 Nicolo Corradini (1585-1646) n'est certes pas le plus célèbre des compositeurs de la première génération baroque. Difficile de prendre la lumière quand on est un quasi-contemporain de Monteverdi et qu'on est, comme lui, natif de Crémone ! Lui a choisi de rester dans sa ville natale où, en tant qu'organiste, il est passé de l'église Saint-Pierre à la grande cathédrale. Il fut de la première génération à écrire de la musique purement instrumentale, et, s'il n'égale en ce domaine ni Frescobaldi ni Dario Castello, ses œuvres, dont il nous reste peu de chose, méritent mieux que l'oubli presque total dans lequel elles sont tombées. Ses miniatures toujours agréables, et respectant le plus souvent un schéma A.B.A ou A.B.C.A.B.D, ne reculent pas devant la "bizarrerie" (les notes répétées introduisant la Canzon settima), le pittoresque ( Canzon decima "La Taverna"), le dépouillement (Sonate "La Sfrondata", l'élaguée), les syncopes (Canzon sexta), ni les structures plus complexes, rhétoriques, où deux cornets se répondent, comme dans la sonate "Golferamma". Les dénominations de ces petits morceaux sont souvent des allusions aux nobles dédicataires. L'instrumentarium étant imprécis dans les sources, Federico Del Sordo, dirigeant depuis le clavier, a choisi de s'entourer de flûtes, violons baroques, cornets, violes de gambe et archiluths, composant ainsi un album d'écoute constamment agréable. (Marc Galand) Works attributable with certainty to Nicolò Corradini (1585–1646) – likely from Cremona as opposed to Bergamo or Rome as erroneously suggested in the past – are limited to a few printed editions, among them the Primo libro de Canzoni francesi a 4 e alcune suonate (a copy of which has come down to us, printed by Gardano in Venice in 1624). It includes ten French canzonas and four sonatas, works most likely conceived to be performed by several instrumentalists, including one or more possible continuists (because of the speed of some passages and the separation between different parts of often more than an octave). The canzonas are divided into several sections with structures ranging from simple A-B-A to more complex schemes (A-B-C-A-B-D in the Eighth Canzon); these short musical frameworks offer within them a great variety of themes, imitation between parts and repetitions of sections, ensuring cohesiveness of form. The sonatas on the other hand – with the exception of the Suonata a tre (a simple A-B-C-D-A) – are presented in a more madrigalistic vein. The narrative pathway on which they are based passes through multiple melodic cues so completely different from one another as to suggest a rhetorical structure arching from an exordium to a final peroration. This leads to a proliferation of sections – A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I in the case of the Suonata a due cornetti in risposta. (The specification for two cornets “in call and response” contained in the title of this sonata corresponds to the numerous segments of this piece in which the same melody is first proposed by one performer and then repeated by the other.)
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