Sonates Pour Violon - Sonatae Unarum Fidium

Description

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer is considered the founder of the Austrian violin school. He brought violin music in Austria and Europe to its first peak and influenced many of his younger fellow violinists. He began his professional career as a violinist and cornett player in the imperial court chapel in Vienna. There, his talents as a composer were noticed, and he was appointed vice-kapellmeister and finally court kapellmeister with a noble title by the emperor. His collection Sonatae unarum fidium (Sonatas for One Violin), printed in Nuremberg in 1664, established his reputation as an exceptional violinist throughout Europe. In these six sonatas for violin and basso continuo, he breaks all the boundaries of what was technically possible on the violin up to that point. Schmelzer enriches bowing technique by inventing new types of strokes, and he takes the left hand to the highest positions of the fingerboard of the time. Through bold harmonic turns in the development of the cycle, he achieves profound musical expression and haunting atmospheric imagery, which Gunar Letzbor stages with emotion and technical maturity.