This is the world première recording of Alessandro Rolla’s three Violin Concertos, performed by Paolo Ghidoni, who is a real Rolla expert.

The Italian composer has left us a catalogue of almost 600 works. Although today he is mainly remembered for being the teacher of Paganini, his role was very important in the development of violin and viola technique.

In the catalogue drawn up by Luigi Alberto Bianchi and Luigi Inzaghi, Rolla’s violin concertos number twenty-one (BI 506 to 526), for only 3 of which we know the year of composition - the concerto BI 520, in G major, the BI 506, in C major and the BI 514, in D major.

As for the three concertos here featured, they exist in nonautograph manuscript copies that bear no dates. All the concertos are in three movements - the first, according to an accepted practice, being the most demanding from both the technical and creative points of view. The second movement is a lyrical parenthesis, now warm, now more intensely touching or doleful; the third is a rondo, which in the case of BI 522 has the character of a polonaise.

The performance of these concertos has been based on the comparison between all available copies. Given the sometimes significant differences, the musicians have had to make choices attaining the phrasing, the ornamentation, the cadenzas (in handwriting and present in the various movements), and the instrumental forces which, for example, in the Milan copy of BI 523 call, in the Romance, for the flutes in place of the oboes.