 Elève à Vienne de Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Leopold Hofmann (1738-1793) fut l'un des compositeurs les plus célèbres de son temps. Publiés en 1775 sous le titre de "Sonates", les six divertimenti qui nous sont ici proposés sont en fait des trios composés à différents moments de la vie du compositeur et réunis en un recueil: les trois premiers pour alto, violoncelle et violone (joué sur une viole de gambe), les trois suivants substituant le violon à l'alto. Leur structure varie entre deux et cinq mouvements, mais leur diversité va bien au-delà car la fantaisie de Hofmann dans ces oeuvres de "stile galante" est de tous les instants. L'interprétation des trois musiciens de 'Musica Elegentia' est toute d'élégance et de sensibilité; mais l'on demeure frustré en raison d'une prise de son qui cantonne l'alto ou le violon à l'extrémité gauche du spectre sonore, le violoncelle à l'extrémité droite tandis que la basse particulièrement brillante de Matteo Cicchitti lie l'ensemble légèrement en retrait au centre. Cette option, qui favorise la lisibilité du dialogue des deux premiers instruments, interdit toute rencontre de leurs timbres et donne l'impression que chacun joue de son côté. A noter le soin éditorial de ce premier enregistrement mondial qui nous offre un texte de présentation particulièrement fouillé de Francesco Rocco Rossi. (Michel Lorentz-Alibert) In 1769, Leopold Hofmann succeeded Georg Christoph Wagenseil (whose pupil he had been) as harpsichord and organ teacher to the imperial family and in 1772 he became Organist and Chapel Master at St. Stephan's Cathedral. In 1783, he retired from the music profession. As one might reasonably expect from a pupil of Wagenseil, Leopold was an excellent harpsichordist and organist; nevertheless, he concentrated on other genres including, in particular, string music. His chamber music production for strings is particularly noteworthy. The 6 divertimenti were published in 1775 by Johann Julius Hummel whose publishing house had offices in Amsterdam and Berlin. Op. 1 consists of 6 trios for strings: they belong to the genre of the divertimento. As Heinrich Christoph Koch illustrated in the Musikalisches Lexikon (1802), the ‘Divertimento’ was a kind of polite dialogue between instruments, not polyphonic and not hinged on any complicated process of motivic elaboration, but rather conceived for an amiable and pleasant listening. Even the divertimento, therefore, became part of the formal testimonials of the galant style, with which it shared a taste for pleasantness, an inclination towards much more transparent and airy musical textures than the preceding baroque period and, from a sociological point of view, an openness towards the world of amateurs, i.e. those aristocratic or upper-class performers. This is the galant context in which Leopold Hofmann's compositions fitted perfectly. As far as the instrumentation is concerned, Opus 1 attests to two different types of compositions: the first three are for viola, cello and violone, and the remaining for violin, cello and violone. Variable arrangements are also recorded with regard to the number and type of movements into which each divertimento is subdivided: ranging from Trio No. 5 consisting of only two movements to No. 1, which, on the other hand, has five. On the musical texture front, there is a partially retrospective treatment that, in some respects, seems to echo that of the Baroque triosonata. The real leading role is, in fact, handed over to the two high instruments.
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