Francesco Venturini: Ouverture No. 5 in E Minor | 1715-45

Composer: Francesco Venturini (c.1675-1745) Composition: Ouverture No. 5 in E Minor (1715-45) Engagement: Venturini as Violinist in the court chapel of Electorate of Hanover Manuscript Source: Estate of Hinrich Christoph Engelhardt, Lund University, Scania, Sweden Premiere recording from Swedish collections, by The North German baroque ensemble "La festa musicale". Venturini’s Ouverture No. 5 in E minor survives in the estate of Hinrich Christoph Engelhardt, who (with one interruption) was organist of Uppsala Cathedral and academic music director from 1727 to 1764. After his death, his music collection was transferred to Lund University and contains around 750 works, mainly by Handel, but also by other prominent composers such as Carl Heinrich Graun and Antonio Vivaldi. 00:00 I. Ouverture. Adagio 03:40 II. Gavotte 04:39 III. Sarabanda 06:21 IV. Angloise & Trio 08:05 V. Rondeau 09:23 VI. Gigue Venturini’s Ouverture is entirely dedicated to dance – lively numbers alternate with solemn pieces. After the overture, a cheerful gavotte leads into a courtly sarabande, whose striding rhythms exude an elegant sense of melancholy. An English contredanse, the angloise, radiates energy once more with a wind trio before the rondeau reintroduces a gentler tone. A melodious and lively gigue concludes the suite. Also, in his 12 concertos for various instruments, Venturini not only contributed to the “mixed taste” by combining French and Italian stylistic elements, but also repeatedly focused on individual instruments in solo passages. Venturini was born in Brussels around 1675. He is first documented in Hanover, where he got married on 13 January 1697. As an instrumentalist he must have been formidably talented: the Hanoverian court orchestra was, at that time, one of the cultural hotspots in Europe and in 1698, Venturini was engaged as a violinist in the court chapel orchestra. During the reign of Ernst August, the focus was on the annual opera productions. After his death, Georg Ludwig, his son and heir who was to ascend the English throne as George I in 1714 through the “Act of Settlement”, extended the court orchestra to 17 musicians and concentrated on instrumental music. It was probably as part of this expansion that Venturini was engaged as Kapellmeister, head of the court orchestra, in Hanover. References: ● Dr. Waltraut Anna Lach ● Translation: Viola Scheffel Performed by: The North German baroque ensemble "La festa musicale", founded in 2014, stands for excellent artistic standards, which are reflected in creative, cross-disciplinary concert formats and top-class cooperation projects. Concertmaster Anne Marie Harer is the artistic director. The ensemble has appeared at major festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Handel Festival Halle, the Tage für Alte Musik Knechtsteden and the Niedersächsische Musiktage. La festa musicale regularly performs with internationally renowned soloists such as Anna Dennis, Peter Kooy, Joanne Lunn, Klaus Mertens, Alex Potter, Andreas Scholl and Zachary Wilder. Joint projects have connected La festa musicale to conductors such as Jörg Breiding, Lajos Rovatkay, Hermann Max and Jörg Straube. To listen full album and support artists: https://play.audite.de/Venturini-Conc... Cover art: "Baroque Instruments" painted between 1700 and 1750 by Elias van Nijmegen (1667, Nijmegen – January 24, 1755, Rotterdam) #RecordareDomine