The Celebrated San Martini

Giuseppe Sammartini was a famous oboist and highly respected composer of the late Baroque period who made his great career in London from 1720. Oboists in this period usually also played the recorder, and so over 30 sonatas for the recorder by Sammartini have also survived, although many of them have been little played to date. The majority of these pieces are preserved only in one manuscript, the so-called "Sibley manuscript". Sammartini's compositions belong to the late period of the recorder, an instrument that was soon to fall into oblivion. His works are characterized by great inventiveness, daring harmonic turns and a very free approach to form. For her solo debut, the Israeli recorder player Tamar Lalo has selected five wonderful sonatas from the Sibley manuscript that bear witness to Sammartini's great musical imagination - and to the recorder at it's zenith.