Best of the Web This Week

Welcome to the weekend and this week's review of the Best of the Web This Week.  While the total number of photographs I gathered this week was down somewhat, the quality of the photographs was certainly not lacking in any way.  It just made the sifting and sorting somewhata little less time consuming.  However I think you will be pleased with my selections as you wend your way down the page.  To accompany your scroll through the gathered masculine pulchritude, your Weekend Musical Moment features a composer hitherto not featured here at Nichevo.  As a composer Ignazio Albertini is known by a single collection of music, the twelve Sonatinae (sonatas for violin and basso continuo) posthumously published in Vienna and in Frankfurt in 1692 which are featured here today. The collection was prepared for publication by Albertini himself, but he did not live to see it printed, possibly because of the high cost of the copperplate engraving process (or perhaps because he was murdered before he could do so).  Albertini's sonatas are multi-sectional pieces, very varied in content and structure, and all of the highest quality.  "In Helene Schmitt's performances, the wildly virtuosic and extravagantly emotional music of Albertini sounds like it could only have been composed by a man stabbed to death in obscure circumstances. There's poise and grace in Schmitt's performances, as well as elevated lyricism. But most of all there's passion: a passionate intensity of line, a passionate concentration of tone, a passionate brilliance of color, a passionate love of this fiercely expressive and violently beautiful music.  Schmitt's trio of continuo players (Jorg-Andreas Botticher, Karl-Ernst Schroeder and David Sinclair) are sympathetic players and each gets his/her own sweet solo Prelude or Toccatina interspersed with Albertini's Sonatas." I think you will find the listening very much to your liking.  Thank you for sharing part of your weekend with me, see you again on Monday for another week of Music, Men and More!  Until next time as always, Enjoy!