An Italian Journey

After his first solo album of music by Marchand and Clérambault, released in 2015 and nominated for a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the harpsichordist Luca Oberti, who has performed on the international scene for years alongside such figures as Marc Minkowski and Christophe Rousset, presents a new album on the theme of Bach's imaginary journey to Italy. Schütz, Froberger, Muffat, Handel, Hasse, Mozart and Wagner are merely the most famous of the many musicians who crossed the Alps to immerse themselves in the world of Italian music and grasp it's atmospheres and it's secrets. Yet the composer who most fully assimilated the Italian style was Johann Sebastian Bach, who never even set foot in Italy. His journey was a virtual one: the scores of the Italian masters, which he avidly studied and absorbed from childhood onwards, guided him on an ideal itinerary from Vivaldi's Venice to Frescobaldi's Rome. Beginning with the transcriptions of concertos byVivaldi and Marcello, and continuing with pieces ofItalian inspiration like the Aria Variata alla maniera italiana, the Capriccio sulla lontananza del fratello dilettissimo and the Fantasia and Fugue BWV 904, the journey culminates in the celebrated Italian Concerto.