Harmonia Mundi's Fantastic Style is a two-for-the-price-of-one combination of two great albums by Romanesca: Phantasticus, originally released in 1996, and Schmelzer: Violin Sonatas from 1998. Phantasticus takes as its point of departure an extract from the writings of seventeenth century theorist Athanasius Kircher, who among his classification of musical styles includes reference to "stylus Phantasticus," the "most liberated form of composition, free from any constraints of text or predetermined harmony to display genius. ...
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Harmonia Mundi's Fantastic Style is a two-for-the-price-of-one combination of two great albums by Romanesca: Phantasticus, originally released in 1996, and Schmelzer: Violin Sonatas from 1998. Phantasticus takes as its point of departure an extract from the writings of seventeenth century theorist Athanasius Kircher, who among his classification of musical styles includes reference to "stylus Phantasticus," the "most liberated form of composition, free from any constraints of text or predetermined harmony to display genius." A selection of works drawn from early Baroque composers, some barely known, but all worthy to some degree of revival, illustrate this point: works by Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, Giovanni Paolo Cima, Dario Castello, and Giovanni Battista Fontana appear, among others. What ties them together is their looseness of form, bizarre gestures, wandering harmony, and fragmented sense of the pulse. All of these pieces are expertly played by Romanesca, and lutenist Nigel North and...
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