The Neapolitan school of instrumental music and its links with the rest of Europe in the eighteenth century – this is at the heart of Quartetto Vanvitelli’s activities. After concentrating on the work of the composer Michele Mascitti of Abruzzo, an outstanding figure representing Italian music in France, the quartet now turns to a composer-violinist from Sardinia, Giuseppe (Joseph) Agus (1722-1798), who achieved success in London and Paris in the second half of the 18th century.

After the success ofDuel (Opera Choice in BBC Music Magazine, Disc of the Month in Opera magazine, etc.), Giuseppina Bridelli presents a new solo project alongside the Quartetto Vanvitelli (recently awarded ‘5 Diapasons’ in the magazine Diapason for its second recording, devoted to the violin sonatas of Michele Mascitti), in which she tackles the fascinating world of the Italian chamber cantata for voice, continuo and solo violin.

The Neapolitan school of instrumental music and its links with the rest of Europe in the eighteenth century – this is at the heart of Quartetto Vanvitelli’s activities. After concentrating on the work of the composer Michele Mascitti of Abruzzo, an outstanding figure representing Italian music in France, the quartet now turns to a composer-violinist from Sardinia, Giuseppe (Joseph) Agus (1722-1798), who achieved success in London and Paris in the second half of the 18th century. Like Mascitti, he studied in Naples, then lived in London from the late 1740s, coming into direct contact with the most important protagonists of 18th-century English music: George Frederic Handel, Thomas Arne, Johann Christian Bach.

In 1738 the acclaimed violinist and composer Michele Mascitti (1664-1760) published in Paris his ninth collection of sonatas. The seventy-four-year-old Neapolitan musician was at the end of his long and celebrated career, but not of his creative powers. Dedicated to the Crozat family, which was to be Mascitti’s patron until the end of his life, the twelve sonatas for violin and bass op.9 are fine examples of the graceful blend of Italian and French styles that made this composer so popular in France. With the world premiere of eight sonatas from Mascitti’s op. 9, the Quartetto Vanvitelli carries on the rediscovery of this music that Hubert Le Blanc likened ‘to the warbling of the nightingale’.

At the beginning of the 18th century Italian instrumental music reached France and began to make its decisive impact. Michele Mascitti was a protagonist of this remarkable change. The young violinist moved from Naples to Paris where he spent most of his long life and managed to publish nine collections of instrumental music between 1704 and 1738. The extraordinary success and popularity of Mascitti’s works allowed him to live for many years as a free-lance musician and to be applauded and admired in the artistic circles of the French capital. His music brings us back to the fashionable and refined atmospheres of the Parisian aristocratic salons and to the galanterie so beautifully illustrated in the paintings of the time.