Gramophone Magazine
October 2022
Editor's Choice

Ludovico Minasi, Cristina Vidoni, Teodoro Baù and Simone Vallerotonda

Cinque, E: Sonata No. 6 for Three Cellos in D minor
Cinque, E: Sonata No. 17 for Three Cellos in G minor
Cinque, E: Sonata No. 15 for Three Cellos in C major
Cinque, E: Sonata for Two Cellos in E minor
Cinque, E: Sonata No. 5 for Three Cellos in D major
Cinque, E: Sonata No. 9 for Three Cellos in B minor
Cinque, E: Sonata for Two Cellos in D minor
Cinque, E: Sonata No. 11 for Three Cellos in E flat major

During his long life, the priest, nobleman, poet, and painter from Rome, Ermenegildo del Cinque (1700–73) wrote over 100 sonatas for two cellos and eighteen pieces for three cellos. Although he was a dilettante di musica, he was the most prolific composer of cello music of all time. Yet despite the fact that he also composed cantatas, a serenata and some sacred music, and was a renowned cellist in Rome, he remains virtually unknown today, even among cellists. This recording, made in the theatre of the Palazzo Altemps in Rome where del Cinque often performed, rescues some of these extraordinarily beautiful compositions from oblivion.

The architect of this rediscovery is Ludovico Minasi (principal cellist of Il Pomo d’Oro, among other ensembles), who here leads a team of exceptional bass instruments featuring two recent winners of the MA Brugge competition, Andrea Buccarella and Teodoro Baù, along with the lutenist Simone Vallerotonda (a musician with long-standing ties to Arcana) and the cellist Cristina Vidoni.

"It’s all immensely elegantly shaped and dispatched, simultaneously understated and brimming with different shapes and shades of tone colouring and articulation." - Gramophone Magazine, October 2022.