Mauro Tortorelli & Angela Meluso - Camillo Sivori: Works for Violin and Piano (2012)

This new Tactus CD features premiere recordings of works for violin and piano by the 18th century composer and virtuoso violinist Camillo Sivori. Sivori is particularly known for being a great advocate of the music of his teacher Nicolo Paganini. The performers are violinist Mauro Tortorelli and pianist Angela Meluso.

Camillo Sivori (1815-94), often referred to as “Paganinetto” (little Paganini), was Nicolo Paganini’s only pupil, and unlike his teacher began to perform abroad at a very young age (12), exciting great admiration in the concert halls of London and Paris. From 1840, the year of Paganini’s death, he became the first artist to actively promote the great Maestro’s music, advancing and maturing the concept of interpretation, and moving beyond the limiting condition of virtuosity as an end in itself. As a violinist he was leader of the group that produced the first performance of a cycle of all of Beethoven’s Quartets, which took place in London between 1845 and 1846. It is also known that Verdi entrusted him with the first performance of his one and only quartet.

Mauro Tortorelli and Angela Meluso have previously released works for violin and piano by Gaetano Fuselli on Tactus.