The music of Georg Muffat, who like Mozart served the archbishop of Salzburg, hasn't been much recorded, so this Italian release fills a need. Muffat was born in the kingdom of Savoy in the western Alps to parents of Scots background, studied with Lully, worked in Austria, and traveled to Italy, met Corelli, and heard his music. He wrote some virtuoso solo violin music, and one of his sonatas, full of harmonic twists and generally coming from the same place as Biber, is included here. But the four works published as concerti grossi in 1701 are more characteristic of his style, which absorbed elements from all over Europe. These pieces have a very Italianate melodic fluency, not sounding like Lully in the least. But they mostly are cast in French dance rhythms and forms. The result, a generation or more before the "tastes reunited" in France or the cosmopolitan music of Handel, is a seamless fusion of national styles, and indeed Muffat can sound somewhat like Handel at times. Sample the Gavotta (track 4) from the Concerto VIII (Coronatio Augusta). The booklet provides inadequate explanation of the apparent programmatic titles of the concertos (propitia sydera seems to mean lucky stars), and the playing of the Italian string group La Concordanza under keyboardist Irene de Ruvo is unexciting. But violinist
Stefano Rossi is plenty muscular in the solo sonata, and Stradivarius gets good, bright sonic results out of the appropriate environment at the Villa Sacro Cuore, a Milanese building with a long and complex history. There's room for other Baroque groups here, but the music itself can be recommended for lovers of the early concerto.