Ferrari: Sonatas, op. 3
The promotional notes for this album say that Ferrari was well-known as an eighteenth century violinist/composer, but this is my first listen to his works. After a debut at the Concert Spirituel in Paris 1754, he was given the privilege of publishing in France and remained there. He was one of Tartini’s pupils, like Pieter Hellendaal, whose music we recently examined.
As unfamiliar as I am with Ferrari, I too am unfamiliar with the trio on this album, led by the violinist Artem Dzeganovskyi. The six sonatas take nearly 70 minutes to perform, with each sonata comprising of three movements (but not always slaving to fast-slow-fast), all in major keys.
The continuo team here is made up of cello and harpsichord; my assessment is that the harpsichord part isn’t overly embellished. The left hand of Hrechorowicz is in lock-step with Leonardo Gatti’s cello playing, but the contributions from the right hand aren’t not overly generous.
The playing by Dzeganovskyi is clean and clear; listen to the opening of the E major sonata, no. 6, for nice articulation from the violin part. The style of the music is melodically-biased, the continuo support feels old fashioned while the melodic material seems a bit more modern, but not to the level we witnessed with Hellendaal’s Cambridge Sonatas. Yet the harmonic progressions by Ferrari seem more conventional that Hellendaal’s, with the violin part never extending into the stratosphere, or requiring double stopping. The third movement of the same last sonata on the disc shows us that Ferrari liked playing with motivic material, using short cells of material that he could repeat with shifts and use in repetition. The style makes me think he was catering to an amateur audience.
The amount of notes, however, speaks to his Italian roots and Tartini’s own style, perhaps more so than Locatelli’s.
The B-flat major sonata, no. 2, does open with double stopping, suggesting a slower tempo indication, at Affectuoso. There’s an attention to style in the music that follows, with the decorative figures and continuation of using double-stopping to bring harmony into the violin part.
The closing movement of the E major sonata, no. 3, is a Minuetto con variazioni. The players perform the movement with a strong sense of “3.” The later variations require some more skill, in terms of the articulation on the second part of the theme. Which is to say I am not sure amateurs would have had quite the clean playing skill and technique that this violinist brings to the performance—it’s well done.
My final assessment of these works is that they are not musically profound; they seem engineered for entertainment. Given the audience in Parisian circles, they may have been quite popular with their Italian flair, as evidenced in the aforementioned minuet with variations.
There’s a lightness to Ferrari’s style that is coupled in this set with relatively short and sweet musical ideas. The music for me is not ultimately rewarding, but that may signal as to why I am not already familiar with Ferrari. I will say, however, that his style for the violin part suggests the real affect of these pieces relied upon the ingenuity of the violinist to decorate these pieces. Dzeganovskyi’s approach includes good dynamic contrasts and attention to the underlying harmonic direction, however, it seems that a virtuoso of the time may have gone further to decorate the melodic material, especially in spots where it gets repeated?
This album from Capriccio will appeal to those interested in the “galant” bridge between the baroque and classical styles. This music, for me, is far more approachable than the Hellendaal sonatas, which seemed overly focused on putting all the attention on the violin part for showcasing one’s technical gifts, without balancing all of his musical ideas into a coherent format.
