Pandolfi Mealli: Sonatas Opp. 3 & 4 • Conrad
Hélène Galatea Conrad, violin; Amandine Lesne, gamba; Dana Howe, theorbo; Adrien Pièce, keyboards Gallo CD-1722
This new recording ambitiously gathers both of Pandolfi Mealli’s surviving collections, Opp. 3 and 4, into a single program—an admirable undertaking that stretches the compact disc beyond its official limit to eighty-one minutes. Unlike Gunar Letzbor’s separate releases, this one offers the full set in a single sitting, aided by generally flowing tempos.
The performers are new to me: Hélène Galatea Conrad on violin, Amandine Lesne on gamba, Dana Howe on theorbo and guitar, and Adrien Pièce at the keyboard. The recorded sound, while clear and transparent with the violin naturally forward, isn’t especially generous in warmth or spatial depth.
Little is known about Pandolfi Mealli, and his earlier opp. 1–2 collections remain elusive. We’re fortunate to have these later sets at all, since the music itself is of striking imagination. Written in the so-called fantastic style, each sonata unfolds as a chain of contrasting affects, shifting meter and tempo to dramatize the composer’s ideas. It’s a style that points toward the later multi-movement sonata. My long-time reference remains the second Manze–Egarr recording, though Daniel Sepec’s reading and the more eccentric approach of Letzbor’s Ars Antiqua Austria each reveal facets worth hearing.
These works depend on a performer’s grasp of early-Baroque ornamentation and rhetoric. In the third sonata, La Melana, Conrad’s use of the trillo—the rapid shake described by Caccini—feels slightly uncertain in execution, and later there’s a hint of wobble that may reflect an intermittent vibrato. Longer sustained tones are shaped with care, though the recording’s narrow dynamic range keeps them from blooming fully. How much of that is due to the engineering or interpretive restraint is hard to say, but it leaves the performance feeling a touch under-projected.
“La Castella,” from the Op. 3 set, remains a favorite of mine. Conrad’s approach here reminded me of Eva Saladin’s on Challenge Classics: elegant, poised, but somewhat contained in dynamic expression. By contrast, Alessandro Tampieri’s version with Duo Incoerente finds a livelier rhetorical profile, full of tonal color and ornament. Around 6:45, in the present recording, a small lapse in ensemble tightness momentarily distracts, and the final cadence passes without quite the radiance this music can sustain.
More distinctive results emerge in La Biancuccia from Op. 4, where the interplay between violin and harpsichord shows real alertness. Yet even here, certain harmonic turns—those delicious rising dissonances—could have been given greater rhetorical emphasis. Repicco’s performance on Ambronay, led by Kinga Ujszászi, captures that element more vividly, with sharper contrasts and a keener sense of dialogue.
Among this ensemble, Pièce’s harpsichord playing stands out for its rhythmic clarity and assured support, the meantone temperament adding welcome color. Technically, all four musicians play with refinement and poise.
What feels missing, finally, is a fully inhabited stylistic personality. Conrad clearly understands the idiom—as the opening of La Vinciolina proves—but the music never quite achieves the spoken intensity that makes the stile fantastico so compelling. It’s as if we overhear a private conversation rather than a public declamation.
Some of that restraint may be the recording’s doing; some may reflect an ensemble still finding its collective voice. Either way, this debut offers finely crafted playing and thoughtful musicianship. With time and a bit more rhetorical daring, Conrad and her colleagues could turn this admirable first step into something more vividly persuasive. Pandolfi’s music deserves—and rewards—that level of abandon.
