Latest from Trio Settecento

A French Soirée, Trio Settecento (released on November 15, 2011) Cedille CDR 90000 129 | 78'55"

Charles T. Downey, Trio Settecento: A French Soirée
The Classical Review, January 20

Rachel Barton Pine has made a name for herself as a soloist in the big Romantic violin concertos, in concert and on disc, but she stands out from other violinists of her generation for her willingness to play music off the beaten path.

She has made recordings of lesser-known concertos by Franz Clément and Joseph Joachim, for example, pairing them with more famous contemporaneous repertoire warhorses by Beethoven and Brahms respectively. Her latest solo disc, Capricho Latino, is a recital of Spanish and Latin American music for unaccompanied violin, some of it adapted from pieces originally created for other instruments, including the guitar. She also plays in a heavy metal band, of all things.

At a concert of French music from the grand siècle, in Washington last year, I learned of Barton Pine’s interest in Baroque music. With John Mark Rozendaal on viola da gamba and David Schrader on harpsichord, she formed Trio Settecento in 1996, an ensemble devoted to 17th- and 18th-century music. That concert program informed this third recording by the group and follows earlier discs of Italian and German music, all on the Cedille Records label.

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