1702-1782)
Concerto for Viola d’amore and strings in D major, “Per la S.ra Chiaretta”
(from “Il Diario di Chiara”)
12 Allegro assai
13 Adagio
14 Allegro (original cadenza composed by Chiara)

Antonio Martinelli
Concerto for Violin in E major, “dedicato all S.ra Chiara”
(from “Il Diario di Chiara”; rev. and cadenzas by Fabio Biondi)
15 Maestoso
16 Grave
17 Allegro spiritoso

Gaetano Latilla (1711-1788)
Sinfonia in G major (rev. Fabio Biondi)
18 Allegro
19 Mezza voce andantino
20 Presto

Fulgenso Perotti (fl. 18th century)
Grave for Violin and Organ in G minor
(from “Il Diario di Chiara”; original cadenza composed by Chiara)
21 Adagio

Andrea Bernasconi (1706-1784)
Sinfonia for strings in D major (rev. and reconstruction of viola part by Fabio Biondi)
22 Allegro
23 Andantino
24 Presto assai

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About this CD

Abandoned at the age of two months and taken in by the Ospedale della Pietà, Chiara (or Chiaretta) rose – within that enclosed charitable institution in Venice – to become one of the leading European violinists of the middle of the 18th century.

No stranger to such acclaim himself from two and a half centuries later, Fabio Biondi, on his first release for Glossa, has devised a programme drawing on the personal diary of this remarkable musician – taught by Antonio Vivaldi, and later a virtuoso soloist on the violin as well as the viola d’amore – of concertos and sinfonias by composers who, like the prete rosso, taught at the Pietà: Porta, Porpora, Martinelli, Latilla, Perotti and Bernasconi are all musicians whose compositions charm and delight as much today as they will have done in the time of Chiara.

Along with this inspired vision-in-sound of the 18th century musical world of the Ospedale comes a half-hour long DVD dramatization; CD and DVD admirably reflect both the virtuosic skills demanded of the instrumental soloists of the day and the revolution in musical tastes (inside the Pietà as well as outside it), as the Baroque passed to Classicism via the galant style.