Tartini: Sonata XVII in D Major

Tartini - Sonatas for Solo Violin and Violin and Soprano

Tartini developed a genuine system of thought founded on Nature - physical phenomena perceptible by our senses and determined by mathematical rules. He did not seek to imitate the natural world through its sounds and other outward manifestations, but aimed at aesthetic concepts of much greater sophistication and coherence, through the use of folksongs (notably those of the gondoliers with their references to Tasso and Ariosto), compositional techniques following poetic metres, and musical themes directly inspired by quotations from the verse of Metastasio, Petrarch, and others. To guide us into this poetic atmosphere, Chiara Banchini has called on the voice of Patricia Bovi to evoke the gondoliers’ songs so characteristic of the Venetian memories of Goethe and Rousseau, and asked the musicologist Stefano Aresi to present in the booklet the synaesthetic ideal to which Tartini aspired. Each piece of music is illustrated by an evocative poem or painting.