Albinoni: 6 Sonate dai Trattenimenti Armonici per Camera, Op. 6

The Trattenimenti Armonici per Camera, Divisi in Dodici Sonate a Violino e Cembalo, Op. 6 were printed in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger and Le Cene. The twelve chamber sonatas, composed originally for violin, bass viol and harpsichord all have the same, four-movement structure based on the traditional adagio-allegro-adagio-allegro form. This CD contains six of the twelve sonatas that make up the Trattenimenti performed by recorder with harpsichord, lute and cello accompaniment. The decision to entrust the solo part to the recorder, in apparent contradiction to what the composer himself indicated in the frontispiece, is actually fully-justified by eighteenth-century performance practice. The melodic elegance, harmonic equilibrium and geometric structure created by Albinoni make these sonatas a veritable gem of inestimable worth whose beauty we have striven to offer in one of it's innumerable facets.