Go to England or Israel with a shovel and start digging, and pretty soon you’re likely to unearth a bit of history or prehistory. Chances are it will be a mere bauble or broken potsherd, but if you’re lucky you’ll strike it rich, discovering an entire Roman mosaic or an Old Testament scroll.
I’ve been that lucky, because the same, in a sense, is true for Baroque music repertoire. Even with the hundreds of composers we know of and their thousands of compositions, we’ve hardly scratched the surface. Less than a hundred years ago, for example, the gold mine named Antonio Vivaldi was virtually unknown. And the more we dig, the more we uncover. It’s as if the reservoirs of music are as unlimited as the earth’s vast stores of oil, and are much more environmentally friendly.
Several years ago, I was researching repertoire for the annual Vivaldi by Candlelight chamber orchestra concert that I conduct, seeking “new” music by tapping into that bottomless reserve of Baroque repertoire. I stumbled across a composer I’d never heard of, Pietro Castrucci. A YouTube performance of six concerti grossi he had composed immediately grabbed my attention: They were dramatic, expressive, dynamic, and most impressively, his was a unique voice, distinct from his more illustrious contemporaries, Handel, Corelli, Vivaldi, and Bach.
I immediately added his music on the program. But, in addition, as a violinist I’m always trying to expand my own repertoire to perform in recital. I was delighted to discover that Castrucci also composed 12 violin sonatas as his opus 1. To my chagrin, I was not only unable to find a recording of more than one or two of them (though a few had been transcribed for flute), the only print edition of his sonatas was the original one from 1718!
The more I learned about Castrucci, the more I felt a kinship. His music will never see the kind of revival that Vivaldi’s had, not that it is in any way inferior, but because he composed so little of it. And the reason? He had a day job. In 1715, he and his brother Prospero were recruited to go to London from their homes in Italy in order to become the concertmaster and principal second violinist, respectively, of an opera company orchestra that had been created expressly for Handel. Pietro remained in that position for twenty years, and in that period he only had time to compose two sets of violin sonatas and the one set of twelve concerti grossi referenced above. As a full-time orchestra player myself for 36 years–and for most of that time an associate concertmaster–I felt like I knew this guy: practicing new repertoire every week, going to endless rehearsals, late night performances, and fitting in recitals and compositions when time (and energy) permitted.
If I ever needed a mission in life, I now had one. This man’s music needed to be heard. To make a long story very, very short, I’ve made the first recording in history of the entire opus 1 by Pietro Castrucci, in collaboration with harpsichordist Pamela Palmer-Jones and cellist Noriko Kishi. These sonatas are fantastic, traversing as wide an expressive spectrum as one could hope for, from darkly turbulent to light-as-a-feather charming. The 18th-century music historian, Charles Burney wrote, “[Castrucci] was long thought insane…his compositions were too mad for his own age.” They might not seem as insane to us today, but they remain as fresh distinctive as on the day they were composed. The recording will be released by Centaur Records on April 1.
To “launch” the recording, my colleagues and I are presenting a free lecture and performance at the University of Utah School of Music on Friday, April 22. If you can make it, you’ll experience buried treasure that’s been hidden for 300 years.
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