For their second album of 2025, and their 11th album with Signum Records, baroque giants La Serenissima return with an album of works by composers including Telemann, Sieber, Durante, and Brescianello.

The album explores how their styles changed and developed as they ‘crossed borders’ between Italy, Germany, France and other European countries.

La Serenissima are ‘one of Britain’s best-loved chamber orchestras’ (The Telegraph), known for their outstanding performances, championing a host of neglected Italian baroque composers.

Uniquely, the group’s entire repertoire is edited from source material by founder and violinist, Adrian Chandler OSI.

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Telemann: Flute Concerto in D major, TWV 51:D2: 1. Moderato
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Telemann: Flute Concerto in D major, TWV 51:D2: 2. Allegro
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Telemann: Flute Concerto in D major, TWV 51:D2: 3. Largo
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Telemann: Flute Concerto in D major, TWV 51:D2: 4. Vivace
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Sieber: Sonata VIII for recorder & continuo in G minor: 1. Preludio. Largo
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Sieber: Sonata VIII for recorder & continuo in G minor: 2. Corrente. Allegro
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Sieber: Sonata VIII for recorder & continuo in G minor: 3. Sarabande. Largo
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Sieber: Sonata VIII for recorder & continuo in G minor: 4. Allemanda. Allegro
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Durante: Sonata movement for violin & continuo in C minor: Giga
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Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto in F major, RV 442: 1. Allegro ma non molto
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Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto in F major, RV 442: 2. Largo e cantabile
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Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto in F major, RV 442: 3. Allegro
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Telemann: Trio for flute, viola d’amore & continuo in D major, TWV 42:D15: 1. Adagio
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Telemann: Trio for flute, viola d’amore & continuo in D major, TWV 42:D15: 2. Presto
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Telemann: Trio for flute, viola d’amore & continuo in D major, TWV 42:D15: 3. Con gravità ma non grave
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Telemann: Trio for flute, viola d’amore & continuo in D major, TWV 42:D15: 4. Allegro
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Brescianello: Concerto I for 2 violins & continuo in E flat major: 1. Grave – Presto – Adagio – Presto – Adagio
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Brescianello: Concerto I for 2 violins & continuo in E flat major: 2. Allegro
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Brescianello: Concerto I for 2 violins & continuo in E flat major: 3. Adagio
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Brescianello: Concerto I for 2 violins & continuo in E flat major: 4. [Allegro]
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Telemann: Concerto for flute, recorder, strings & continuo in E minor, TWV 52:e1: 1. Largo
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Telemann: Concerto for flute, recorder, strings & continuo in E minor, TWV 52:e1: 2. Allegro
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Telemann: Concerto for flute, recorder, strings & continuo in E minor, TWV 52:e1: 3. Largo
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Telemann: Concerto for flute, recorder, strings & continuo in E minor, TWV 52:e1: 4. Presto
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Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto in F major, RV 442: 2. Largo e cantabile (compl. Adrian Chandler)

Europadisc Review

Violinist Adrian Chandler and his period-instrument group La Serenissima continue their fascinating journey through Italian(ate) Baroque music with their latest release on the Signum label. Hitherto the majority of their releases have concentrated on actual Italian music, most recently the first part of Vivaldi’s ‘Il cimento dell’armonia e dell'inventione’, op.8 (including the ubiquitous ‘Four Seasons’), and a second instalment of the composer’s double concertos (‘Vivaldi x2²’). This time, however, they cast their net wider, exploring the cross-fertilisation of influences between Italian and north European musicians through the prism of concertos for flute and recorder.

Flautist Katy Bircher and recorder player Tabea Debus are the chief protagonists here, and both bring wide experience and huge stylishness to the performances, which are played chamber-style, with just single strings (Chandler himself on first violin), but with a variety of plucked continuo instruments (Lynda Sayce on archlute, theorbo and Baroque guitars, Robin Bigwood on harpsichord and organ). This lends a pleasing range of textures and flavours to the various works, and La Serenissima’s trademark rhythmic vitality and period expertise are abundantly evident.

Few other composers so successfully drew on such a broad diversity of national styles as Georg Philipp Telemann, and although he was at one stage rather sniffy about the Italianate concerto style, he came to change his mind. Three Telemann works form the backbone of the programme, and La Serenissima endow them with as much character and insight as they customarily bring to Vivaldi. The disc opens with the D major Flute Concerto, TWV51:D2, a four-movement work cast in da chiesa form (slow–fast–slow–fast). The opening Moderato is a polonaise with dogged poise, the following movement a virtuosic Vivaldian Allegro dispatched by Bircher with lissom agility, while the concluding Vivace has plenty of earthy swagger.

In the D major Trio, TWV42:D15, Bircher is joined by Chandler on viola d’amore, an instrument normally employed for its gentle tones: rarely can it have sounded as ebullient as it does here in the infectious Presto second movement and the rollicking concluding Allegro. The more introspective first and third movements exploit the more ethereal properties of this beguiling pairing. Another interesting combination is that of flute and recorder in the E minor Concerto, TWV52:e1, which brings the disc to a close (wrongly listed as TWV51:e2 in Chandler’s otherwise excellent booklet notes). In this rare coupling, Bircher and Debus weave their wonderful lines with splendid poise, the chirpy recorder complementing the more graceful strains transverse flute. This is a deservedly popular work, and again it finds Telemann combining Vivaldian traits with a dash of Polish rusticity (in the concluding Presto).

In between these works by Telemann are an F major Recorder Concerto, RV442, by Vivaldi himself, with a pastoral opening movement and haunting central Largo, and a G minor Recorder Sonata by woodwind player Ignazio Sieber (c.1680–1761), who likely originated north of the Alps but was active in Venice at the Ospedale della Pietà where Vivaldi was maestro di violino. If the Sonata really is by Sieber (and not Vivaldi), it shows how effortlessly he absorbed the Red Priest’s style, from the opening of the slow Preludio, through the tell-tale sequences of the Corrente to the virtuoso bustle of the Allemanda fourth movement.

Another composer whose works have been the focus of La Serenissima’s previous recordings is Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello (c.1690–1758). Born in Bologna, he spent most of his career at the ducal court of Württemberg near Stuttgart, fusing Italian, French, German and English styles. His E flat major Concerto for two violins and continuo is one of a set of 12 such ‘concertos’ – in reality, trio sonatas. Yet Chandler, with fellow violinist Oliver Cave and a continuo group that includes organ, bring to the music textures that at times have an almost orchestral richness. Its inclusion here successfully entwines another fil rouge of La Serenissima’s interests within the programme as a whole.

The disc is completed with a Giga in C minor for violin and continuo, possibly by Francesco Durante, and Chandler’s own completion of an abandoned original slow movement for the Vivaldi Recorder Concerto: a gentle reverie which, if it doesn’t quite match the unforced profundity of the eventual slow movement, is eminently worth hearing. Vividly recorded in Cedars Hall at Wells Cathedral School, Somerset, and with a witty cover photo that makes a nod to those of the ‘Vivaldi x2’ albums, this is a peach of an album, put together with all the care and dynamism we’ve come to expect from this outstanding team.

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Crossing Borders: Telemann, Sieber, Vivaldi, Brescianello

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Europadisc Review

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