18th Century Keyboard Works Premiere

European Day of Early Music is held every year on 21st March, a day celebrating the beginning of spring, and one of Early Musics most important composers Johann Sebastian Bach (born on 21st March 1685, according to the Julian Calendar).

To celebrate this event a lecture/recital will be given in conjunction with Barocco Foundation at the Oratory of St Francis in Republic Street, Valletta on 29 March 2016 at 12:30. (The 21st being in Holy Week).

The music of Antonino Reggio had lain forgotten for some 230 years until its rediscovery in 2000 in a library in Germany. Over the last fifteen years research has been carried out into both the life and the music of this extremely talented Sicilian priest.

Antonino Reggio was born on 8 January 1725 in Aci Catena, Sicily. A member of a cadet branch of a Sicilian noble family, In 1763 he was in Rome and was elevated to Monsignor.

In Rome, he became well known as a harpsichordist, violoncellist and composer. In 1770, Dr Charles Burney described him as a pretty good composer and performer on the harpsichord and violoncello and eminent for [his] skill in the art, and learning in the science of sound. The Roman poet and writer, Giovanni De Rossi, describes Reggio as a man of great intellect, erudite, and very deep in music.

Reggio died on 15 September 1780 in Rome.

Reggios musical works comprise masses, oratorios and sacred songs, composed in Sicily between 1745 and 1750. While in Rome, his output included secular arias, five volumes of sonatas for cembalo, sonatas for two cellos and sonatas for lute and bass. Six of his seventy-two keyboard sonatas were privately published in Amsterdam in 1772.

The works to be performed in this recital will be drawn from his seventy-two keyboard works. These will be world premie performances.

These will be performed by Ramona Zammit Formosa, harpsichord and the recital will be introduced with a brief summary of Reggios life and music by the musicologist, Anthony Hart.