New Arts International

- Second recording by cellist Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde on Challenge, after the greatly acclaimed CC 72961, From Mannheim to Berlin
- Dostaler-Lalonde is confronted with some idiosyncratic masterpieces of the Baroque time: Geminiani's Sonatas op. 5
- In order to diversify colous and textures, she employs a rich basso continuo and resorts to a great flexibility in tempos and rhythm.
- For the cello at the basso continuo she can count on Victor Garcia Garcia, recent winner of Bach Competition Leipzig.
- CC 72961> Gramophone Editor's Choice: the delicacy of her playing is astonishing, but she's just as convincing when boldness and agility are required...

What first intrigued me about Geminiani as a musical figure was his propensity for unpredictable, asymmetrical and improvisatory style—both as a composer and as a performer. If his tempo rubato was apparently too wild for the Neapolitan musicians, his performances were greatly admired for their elegance and taste in England. My everlasting fascination with tempo rubato and the art of “reading between the lines” in terms of tempo, flexibility and rhythmic variations have led me to approach Geminiani’s music with this angle in mind. Moreover, during the recording sessions, many musical aspects—such as ornamentation, continuo realization, and dynamics—were intentionally left to the musicians’ extemporaneous decisions. We used the diversity of colors found in the various instruments forming the continuo group (harpsichord, cello, cello piccolo, violone, theorbo) to create different textures for each movement. Almost like in jazz, each instrument is given its moment to come to the foreground and emerge from the sound of the group.

Sonatas for violoncello