Even harpsichordists and connoisseurs of seventeenth-century music are likely to find many of the items on this extremely interesting and unusual disc unfamiliar: Rinaldo Alessandrini has made a special study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian music, and here presents (with the co-operation of the West German Radio) two dozen pieces that illustrate changes of style there between 1576 (the year of Antonio Valente's pioneering harpsichord collection) and around 1700, and, to some extent, differences between the more austere northern school and the more extrovert southern one.
It may perhaps not be generally realized that the keyboard virtuosity demanded by our own brilliant John Bull is matched by his Italian contemporaries: Alessandrini's rhythmically vital, stylish and engaged performances leave us in no doubt of that. He gives us a well-chosen range of forms. There are variations on the passamezzo ground, in the minor mode and in the major variant (''moderno'')—both examples here of considerable elaboration: and there are other variations (partite) on the harmonic bass variously known as ''Ruggiero'' or ''Fedele''. Dance forms are represented by two examples of the gagliarda (both chordal in treatment), two of the corrente (that by Salvatore full of chromaticisms), and 'exotic' dances from Poland and Hungary. Of particular interest in several items is their composers' fascination with chromaticism (which produces some curious intonation in the unidentified tuning system of the 1678 Italian harpsichord used here): a stravaganza by de Macque (a Fleming who spent his life in Naples, where he taught Mayone and Trabaci) contains several bold surprises, a Merula capriccio, a contrapuntal Salvatore canzona, a Buono 'sonata' and a Rossi toccata with a truly astonishing ending likewise feature chromaticism. The seven toccatas in this programme mostly rhapsodic and improvisatory-sounding—include a splendid example by Frescobaldi and a sombrely declamatory one by Merula; but the eventual falling-off of this keyboard style is signalled by the toccata by Stradella, which relies overmuch on formulas. A highly recommended disc.'