Yi-Chang Liang (recorder) performs six sonatas by Francesco Mancini with Ensemble IJ Space.

The albums liner notes are written by Professor DelDonna of Georgetown which was one of the first complete accounts I’d read of Mancini’s role as the lead in one of Naples’ music conservatories.

In this role, Mancini occupied a position of significant prestige and influence within the local music community, training future generations in all traditions whether sacred or secular, vocal or instrumental.

He was counted, at one point, as one of the three leading musicians in Naples, alongside Nicolò Fago and Alessandro Scarlatti. It’s probably father Scarlatti’s own works for recorder that ought to be brought out alongside these by Mancini. The purpose of their composition is not known, the notes tell us, but they could have had pedagogical functions, or have been the result of a commission within a city that afforded no shortage of chamber music making opportunities.

I kept thinking as I listened to the concept of inventio that came to light for many because of Bach’s use of the term for his contrapuntal keyboard exercises. “What’s an invention?” Mancini has no shortage of musical ideas; each movement is itself a study of a fresh musical idea for soloist and bass. Several sonatas have the lingering whiff of the stylus fantasticus, the result of which is a musical idea that can turn on a dime, two or more players working in consort to change the mood as quickly as one might change their emotional state. The loose, organic feel for this style of music, which of course was never organic as the changes in tempo, meter, and key were always written out, eventually got codified into formal “movements.” The four part, slow-fast-slow-fast form is interrupted twice in the selection of sonatas here with an opening “Spirtuoso” which are played by Liang and his partners true to the spirit of the word. The G major sonata, no. 12, also starts with fast movement.

Realizing basso continuo has been for as long as I’ve listened to early music can be an interesting if not controversial affair. Scholars are often at the ready to tell us that the practices at one point in time in one particular place aren’t a norm that gets applied to other literature; in short, performers today of the same music can take continuo suggestions quite literally from the title page of the music; these suggestions typically apply a single instrument. The most conventional solution is to play with harpsichord and cello. I can’t say what the practice was in Naples in the first quarter of the eighteenth century but IJ Space uses its full forces with cello, harpsichord, and lute in the first sonata. Pitting three bass instruments against a recorder sounds like a bad idea but the choice in keyboard, with its delicate, articulate texture, was a good move; the engineers put the lute at such low volume that at times I strained to pick it out in the mixture on the right channel. The result is a rich texture that never once attempts to overwhelm the recorder.

The ensemble has elected to give us variety; the full group does not perform in each sonata. Harpsichord and lute are used in the 6th sonata; I would have liked to have heard more of the lute, especially in the lower register. In several sonatas, such as the A minor, no. 4, harpsichord is used alone. The rhetorical breaks the composer provides the musicians helps reveal more of the space where they’ve made this recording. I don’t know much about the size of the Schuilkerk de Hoop, but churches as recording venues are an easy sell for the reverb they provide. I felt the close miking of harpsichord and recorder made for an enjoyable sound presentation across the CD. But there was a veil over the production as well; I felt so much of the sound energy had escaped the microphones. Having some closer reflective surfaces near the performers may have given us the sense that we were closer to the musicians in a true chamber setting. I find this effect is diminished when listening via loudspeakers, but for this review, I focused primarily on headphone listening. The effect is one you get used to if you listen straight-through; it was only when I switched between comparison recordings that the distance and sense of lost energy came back to mind. The real loss in this recording, though, was not being able to better hear their lutenist, Asako Ueda.

I could find two other recordings of the A minor work via Qobuz for comparison; the recording by Ricardo Kanji suffers from what I’ve already praised this recording for, and that’s the balance of the continuo with the recorder as a quiet solo instrument. Kanji’s instrument does possess a stronger tone in that recording, but Hidemi Suzuki’s cello sounds rather dominant.

The second recording features Hanna Haapamäki performing with Baccano. That recording isn’t nearly as clear as this release on Claves. However there is something to be said about the stylistic energy Haapamäki brings to her playing which at times reminded me of the playing by Gionvanni Antonini, probably the first musical ambassador to familiarize myself with Mancini in a recording focused on Naples in the 1990s with Il Giardino Armonico. The showier style has been identified by reviewers as a rather Italian taste; I will say I do enjoy it and I have to believe it comes to instrumental performance after it’s been infused into methods of expression born in language and culture.

Historically speaking, it’s impossible to say if this style is born out of modern interpretation or else it has a historical basis. Despite my preference for a more extroverted style, Liang’s playing across this recording is tidy and technically strong. The video of the ensemble performing this repertoire is somewhat telling; it portrays more nuance in Liang’s playing. He is a young but talented musician, and on this record, he gives us a very consistent performances. Of special technical merit too is the playing by Machiko Suto on harpsichord. Her playing is consistently clean and her choice of instrument is very transparent, but its sound only amplifies her strong technique.

I applaud these musicians for choosing a dedicate an entire recording to pieces by Mancini. His melodic gifts position his abilities differently from Alessandro Scarlatti, whose interest was far more focused on counterpoint. The music from Naples should be heard and celebrated more.