DURING: WORKS FOR HARPSICHORD

DURING: WORKS FOR HARPSICHORD ( LDV 14084)

FRANCESCO DURANTE (1684- 1755)

WORKS FOR HARPSICHORD

Toccatas for harpsichord solo (Manuscript, Library of the Conservatoire S. Pietro a Maiella, Naples)

The four seasons of the year (harpsichord sonata – post 1747) (Manuscript, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon)

Sonatas for harpsichord
(post 1746)

1 CD

MARIA LUISA BALDASSARI, harpsichord

A musician and teacher, Francesco Durante was so well-known in his time that he gave his name to a school of composition (the "Durantists"). His output consisted primarily of vocal music, especially sacred, and keyboard compositions occupied a limited space, where virtuosity reigned supreme: through a confident and well-developed technique, rapid scales followed by arpeggios and hand crossings, in a style already widely established in Naples at the time, yet interspersed with highly distinctive and distinctive traits.

Musician and teacher, Francesco Durante was so known at his time, that his name was given to a compositional school (that of the “durantisti”). He composed mostly vocal music, especially sacred; his keyboard works make up a limited part of his production where virtuosity is extremely common; elements like the very rapid scales, the arpeggios or the crossing of the hands are also widely found in other contemporaries from Naples, but his writing preserves characteristic features which are absolutely personal.