Avison: 12 Concerti Grossi - Brandenburg Consort, Goodman

Charles Avison
12 Concerti Grossi after Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti
The Brandenburg Consort, Roy Goodman
Hyperion CDA66891-2

In the days before composers were protected by copyright laws, publishers, players, and other composers could steal whatever music they liked and pass it off as their own. Some of them, however, were slightly more honest, and others, like Avison, both honest and commercially astute. Scarlatti's 30 keyboard sonatas created a sensation when they were published in England. So Avison took them and arranged them as concertos for strings, thereby bringing the music to a wider public. In making these arrangements, Avison completely recomposed much of the music, adding his own ideas where necessary to create a balanced concerto form. The result is a fresh, entertaining collection, vivaciously performed here on "authentic" instruments.

David Hurwitz, Amazon Editorial Review