I Mastricelli: The Greco Brothers - Works for violoncello, bass violin & keyboard

Klasyczna Muzyka Barokowa
premiera polska: 2025-12-10
kontynent: Europa
opakowanie: Jewelcaseowe etui
opis:
multikulti.com * * * * 1/2
Neapol dał światu pizzę, spaghetti napoli oraz włoskie lody. Lista oczywiście jest dużo dłuższa, ja zatrzymam się na chwilę na przystanku "Muzyka epoki Broku".
Neapol tamtej epoki, obok Paryża i Londynu, należał do najludniejszych miast Europy. W Neapolu było ponad 500 kościołów, dziesiątki klasztorów oraz słynące z wysokiego poziomu konserwatoria, założone w XVI w. jako sierocińce - stały się od końca XVII wieku profesjonalnymi szkołami muzycznymi, o legendarnej wręcz renomie w całej Europie.
W literaturze fachowej istnieje pojęcie "szkoły neapolitańskiej", którą tworzy trwający dwa wieki (XVI i XVII), nieprzerwany łańcuch mistrzów. Dzięki temu nastąpiła prawdziwa eksplozja talentów muzycznych, w XVIII wieku Neapol eksportował kompozytorów, kapelmistrzów, śpiewaków, muzyków na niepodtykaną gdzie indziej skalę.
Wydana przez Challenge Classics płyta "The Greco Brothers - Works for violoncello, bass violin & keyboard" zabiera słuchacza do stolicy regionu Kampania, siedemnastowiecznego Neapolu. Pod koniec XVII wieku bracia Rocco i Gaetano Greco należeli go ścisłego grona gwiazd kwitnącego życia muzycznego miasta. Ich dzieła, oparte na praktyce partimento – improwizacyjnej metodzie zbudowanej zazwyczaj wokół linii basu – obrazują proces zmiany postrzegania funkcji, jaką dotąd pełniła viola da gamba lub wiolonczela w basso continuo, z czysto akompaniującej do w pełni solowej. Poprzez pełne wigoru dialogi między mniejszymi instrumentami smyczkowymi a klawesynem, ansambl I Mastricelli ożywia zapomniany język muzyczny, w którym spotykają się wirtuozeria, kontrapunkt i improwizacja. Trzeba wiedzieć, że wkładem unikalnym praktyki partimento do języka XVII-wiecznej muzyki było to, że kompozytor i wykonawca pospołu współtworzą jedno dzieło.
Rezultatem nagrania jest rzadka możliwość wglądu w procesy twórcze, które ukształtowały neapolitańską szkołę wiolonczelową i jej trwały wpływ na europejską muzykę.
Druga część programu koncentruje się na pedagogicznym dziedzictwie Gaetano Greco, prezentując krótkie tańce, toccaty i improwizacje zaczerpnięte z zeszytów jego uczniów z początku XVIII wieku, a także muzykę Francesco Manciniego.
Album "I Mastricelli" ukazuje różnorodność neapolitańskiej kultury muzycznej – od porywającej energii ludowych tarantelli, poprzez bardziej swobodne techniki kompozytorskie (arioso czy fantazja polifoniczna), po wyrafinowaną sztukę kontrapunktu w środowisku instrumentów klawiszowych. Instrumentarium zespołu – w tym wiolonczele, viole basowe, skrzypce basowe, teorba, lutnia, gitara i klawesyn – przywołuje bogaty świat brzmień barokowego Neapolu.
Założony w 2023 roku w Królewskim Konserwatorium w Hadze ansambl I Mastricelli doskonale oddaje ducha i tożsamość - wyposażonej w komponent improwizatorskiej wolności - wspaniałej tradycji neapolitańskiej muzyki XVI i XVII wieku. A nazwa "mastricelli", oznaczająca utalentowanych młodych muzyków, którzy pomagali wybitnym maestro pierwszych neapolitańskich konserwatoriów – jak Domenico Scarlatti, Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Leo i Francesco Durante, wyraźnie wskazuje na ich fascynacje. Nic tylko słuchać, słuchać…
autor: Mariusz Wielgosz
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Editor's Info
This recording takes the listener deep into the heart of late-seventeenth-century Naples, where brothers Rocco and Gaetano Greco were central figures in the city’s thriving musical life. Their works, grounded in the practice of partimento — an improvisational method built around a given bass line — showcase the cello’s emancipation from a purely accompanying role into a fully expressive solo voice. Through vivid dialogues between lower string instruments and harpsichord, I Mastricelli revives a forgotten musical language in which virtuosity, counterpoint, and improvisation converge. The result is a rare glimpse into the creative processes that shaped the Neapolitan cello school and its lasting influence across Europe.
The second part of the programme focuses on Gaetano Greco’s pedagogical legacy, presenting short dances, toccatas, and improvisations drawn from early-eighteenth-century student notebooks, alongside music by Francesco Mancini. I Mastricelli highlights the diversity of Neapolitan musical culture — from the earthy energy of the tarantella to the refined contrapuntal art. Of the keyboard. The ensemble’s instrumentation — including cellos, bass viols, bass violins, theorbo, lute, guitar, and harpsichord — evokes the rich timbral world of Baroque Naples. Combining scholarly research with living performance, this debut album offers both an artistic rediscovery and a celebration of the improvisatory freedom at the core of the partimento tradition.

I Mastricelli is an early music ensemble founded in 2023 at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. The name recalls the “mastricelli,” the talented young musicians who assisted the prominent maestri of the first Neapolitan conservatories — figures such as Domenico Scarlatti, Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Leo, and Francesco Durante, whose legacy still resonates in today’s musical world.
True to this heritage, the ensemble places improvisation, arrangement, and composition at the center of its practice, seeking to revive the creative spirit that animated the Neapolitan schools. Bringing together the cello, the viola da gamba, and other bass instruments of both the violin and viol families, the group explores the expressive depth and resonance of the bass register — the very foundation of Baroque sound.
Their work combines scholarly research with a living engagement in tradition: from the folkloristic sounds on the streets of Naples, to the earliest repertoire written for their instruments, to the refined dialogue between Naples and Paris during the 17th and 18th centuries. This meeting of cultures — earthy and noble, popular and courtly — shapes the ensemble’s vision of a music that is both historically grounded and vibrantly alive.
I Mastricelli has performed at the Académie Gli Incogniti, the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, in Spain (Sevilla, Estella), and in the Netherlands (Amare, Paleiskerk). With this debut recording, they continue their research journey into the sound world of Naples at the turn of the 18th century, celebrating great maestri of the Neapolitan Baroque and the depth and richness of the bass instruments that form the foundation of this repertoire.

Antonio Pellegrino (cello)
Antonio Pellegrino, born in Italy, began his musical studies at the Conservatory of Cosenza before continuing at the University of Stavanger in Norway. He later earned a master’s degree in performance from the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland. Among his mentors are Enrico Dindo, Giovanni Gnocchi, Sandro Meo, Lucia Swarts, and Mieneke van der Velden. In 2022, Antonio was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States. He also holds a master’s degree from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, specializing in historical cello. He has worked closely with Alfredo Bernardini, Catherine Jones, Bruno Cocset, Lorenzo Coppola, Richard Egarr, and Clive Brown. Antonio is the winner of Early Music Vancouver’s 2025 Emerging Artist Competition (together with Agata) and the 2024 Kammermusikwettbewerb “À tre” in Trossingen, Germany. He has performed at major venues in the Netherlands, including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, TivoliVredenburg Utrecht, and Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, and has appeared with ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and PRJCT Amsterdam. In 2025, he served as principal cellist of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, performing under the direction of Shunske Sato, Dorothee Oberlinger, Enrico Onofri, and Dirk Vermeulen.

Agata Sorotokin (harpsichord)
Agata Sorotokin studied comparative literature at Yale University before earning a doctorate in piano performance and a master in composition at Stony Brook University. In 2023, she received the Holland Scholarship to pursue her early music studies at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Her mentors have included Richard Egarr, Fabio Bonizzoni, Patrick Ayrton, and Arthur Haas. Alongside Antonio, Agata is the first-prize winner of both Early Music Vancouver’s 2025 Emerging Artist Competition (harpsichord) and the 2024 Kammermusikwettbewerb „À tre“ in Trossingen (fortepiano). She has performed at festivals such as Urbino Musica Antica, Bremen Musikfest, Utrecht Oude Muziek, York Early Music, and Oslo Early. At the Royal Conservatoire, she collaborated with Ton Koopman and Michael Chance. Agata is the harpsichordist of the 2025 European Union Baroque Orchestra and of the Jeune Orchestre Baroque Européen, playing alongside artists such as Enrico Onofri, Shunske Sato, and Dorothee Oberlinger.

Asako Ueda (theorbo)
Japanese lutenist Asako Ueda is based in the Netherlands, specialising and pursuing her passion for early music performance, especially chamber music from the 15th to 17th centuries. She won first prize at the Biagio Marini Competition, second prize at the London International Festival of Music, and third prize at the International Van Wassenaer Competition. She collaborates with The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, B’rock, and Amsterdam Sinfonietta. She studied Medieval and Renaissance music at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with support from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and lute at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, graduating with honours and distinction. Initially trained as a violinist in Tokyo, she also studied Baroque violin and composition.

Caroline Kang (bass viol)
Caroline Kang is an American cellist based in the Netherlands, specialising in historical performance from the 17th to 19th centuries. She has appeared as a soloist at venues including the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and the Concertgebouw, and has performed with groups such as Anima Eterna Brugge, Holland Baroque, Concerto Copenhagen, L’Arpeggiata, and B’Rock, and recorded for Outhere, Pentatone, CPO, Bridge, and Alpha. She studied with Steven Doane, Elizabeth Simkin, and Jaap ter Linden, and currently teaches at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

Alon Portal (bass viol)
Alon Portal began his music education at the Jerusalem Music Academy, supported by the America–Israel Cultural Foundation, before continuing viola da gamba and double bass studies in The Netherlands at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Mieneke van der Velden, Margaret Urquhart and Philippe Pierlot, and at the Utrecht Conservatory with Joshua Cheatham. He performs with ensembles such as PRJCT Amsterdam, Ensemble Odyssee, Luthers Bach Ensemble, Zefiro Torna and Kölner Akademie, and is a founding member of Le Concert d’Apollon. Alon has taken part in major festivals including Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Brighton Early Music Festival, MA Festival Brugge, AMUZ, Bachfest Leipzig, Muzyka w Raju, Music Festival Potsdam Sanssouci, and has recorded for labels such as Sony, Pan Classics, Berlin Classics and Challenge Records.

Marino González García (viola da gamba)
Marino González García discovered his passion for the viola da gamba at age 8. He graduated from Seville's Cristóbal de Morales Conservatory with Leonardo Luckert, earning the Extraordinary Prize for Professional Music Education in 2022. He is completing his Bachelor's at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague with Mieneke van der Velden, after an Erasmus with Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. In 2024 he was an academist with Gli Incogniti under Amandine Beyer, and for the 2025–26 season he joins the JOBE Orchestra while holding a scholarship with the Baroque Orchestra of Seville.

muzycy:
I Mastricelli:
Antonio Pellegrino (cello)
Agata Sorotokin (harpsichord)
Asako Ueda (theorbo)
Caroline Kang (bass viol)
Alon Portal (bass viol)
Marino González García (viola da gamba)

utwory:
01. Sinfonia viggesima terza a due viole (Rocco Greco) 02:54
02. Toccata settima – harpsichord (Gaetano Greco) 04:39
03. Sinfonia settima a due viole: Allegro (Rocco Greco) 01:52
04. Passagaglio – archlute (Gaetano Greco) 02:00
05. Sinfonia viggesima quarta a due viole (Rocco Greco) 02:47
06. Partimento – harpsichord (Gaetano Greco) 00:59
07. Sinfonia decima sesta a due viole: Largo – Presto – Corrente (Rocco Greco) 03:32
08. Tarantella (Gaetano Greco) 01:35
09. Sinfonia viggesima seconda a due viole (Rocco Greco) 02:35
10. Toccata sesta (partimento) (Francesco Mancini) 04:27
11. Sinfonia terza a due viole: Grave - Allegro - Corrente (Rocco Greco) 05:04
12. Balletto Francese (Anonymous) 01:04
13. Sinfonia decima ottava a due viole (Rocco Greco) 04:42
14. Sinfonia (Gaetano Greco) 00:47
15. Sinfonia quarta a due viole: Allegro - Balletto - Corrente (Rocco Greco) 04:41
16. Partimento – archlute (Gaetano Greco) 03:11
17. Sinfonia quinta a due viole (Rocco Greco) 03:09
18. Ballo della Torcia (Gaetano Greco, Carlo Milanuzzi) 01:53

wydano: 06 February 2026
more info: www.challenge.nl