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Giovanni Benedetto Platti:
Sonatas Per Il Clavicembalo
Elaine Funaro, harpsichord (David Jencks, after German originals) and fortepiano (David Sutherland, after Cristofori, Florence, 1726) (WLBR 9901)

"The sonatas of Giovanni Benedetto Platti presented on this recording recommend themselves by their attractiveness and warmth of melody, the easy balance and naturalness of their design and their wide-ranging variety of manners and moods. They are also interesting because today... we can easily hear that their composer seems at times to inhabit the world of Corelli and Handel, but at other times that of Haydn and Mozart, all of whose lifespans overlapped Platti's by at least a few years."

So writes David Sutherland, the builder of the marvelous instrument featured on this recording, a copy of the latest surviving instrument of Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the fortepiano. Sutherland's essay is impressive and informative, giving a particularly keen sense of the stylistic struggle that was launched by the appearance of the new instrument and its characteristic pallette of sounds and colors. Sutherland's instrument is impressive as well in the way that it simultaneously evokes the harpsichord, whose name it still bore, and the modern piano, whose potentialities it embodied.

While all this is all very learned and technical, Elaine Funaro's performance makes us forget that we are experiencing a musicological document and launches us into unqualified delight and enjoyment of this nearly forgotten music. Her playing is playful, witty, warm and lovely.

Seven of Platti's sonatas are presented; four are performed on fortepiano, three on harpsichord. Ms Funaro has chosen a harpsichord by David Jencks, modelled on German instruments of the early 18th century, a far less colored and more clear platform for these transitional pieces.

The fortepiano is the property of the Schubert Club in St Paul MN, where there is a museum of musical instruments, and where this instrument resides. The Schubert Club provided support for this project.

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