Accademia Amsterdam performs in chamber formation with oboe, recorder and harpsichord concertos by “the greatest oboist the world has ever known”. The programme draws connections with contemporaries Vivaldi, Handel, Albinoni,  Scarlatti (including keyboard sonatas) and Avison.

This programme was compiled by oboist Onno Verschoor, after years of research into manuscripts. It has resulted in a rich and highly varied listening experience, with well-known and lesser-known concertos.

Notes
At the end of the 17th century and in the first half of the 18th century, the oboe enjoyed an unprecedented flowering. In France, the Hotteterre brothers developed the instrument from the shawm, and it had become a ‘civilised’ instrument, suitable for use in art music. Louis XIV founded an orchestra consisting solely of oboes and bassoons. Its spread across Europe could not be stopped: virtuosos travelled to Germany, the Netherlands, England and Italy.
So too did the father of the ‘hero’ of this programme, Alexis Saint-Martin, who settled in Milaan. Several of his children also became oboists, of whom Giuseppe developed into the ‘Heinz Holliger’ of his day. To display his virtuosity, he composed his own concertos, incorporating difficulties that only he could perform. At the age of 33, Sammartini left for Londen, where he played solos in Handel’s orchestra and worked with the famous castrato Farinelli.
It was in this city that he displayed the Italian “concerto style” with which Vivaldi had become so famous in Europe. Handel was undoubtedly inspired by him, as witnessed by the beautiful solo passages for oboe in his oratorios and concerti grossi.
Another composer in England had been inspired by an Italian: Charles Avison reworked harpsichord sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti into concerti grossi, adding a note of his own here and there.
The Venetians Vivaldi and Albinoni composed beautiful concertos for oboe, perhaps with Sammartini’s oboe sound in mind. Be that as it may, even Bach was greatly impressed by their compositions and arranged them for solo organ.
He was praised by Quantz and other cultural critics as: “[…] the greatest oboist ever, with a remarkable tone that approached the quality of the human voice […]” Sammartini’s beautiful and virtuosic music was published in Amsterdam in his day, which is an additional reason for Accademia Amsterdam to compile a programme around his concertos.

Programme

• Giuseppe Sammartini (Milan, 1695 – London, 1750)
  Grand Concerto (Overture) in G minor, Op. 8 No. 5
• Charles Avison (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1709 – 1770) / Domenico Scarlatti (Naples, 1685 – Madrid, 1757)
  Concerto after Scarlatti in D minor, No. 5, interspersed with several solo sonatas for harpsichord
• George Frideric Handel (Halle an der Saale, 1685 – London, 1759)
  Sonata in G major, HWV 399, for strings
• Tomaso Albinoni (Venice, 1671 –1751)
  Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op. 9 No. 2
• Giuseppe Sammartini (Milan, 1695 – London, 1750)
  Recorder Concerto in F major / Harpsichord Concerto in F major, Op. 9 No. 2
• Antonio Vivaldi (Venice, 1678 – Vienna, 1741)
  Oboe Concerto in A minor, RV 461

Musicians
Onno Verschoor – baroque oboe, recorder and artistic direction
Ursula Dütschler – harpsichord
Mariëtte Holtrop, Jan Pieter van Coolwijk – baroque violin
Niek Idema – baroque viola
Gadze Heeres – baroque cello
Hendrik-Jan Wolfert – violone

Concert tickets and more information

Stichting Alkmaarse Kamermuziek