New album release: Concerto Köln & Evgeny Sviridov "Pantheon - Corelli's Orbit"
Works by
Giovanni Battista Somis (1686–1763)
Antonio Caldara (1670–1736)
Pietro Castrucci (1679–1752)
Giuseppe Valentini (1681–1753)
Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
Gasparo Visconti (1683–1731)
Michele Mascitti (1664–1760)
Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
Concerto Köln
Evgeny Sviridov, violin
Berlin Classics 0304477BC
With Pantheon – Corelli’s Orbit, Concerto Köln presents a musical panorama surrounding Arcangelo Corelli and his European network of pupils, admirers and rivals. Together with concertmaster and soloist Evgeny Sviridov, the ensemble explores works by Giovanni Battista Somis, Antonio Caldara, Pietro Castrucci, Giuseppe Valentini, Antonio Vivaldi, Michele Mascitti, Henry Purcell and Corelli himself – composers who, within a dynamic field of admiration, rivalry and individuality, shaped their own musical “pantheon”. The album will be released on 27 March 2026 on the Berlin Classics label.
Evgeny Sviridov plays a central role as both concertmaster and soloist. In the Violin Concerto in F major by Giovanni Battista Somis he appears as the soloist, while also shaping the ensemble’s sound as an artistic driving force and bringing together the album’s diverse aesthetic lines into a coherent whole. With Pantheon – Corelli’s Orbit, Concerto Köln traces musical trajectories across Europe – stories of encounters, exchange and artistic individuality. Rather than a museum-like retrospective, the album invites listeners to rediscover the sonic spaces of the Baroque.
The point of departure is Corelli himself, one of the most legendary composers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – the teacher of an entire generation of violinists, whose tomb in Rome’s Pantheon symbolically reflects the enduring impact of his legacy. From this starting point, vibrant networks unfold: Giovanni Battista Somis, a direct pupil of Corelli, carried his art to Turin and Paris and opened new horizons with his brilliant violin concertos. Michele Mascitti introduced the Italian sonata style to Parisian audiences, skilfully blending Corelli’s idiom with local traditions, while Pietro Castrucci gained renown in London as leader of Handel’s theatre orchestra, where he brought fresh impulses to the musical scene.
The tensions between admiration and artistic self-assertion also become audible. Giuseppe Valentini, once described as Corelli’s “strongest rival” in Rome, surprises with his nuovo stile. The fluid boundaries between homage and innovation are equally evident in Antonio Caldara’s dramatic Sinfonia in G minor, which adds new theatrical dimensions to the Baroque concerto form, as well as in the carefully selected “Preludes & Voluntaries” for solo violin by Corelli and Henry Purcell, celebrating the freedom of invention and the exploration of new sonic spaces.
Passionate music-making and an unbroken curiosity for the unknown have been the hallmarks of Concerto Köln for more than forty years. Founded in 1985, the orchestra with its unmistakable sound has become one of the leading ensembles in the field of historically informed performance. Deeply rooted in Cologne’s musical life and regularly appearing in major musical capitals and renowned festivals worldwide, Concerto Köln stands for outstanding interpretations of early music. In 2023 the ensemble received the Opus Klassik award for the album Pisendel, recorded together with its concertmaster Mayumi Hirasaki.