 Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) fut un violoncelliste virtuose, de très grande réputation à travers toute l’Europe. Grand voyageur, il rencontra les plus grands musiciens de son temps, faisant toujours forte impression grâce à prodigieux talent. Liszt l’avait surnommé le « Paganini du violoncelle » et lui avait offert un Amati. Il inspira à Mendelssohn le projet d’un concerto pour violoncelle qui, hélas, ne fut jamais terminé car les premières esquisses furent perdues lors d’un voyage. Il joua en quatuor avec Henri Vieuxtemps, Joseph Joachim et Edvard Grieg (pas moins !) et finit par s’installer à Londres, où il participa à l’élaboration de Concerts Populaires pour permettre aux moins aisés de goûter aux joies de la musique. Vers la fin de sa vie, Piatti écrivit les six sonates ici présentes. Bien qu’elles offrent au violoncelliste de nombreuses occasions de briller (tout comme ses Caprices, également parus cette année chez Brilliant Classics), elles possèdent avant tout une musicalité incroyable. Piatti était également chanteur, et un lyrisme verdien irrigue ses mouvements lents. L’esprit de l’Italie, son chant, ses danses et son goût de la virtuosité, plane sur ces oeuvres, qui possèdent toute les qualités que Piatti désirait offrir au monde : belles et incroyablement réjouissantes, elles ont immédiatement conquis un public enthousiaste. Il n’était que temps que ces sonates retrouvent leur juste place ! (Walter Appel) A capacious library of Baroque-era works bears the name of the Italian cellist Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) as an assiduous and pioneering editor, arranger and promoter of music for his instrument. Much less familiar are Piatti’s own original pieces. This is the first modern recording and the only available collection on record of all six sonatas by a man hailed by Liszt as ‘the Paganini of the cello’. Ever true to his word and generous, Liszt presented Piatti with a replacement instrument after the Italian had been forced to sell his cello, having fallen into reduced circumstances. Piatti played with him in concert, as he did with Joseph Joachim and many other luminaries of mid-19th-century Europe.Of all his own music, Piatti was apparently proudest of the sonatas. They were written over an eleven-year period begun in 1885, during the last part of Piatti’s creative life, long established as a celebrity of musical life in Victorian London. He gave the first performances of each one at the series of Popular Concerts, and to huge acclaim. While many virtuosos have written for their own instruments, the cello sonatas of Piatti stand out for their artistic confidence, their balance of extroversion and well-wrought sensitivity to form. All the Sonatas embody qualities associated with Piatti, especially in the handling of melody, which is distinctly operatic in its lyricism. The slow movements share the passion that Verdi put into the lead characters of his operas. In terms of construction they are also highly varied, while remaining true to the traditions of cantabile and display which underpin his Italian heritage. Born in 1987 in Piacenza, the cellist Lamberto Curtoni introduces this new recording of Piatti’s sonatas with an invaluable survey of the works within the context of their times and their place in the composer’s career. Curtoni himself has worked with many distinguished living Italian composers and had his own music performed widely.
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