SKU: HL.49030334
ISBN 9790220114502. 9.0x12.0x0.175 inches.
SKU: HL.49030335
ISBN 9790220114519. 9.0x12.0x0.142 inches.
SKU: HH.HH543-FSP
ISBN 9790708185581.
These previously unnoticed chamber duets for various pairs of voices and basso continuo are among the most original compositions from the pen of Diogenio Bigaglia (1678–1745), the Venetian monk who was also a skilled and imaginative composer. They are set to texts taken from the famously chromatic madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo published over a century earlier. The purpose of this choice was not to commemorate Gesualdo but to assemble a homogeneous group of short poems suitable for Bigaglia’s evident main aim, which was to produce a cycle of vocal duets imitating the structural layout and musical processes of the contemporary trio sonata.
SKU: HH.HH497-FSP
ISBN 9790708185079.
Diogenio Bigaglia’s dramatic cantata Plutone e Proserpina for soprano, contralto, strings and continuo, composed around 1710 by this Venetian Benedictine monk highly esteemed as a composer by his contemporaries, represents his vocal chamber music at its most ambitious and attractive. Its twelve short movements comprise five solo arias, one aria for both voices singing in turn, one duet and five recitatives. The subject of the cantata, Proserpine’s gradual reconciliation to her kidnap by Pluto, who wants her as his bride, is treated in masterly fashion by the author of the text, Antonio Ottoboni, who was a leading poet in Venice at the time. There is no better work through which to make acquaintance with the fascinating, but still little known, figure of Bigaglia.
SKU: HH.HH535FSP
ISBN 9790708185482.
SKU: HH.HH540-FSP
ISBN 9790708185550.
SKU: HH.HH542-FSP
ISBN 9790708185574.
SKU: HH.HH501-FSP
ISBN 9790708185123.
Diogenio Bigaglia (1678–1745) left only one chamber cantata scored for bass voice and continuo, but this work, Sudaste, alfin sudaste, is a masterpiece. Its poetic text takes the form of an imagined monologue by the crazed arsonist Herostratus, who has gone down in history as the person who burned down the famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus merely to gratify his eagerness for posthumous celebrity.
SKU: HH.HH511-FSP
ISBN 9790708185215.
Trio sonatas by Italian composers from the period around 1730 that specify flutes for both upper parts are quite rare. Among the earliest known are these three concise four-movement sonatas of only moderate technical difficulty by the Venetian monk and proficient amateur composer Diogenio Bigaglia, who very likely wrote them to order for a German visitor to his city. They are delightful compositions, full of grace, euphony, wit and contrapuntal dexterity, and they also show great sensitivity towards the delicate sound of the baroque transverse flute (traverso).
SKU: HH.HH500-FSP
ISBN 9790708185109.
The eighteenth century saw a great increase in secular music for solo voice and continuo set to texts in Venetian, which was then a recognized literary language, not a mere dialect of Italian. Most of these compositions are short gondola songs or canzonettas, but a few are cantatas in several movements indistinguishable from their counterparts with Italian texts except in language and subject matter, which favours contemporary themes treated in a comic manner. The two Venetian cantatas for soprano and continuo by Diogenio Bigaglia (1678–1745) published here for the first time – they are probably the first of their type ever to appear in a modern edition – are excellently crafted examples of their type, revealing an unexpectedly racy side of their composer, a Benedictine monk. One is a set of instructions for a shopping trip given by a nun to her aged servant, and the other is a woman’s catty description of the rise from rags to riches of one of her neighbours through prostitution. The editions come with translations of the texts and a brief note on the pronunciation of Venetian.
SKU: HH.HH489-FSP
ISBN 9790708146988.
Recorder players have long valued Bigaglia’s sonatas, and this group of three sonatas for violin or alternative treble instrument and continuo, which dates from before 1716/17 (when they were copied in Venice by the visiting German violinist J.G. Pisendel), is an attractive addition to the catalogue. Relatively easy to perform, these sonatas are full of personality and musical vitality.
SKU: J1.2278
8.26 x 11.28 inches.
SKU: HL.49011338
ISBN 9790001098830. UPC: 073999453935. 9.0x12.0x0.078 inches.
SKU: J1.2331
SKU: J1.2344
SKU: J1.2325
SKU: J1.4153
Sonata B-flat Major, Op. 1-3Sonata G minor, Op. 1-4Sonata B-flat Major, Op. 1-6.
SKU: J1.2313
SKU: J1.2296
