Intégrale de L'Œeuvre

Description

Often parallel to that of Tartini, his lifelong friend, the career of Vandini, a Franciscan monk and especially famous cellist, unfolded in Venice — where he collaborated with Vivaldi — in Bergamo, Padua, Assisi, Bologna — his hometown — and even in Prague. Brief yet significant, his "work" fits onto a single CD. Almost unknown until recently, it has, since the fall of 2020, led to no fewer than three distinct recordings!!! While the baroque cello was, around 1740, fairly "standardized" in terms of its shape and size, Vandini continued to use the bow "from underneath," like viol players, which influenced the sound (a practice adopted by the soloists in all three versions). He also sometimes had to use the five-string piccolo (Mostacci version). What strikes in Vandini's style is that the slow movements seem to stem from a form of expressiveness that is extremely different from that of the fast movements. The depth, sometimes meditative quality, and distilled lyricism of the former (whose popular roots remain perceptible) contrast sharply with the virtuosity that, in the latter, seems to convey the effort of its own release and arises from the stubborn exacerbation of formulas that are nothing other than that very virtuosity. E. Frey is exemplary in his clarity; his chiseled, precise playing, with great accuracy of inflections, is as convincing in its delicacy as it is in its fervor. However, it is regrettable that in the "very wide sound space" of this CD, the harpsichord is often so distant, muted, and too much in the background, although the use of this instrument is preferable to that of the organ (which is too present and insufficiently fluid in the Galligioni version). (Bertrand Abraham)