Here Concerto Cologne, better known on CD as interpreters of Mozart, step back to the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century to survey the concerti grossi of Pietro Antonio Locatelli. Locatelli, a native of Bergamo, went to Rome in 1711, Corelli was in poor health and the young violinist was more probably the pupil of his successor, Giuseppe Valentini. Fourteen years later, Locatelli left Rome a virtuoso, with compositions in his portfolio: he travelled within Italy and across Germany before settling in Amsterdam in 1729. He had already published his first opus, XII concerti grossi, there in 1721 and revised it soon after his revival. He published Op. 4 in 1736 and Op. 7 in 1741.
While paying homage to Corelli and Vivaldi, Locatelli devised new and ever-changing ensemble textures—using a viola in the concertino group and wove a richer harmonic fabric than his Italian predecessors. For all that, however, his concertos do not seem to me particularly memorable. The five-movement Op. 1 No. 12 concerto da camera is among the most successful, contrasting contrapuntal and homophonic textures, concertino and ripieno forces, cantabile melodies and the rhythmic vitality of dances. The extended Minuetto that ends Op. 4 No. 10 is a veritable kaleidoscope of textures. Locatelli's varied use of syncopation in the B flat major Concerto from that collection is also very attractive. In the Op. 7 concertos, Nos. 4 and 6 (Il pianto d'Arianna), he gives prominence to the first concertino violin, played here with due rhetoric by Werner Ehrhardt.
Locatelli is known to have favoured a short bow, but the implications of this—that the articulation should be rather light and airy—seem to have been lost on the members of Concerto Cologne, who do in fact play on period instruments. By adopting a sustained bow stroke, they produce lethargic tempos, which contribute to the indifferent impression these performances give of the music. I strongly suspect it needn't be the case and would welcome further recordings of these works, particularly from Op. 7 set.'