Sonata Concertata in A Major, Niccolo Paganini Listening to Paganini's lovely Sonata concertata, it is hard to believe it is by the same composer who is responsible for the dazzlingly brilliant 24 Caprices and the dramatic Violin Concerto No. 2. With the opening Allegro spiritoso, which serves as the first movement of this loosely structured sonata, the work hearkens to the Classical style of Mozart or Haydn, where the balance between instruments leads to a unified musical expression, glorious but simple. Indeed, this entire piece may be described as dialogic, since a lilting call-and-response theme between the guitar and violin provides the structural basis. The second movement, Adagio, contains some simple but rewarding interplay between the two instruments; at certain moments, the guitar achieves an almost improvisatory freedom of expression, dragging the more relaxed violin along with it. This paves the way for the truly danceable final movement, Rondo, in which the violin takes on a more brilliant mode of expression than before. In sum, the work represents Paganini's most intimate, relaxed, and almost playful compositional mode. © All Music Guide Sonata in A minor, Jean Baptiste Loeillet de Gant From the mid seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth, the family of Jacques Loeillet was prominent as instrumentalists and composers throughout the Low Countries, France and England. Most renowned were two of his grandsons, cousins both christened Jean-Baptiste, who were noted flutists and keyboard players and composers of numerous sonatas for various instruments but mostly for recorder and transverse flute. Two cousins with similar occupations, the same name and birthplace (Ghent), however, have caused considerable confusion. Misattribution of their compositions has been common. To compound the difficulty, the 48 recorder sonatas of the younger cousin, who signed himself Jean-Baptiste Loeillet de Gant, were reissued in a pirated edition in London shortly after appearing in Amsterdam. THE INSTRUMENTAL SONATAS OF THE LOEILLETS BY ALEC SKEMPTON JEAN BAPTISTE LOEILLET. Born at Ghent and christened Jean Baptiste on 26 July 1688. The eldest son of Pierre by his first wife Marie Nortier, and cousin to John and Jacques. Little is known of his life except Bergmans's discovery that he worked at some period for the Archbishop of Lyons, but the dedications of his sonatas show that these works were well received by the French aristocracy. His adoption of the name Loeillet de Gant was presumably attuned to French ears. Bergmans also stated that Jean Baptiste died at a comparatively early age, and this is confirmed by John's will in which bequests are evidently made to all the living members of the family, but only one son of'Pieter Loeillet my oncle att Bordeaux in France" is mentioned. Now Pierre had three sons, Jean Baptiste born in 1688 by his first marriage, and by a second marriage Jean Jacques, born I7I4, who died in childhood, and Étienne Joseph (1715-97), for many years violinist and organist at the Chapel Royal, Brussels. It must therefore be Étienne, then a boy of fourteen living with his parents at Bordeaux, to whom reference is made in the will, with a bequest of Ł500 and "the very Best of my Absecords". Thus Jean Baptiste had died before I729; and as the last of his works was published in 1717 and these had been coming from the press in quite rapid succession, it may be supposed that his death occurred c. 1720. History of the Tango, Astor Piazzolla The pianist Arthur Rubinstein—then living in Buenos Aires—advised him to study with the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. Delving into scores of Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, and others, he rose early each morning to hear the Teatro Colón orchestra rehearse while continuing a gruelling performing schedule in the tango clubs at night. In 1950 he composed the soundtrack to the film Bólidos de acero. At Ginastera's urging, in 1953 Piazzolla entered his Buenos Aires Symphony in a composition contest, and won a grant from the French government to study in Paris with the legendary French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. In 1954 he and his first wife, the artist Dedé Wolff, left Buenos Aires and their two children (Diana aged 11 and Daniel aged 10) behind and travelled to Paris. The insightful Boulanger turned Piazzolla's life around in a day, as he related in his own words: When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: "It's very well written." And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said: "Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can't find Piazzolla in this." And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, "I play in a night club." I didn't want to say cabaret. And she answered, "Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?" "Yes," I answered, and thought, "I'll hit this woman in the head with a radio…." It wasn't easy to lie to her. She kept asking: "You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?" And I didn't want to tell her that I was a bandoneon player, because I thought, "Then she will throw me from the fourth floor." Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: "You idiot, that's Piazzolla!" And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds. —Ástor Piazzolla, A Memoir Piazzolla returned from New York to Argentina in 1955, formed the Octeto Buenos Aires with Enrico Mario Francini and Hugo Baralis on violins, Atilio Stampone on piano, Leopoldo Federico as second bandoneon, Horacio Malvicino on electric guitar, José Bragato on cello and Juan Vasallo on double bass to play tangos, and never looked back. Wikipedia