Raffaele La Ragione (Mandoline), il pomo d'oro, Francesco Corti
Two years after the great acclaim aroused by Beethoven and his Contemporaries, his first recording for Arcana (‘Young Raffaele La Ragione is to the mandolin today what Gustav Leonhardt once was to the harpsichord’ - Le Monde), Raffaele La Ragione returns with an album containing the four best known mandolin concertos, which appear in a new light here thanks to the use of three different period mandolins. For this ambitious project he is joined by the brilliant orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro, universally renowned for its lively, dynamic interpretations of instrumental and vocal music from the Baroque and Classical periods (with Joyce DiDonato, Franco Fagioli, Jakub Józef Orliński) and directed here by its principal guest conductor Francesco Corti, a harpsichordist of international repute. From Vivaldi’s famous mandolin concertos, by way of the typically Neapolitan examples by Paisiello and Lecce, to the two more Classical concertos of Hummel (these last in their world premiere recording on historical instruments), four concertos and three precious instruments restore this repertory to its rightful place and relate almost a century of mandolin history.
There’s a convivial and intimate atmosphere in the one-to-a-part account of Vivaldi’s C major concerto: a breezy energy drives its outer movements while the filigree Largo is delicate as Venetian lace. La Ragione despatches the virtuosic writing of Paisiello’s E flat Concerto with real pizzazz, but the highlight of this work is the graceful Larghetto whose cantabile melodies he articulates with a quasi-vocal expressivity.
Corti is seemingly incapable of music-making that doesn't dance and shimmer, but his isn't the only Midas Touch in evidence on this irresistible programme of mandolin concertos by Vivaldi, Paisiello, Lecce and Hummel - La Ragione taps into a wealth of colours in each work too, showcasing the distinctive timbres of three different period mandolins (a relatively dry instrument for the Vivaldi, something significantly sparklier for Paisiello) i
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