Andrea Bacchetti Official Web Site

At first glance there is much here to draw the interest of the curious music-lover. Bacchetti is a fine keyboard-player with a keen interest in uncovering lesser-known music, and his DVD of the Goldberg Variations proves he’s no slouch with the canon either. This recording on RCA (coming two years after a disc featuring rarely heard sonatas of Cherubini) sports fine playing, superb recorded sound, and informative notes by Mario Marcarini. There’s just one missing ingredient in this collection of sonatas by Baldassare Galuppi: compelling music. Great music encourages repeated hearings, but there are precious few movements in this disc that will reveal more than their tepid first impressions.
While he is far from a household name, Galuppi has been championed by a fair number of performers recently, with a handful of comic operas, concertos, and sundry chamber music on disc. The sonatas aren’t enjoying quite as notable a renaissance as his operas are, but there are a number of recordings, most notably a complete set by Peter Seivewright on the Divine Art label.
I have heard few discs that begin with less promising music than this one. The opening tract is a single movement sonata marked Allegro “Pupile amate”. Despite the tempo indication, Bacchetti performs it rather slowly, and I’m more than willing to believe he has a valid reason for the decision.
Sadly, I don’t think any tempo would save it from being a rather generic, mediocre piece. Its placement preceding another rather dull slow movement from a different sonata doesn’t help, especially as this second track clocks in at over eight minutes. I’m baffled as to why a composer renowned for opera composition would create such pedestrian melodic material in lyrical movements for the keyboard. The first movement of one of the Sonatas in Bmol is an interminable andante running over 10 minutes, and the following quick movement comes as a relief, but more for the change of pace than for an improvement in musical quality. The pianist might have helped his cause had he chosen to observe fewer repeats.
There is one movement in the disc I did grow fond of, namely the first movement of the Sonata in D Minor, a charming Andantino that conjures visions of a singer delivering an ardent serenade, accompanied with simple strums of a guitar. Otherwise the music on this disc rarely rises above the level of pleasant background music. Clearly there was an abundance of fine Venetian music from the middle of the 18th century, but this particular corner of that repertoire doesn’t seem promising. I’m certain Bacchetti will continue his search, and no doubt he will find better material for future projects. Michael Cameron