TGIF!

My, my, hasn't this been a whirlwind week of activity that brings us to the brink of the Weekend once again?  TGIF!  I for one am ready to get Friday over and done, so perhaps I will be able to relax, rest and regroup.  After my shift is over tonight, I have nearly 3 days off  to do so.  But first we have some Music with which to ease your way into the Weekend.  I was listening to Vencie Classic Radio and a Violin Concerto by Carlo Tessarini this morning which I liked, so I went looking to see what I could find on You Tube by him.   I think you will be pleased with my discovery.

Your featured works this morning are the Opus 12 Flute Sonatas by Signori Tessarini, one of the ‘forgotten generation’ of Italian Baroque masters who made their name and sometimes their fortune outside their native land. Tessarini was popular in England and the Netherlands, where both the public and publishers rated him on a par with Vivaldi and Albinoni. Born around 1690 into a wealthy shipping family, he soon left Rimini to study in Venice, leaving the city in the early 1730s for Urbino. The Opus 12 set in this recording were dedicated to the powerful Cardinal Annibale Albani of Urbino, the eldest son of Pope Clement XI.  

After a long period as leader of the opera orchestra at the Teatro Valle in Rome, he managed (with his generous family helping out – they owned a publishing company!) to enter into a type of co-publishing deal with a leading French publisher who distributed and sold his music. And so his reputation spread across Europe. There followed long spells of living and working in London, Nijmegen, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Groningen, and finally Arnhem, where he appears to have died in around 1767 at the age of 76.  At the time of his death he was still an active composer, working and performing to his adoring public. 

Tessarini produced 19 collections of sonatas, concerti, symphonies and capriccios. There is also a sizable body of work of uncertain provenance attributed to him. Stylistically, he is somewhere between Vivaldi and the gallant style of Locatelli.  He is a remarkable figure as he was one of the first composers to realize the importance of publishing and distribution of music and teaching material – Telemann was the other contemporaneous example – without which music became lost without trace after the composer’s death. Today's performance is by the Il Bell'Accordo Ensemble performing on period instruments.   You may hear Compagnia de Musici's performance of Tessarini's Contrastro Armonico over on my tumblr.

Before you run off over to my tumblr, where you will also find the Hottie of the Day!, be sure to cruise through the Fantasy Fuel in the post down below this one.  Thanks for the visit, be sure to stop in for tomorrow's Evening Concert for another Fabulous Live Performance to brighten the Weekend.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!