Bononcini: Divertimenti da Camera, Transcription for Harpsichord

Paganelli, Giovanni

95611

The light and airy chamber-scaled divertimenti on this recording were composed in London in the early 1720s. They must have been among the first works with which Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747) sought to make an impression on the discerning audiences and business-minded entrepreneurs who, at the time, were instrumental to a music-rich environment that made the city one of the main centres of European culture. It is perhaps to the detriment of his posthumous reputation that Bononcini became known as Handel’s direct rival for the favour of London’s musical public: the rivalry between the two men was even immortalised in a piece of satirical doggerel which popularised the English expression ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’. In fact these divertimenti scored a popular success as soon as they were published; so much so that these harpsichord transcriptions were quickly produced – and then republished two decades later, when they appeared as Suites de Pièces pour le Clavecin, placing them in direct competition with the collection of works under the same name by Handel.

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Muzyka klasyczna

Brilliant Classics

13-11-2019

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