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GRAMOPHONE (02/2017)
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Reviewer:

This disc’s title comes from the fact that three of its virtuosocomposers were compared in their day either to an angel (Leclair) or to a devil (Locatelli and Forqueray), while the fourth (Tartini) attributed the extreme difficulty of his most famous composition to diabolical inspiration visited on him in a dream. Fiendishness as a performer does not always translate to composition – Tartini’s music is actually often among the most angelic of the 18th century – but the fireworks of Locatelli’s solo capriccios (one of which, crawling all over the strings and ascending to dog-bothering pitch heights, ends the sonata included here) certainly make his classification understandable, while the unfailing elegance that survives the challenging double-stops of Leclair’s sonatas is enough to make for a very pleasant visitation indeed.

If I had to categorise Chouchane Siranossian in similar terms, I would plump for angelic for the simple beauty of her playing, which belies the toughness of the music by being well-tuned and sweetly turned at every step, with a richly earpleasing sound and little sign of technical struggle. If the devil really does lurk among those Tartini trills, there doesn’t seem much chance of him knocking her off her stride. Her musicianship is likewise faultless, unconcerned with tricks and quirks but rather on letting her violin do the speaking. This is top-class Baroque violin-playing, reminiscent of another virtuoso made for this repertoire, Giuliano Carmignola.

The non-violinist among these composers is Antoine Forqueray, whose robust viola da gamba compositions are represented by four of the solo harpsichord transcriptions published by his son. Jos van Immerseel is better known as a fortepianist, but here escapes from his unfussy continuo role to produce performances of deep tone and firm momentum. The excellent recorded sound adds both body and bloom to this gem of a disc. Lindsay Kemp

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