Leicester to Rome!
Robert Valentine was born – admittedly
into a family of musicians – sometime
in the early 1670s in that venerable
Midlands city not otherwise renowned
for its composers. He managed to make
it to Rome by 1701 at the latest and
soon appeared as a violinist at Santa
Cecilia and flautist and oboist at public
performances in Rome; he also taught
recorder. Clearly the going was tough
for Valentine not least because of the
presence of the contemporary local,
Giuseppe Valentini: by this time Robert
had become ‘Valentini’ or ‘Valentino’.
He even tried self-publishing at a time
when the musical spotlight in Rome shone
far more brightly on singers.
He composed sixty recorder
sonatas - with basso continuo and for
two recorders alone. Some clearly show
the influence of Corelli, whom Valentini
is thought to have worshipped, and to
study with whom may have been the reason
for his move to Rome in the first place.
Those that make up the present recording
are all from the fifth volume of a manuscript
preserved at the Biblioteca Palatina
in Parma. They share so many stylistic
similarities that it seems likely they
were all written at about the same time:
the openings and endings tend to be
written in unison, concertant,
style; affettuoso rhythmic figures
predominate; rising chromatic passages
alternate with slower ones where the
ornamentation is fully written-out.
The set of a dozen
sonatas here can be divided into two
broad types… perhaps specifically two
planned ‘cycles’. The first has brevity
as a hallmark and a fast-slow-fast structure
is employed, Valentini seemingly freeing
himself from Corelli’s influence. Typical
of this approach are the second and
fourth sonatas, in D Major and F major.
Then the pieces in the second collection
– the ninth and tenth, for example -
are more demanding technically: they
begin with a slow movement, expansive
and richly ornamented. Sonata 12 is
notable, unrivalled beyond Valentini
in Italian recorder literature of the
time including that of Vivaldi: it contains
a descriptive, figurative movement,
‘La Posta’.
Long a mainstay of
amateur recorder and continuo players,
Valentini is thought by some to be too
unchallenging, too easy. Listen to the
excellent playing on this disc and such
thoughts will dissipate instantly. It’s
neither so adventurous, nor individualistic
as the music of, say, Albinoni (a contemporary
of Valentini); certainly it lacks Vivaldi’s
flair.
Yet here is pure music,
expertly performed and of sufficient
intrigue for you to want to play certain
sonatas again and pay closer attention
than critics ("Yet another Baroque
recorder sonata CD") might have
you believe you should. If there is
a sameness, it’s the consistency of
something rather delicate, inventive
and of some lovely sounds. There is,
particularly, lots of variety in tempi
and the ways in which movements develop.
Ensemble Mediolanum never lets the momentum
drop. Every moment of expression, lively,
bathetic, surprising (listen to the
very end of Sonata IV, for instance)
is attended to smoothly and with panache.
Hoch’s cello is an
anonymous English original from around
1800 while Ambos and Weidanz play modern
reproductions. The sound of the three
in Ensemble Mediolanum really is that
of an ensemble; although at times the
harpsichord is a little closely miked,
they play with great style and produce
a mellow, tempered sound for the duration
of this pleasing CD.
Mark Sealey
for
details
Ensemble Mediolanum: Sabine Ambos (alto
recorder); Felix Koch (cello); Wiebke
Weidanz (harpsichord) 
