Six Stockholm Sonatas Volume 2 for Viola (Viola d'amore) and Basso continuo (Score & Parts)

Ariosti Six Stockholm Sonatas Volume 2 for Viola (Viola d'amore) and Basso continuo (Score & Parts)

These sonatas for viola d'amore or viola and continuo were discovered in a copy made by the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758), probably during a period of study in London with his teacher Attilio Ariosti.

Attilio Ariosti (1666-1729), who rivalled Handel as an opera composer in London and was a virtuoso performer on the viola d'amore enjoying European fame, was gifted with a power of melodic invention fully equal to that of his great contemporaries.  In addition to his well-known and often reprinted "Six Sonatas for the Viola d'amore" (London 1724), the newly-discovered pieces constitute a valuable enrichment of the scanty solo repertory for the instrument hitherto known from the first half of the 18th century.