Sonaten für Cello

What initially fascinated me about Geminiani as a musical personality was his tendency towards an unpredictable, asymmetrical and improvisational style - both as a composer and as a performer. While his tempo rubato apparently seemed too wild for Neapolitan musicians, his performances in England were greatly admired for their elegance and taste. My continuing fascination with tempo rubato and the art of 'reading between the lines' in terms of tempo, flexibility and rhythmic variation led me to approach Geminiani's music from this perspective. Furthermore, during the recording sessions many musical aspects - such as ornamentation, continuo realization and dynamics - were deliberately left to the spontaneous decisions of the musicians. We used the different timbres of the various instruments that make up the continuo group (harpsichord, cello, piccolo cello, violone, theorbo) to create different textures for each part. Almost as in jazz, each instrument gets its moment to come to the fore and emerge from the sound of the group.