We may wonder whether the violin was a northern Italian invention, for the instrument was also to be heard in the great cities of southern Italy at an early stage, from the beginning of the 17th century onwards. Certain southern Italian composers had clearly understood that the instrument was unequalled in its ability to express emotion allied to virtuosity, including Montalbano in Palermo, Pandolfi in Messina, Falconieri and Trabaci in Naples, and Leoni in Rome. They wasted no time in channeling the freedom and expressivity of the violin into rare, fascinating and original works, some of them recorded here for the first time.

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