Aarón Zapico

Recorded at Fundació Auditori Palau de Congressos, Girona, Spain, May 23-26, 2009

Handel came to Italy as a promising, ambitious young composer bursting with talent, and left it as a mature composer, permanently impregnated with the light and the vocal art of Italy. Some of the great works were written during these significant years in his development (La Resurrezione, Dixit Dominus, Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, Aci, Polifemo e Galatea, Rodrigo…) His cantatas, however, are the great unknowns in his output, within which it is precisely these works that emerge as an important test bed for his music.

Winter & Winter has entrusted this task to a young ensemble, Forma Antiqva, which marks the Munich label's first collaboration with Spanish musicians. The work of the three Zapico brothers with Forma Antiqva inevitably recalls the Kuijkens from Belgium, and in the youngest generation, the Ashby sisters who form part of the excellent group Stile Antico. This first Spanish 'commitment' by Winter & Winter is completed by the participation of the young singer Xavier Sabata: he possesses everything that is needed for these cantatas: clear diction, imagination, passion, engagement and the power of conviction.Thanks to him, the epoch of Spanish 'sopranisti', who enjoyed well-deserved fame throughout Euope, and inspired many to undertake their own personal 'Viaggio in Italia', has made its way back into our consciousness.

15 years ago, in 1997, Winter&Winter issued their first production with Bach's solo cello suites. Producer Stefan Winter and Paolo Beschi developed this sound project in Beschi's house at Lake Como in order that the performance for a concert audience took place with different rules than for the creation of a recording. This record is intended for the attentive and curious listener. As a result Winter&Winter have produced 200 new productions since. It might be expected that jazz would be the mainstay of Winter&Winter and therefore it might seem surprising that baroque music is a focal point in the label's works, however, Stefan Winter's roots lie in the area of early music. In his youth he visited the music boarding school St. Gotthard in Niederaltaich. Dr. Konrad Ruhland teaches there. In the '60s and '70s Ruhland, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and other great artists developed the historical performance practice of renaissance and baroque music. Winter experienced the music of the Leonhardt Consort and the Concentus Musicus Wien with Il Giardino Armonico, founded in 1985, belonging to the next generation after Harnoncourt and Beschi being a founding member.

2012, 15 years on, Winter&Winter publishes the 201st album 'Baroque Music in the 21st Century'. Uri Caine's version of Variation 18 from the 'Goldberg Variations' featuring Ghielmi's gamba quartet and Caine's improvisation on the Silbermann piano leads the journey through the world of baroque music from the 20th century to the threshold of the 21st century. Also this music is recorded at the Villa Medici-Giulini.

Producer Stefan Winter looks for these unconventional thinkers, who confidently transform the ancient scores into their own music and who sometimes also cross the boundaries to jazz. Uri Caine improvises with Vittorio Ghielmi, Ernst Reijseger plays Bach, Teodoro Anzellotti discovers the baroque accordion, Freitagsakademie abducts the Brandenburg Concertos from the concert hall and Aarón Zapico transforms sorrow, sadness, passion, love and happiness into sound; with youthful verve: the baroque era in the here and now.

The young Spanish harpsichordist Aarón Zapico has chosen compositions from Frescobaldi’s two famous books of toccatas for his first solo album for W & W. The selection of pieces ranges from vivacious dance tunes to delicately intimate and calm settings. One of Frescobaldi’s most famous pupils, the German Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), is the other featured composer on the CD, showing the inseparable connectionbetween ‚ 'maestro’ and 'disciple’, yet two creative geniuses on their own. Froberger further developped and accomplished the genre of the keyboard suite, having its beginnings in Frescobaldi’s arrangements. Many of Froberger’s works, often inspired by incidents in his adventurous life, can be considered as early forms of programme music.

The touching Tombeau on the death of his friend Blancheroche closes an album dedicated to two masters whose influence on the following composer generations cannot be estimated highly enough. Aarón Zapico savours as interpreter the sound and technical possibilities on his instrument. Improvisation and variation let the scores become individually alive through the hands of the musician and this rich artistic ‘Phantasia’.

The three brothers Aarón Zapico, Daniel Zapico and Pablo Zapico play Baroque dances as their private music at home. Modelled after the Concerto delle Donne of famous Italian composer Francesca Caccini, the three Zapicos name this programme Concerto Zapico (keyboard and plucked instruments). Their main interest is it to revive 17th and 18th century (not only Spanish) dance repertoire. Their programme combines rarities with well known pieces and presents a range of spirited Fandangos, Pavans, Caponas (the Spanish Chacony) and Españoletas by Domenico Scarlatti, Diego Ortiz, José de Nebra, Santiago de Murcia, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger.

Recorded at Sala de Cambra, Fundació Auditori Palau de Congressos, Girona, Spain, June 2010