“For this recording we have created an imaginary ‘battle of the bows’ between Vivaldi, Veracini, Tartini and Locatelli, the ‘four musketeers’ of the violin in Venice during the first half of the 18th century”, said Chouchane Siranossian and Andrea Marcon. “Corelli died in 1713 and passed the torch on to his heirs… Venice then became the setting for merciless rivalries. The violin became an instrument of confrontation, an ideal weapon for demonstrating virtuosity and technical prowess.

In the Europe of the first half of the seventeenth century, instrumental music became a source of sonic and expressive experimentation. Influenced by vocal rhetoric, composers sought to replace words with a new musical language. The virtuosity of the instrumentalists developed, as did invention, improvisation and the search for surprising sonorities. Along with the organ or the harpsichord, the violin was the instrument of choice for experimenting with these new techniques.