Francesco Zappa

Tracks

1. Opus 1 - #1: 1st movement - Andante (03:31)
2. Opus 1 - #1: 2nd movement - Allegro Con Brio (01:28)
3. Opus 1 - #2: 1st movement - Andantino (02:14)
4. Opus 1 - #2: 2nd movement - Minuetto Grazioso (02:04)
5. Opus 1 - #3: 1st movement - Andantino (01:52)
6. Opus 1 - #3: 2nd movement - Presto (01:51)
7. Opus 1 - #4: 1st movement - Andante (02:20)
8. Opus 1 - #4: 2nd movement - Allegro (03:05)
9. Opus 1 - #5: 2nd movement - Minuetto Grazioso (02:29)
10. Opus 1 - #6: 1st movement - Largo (02:09)
11. Opus 1 - #6: 2nd movement - Minuet (02:03)
12. Opus 4 - #1: 1st movement - Andantino (02:48)
13. Opus 4 - #1: 2nd movement - Allegro Assai (02:02)
14. Opus 4 - #2: 2nd movement - Allegro Assai (01:20)
15. Opus 4 - #3: 1st movement - Andante (02:24)
16. Opus 4 - #3: 2nd movement - Tempo Di Minuetto (02:00)
17. Opus 4 - #4: 1st movement - Minuetto (02:10)

Players

• Performed by The Barking Pumpkin Digital Gratification Consort (Frank Zappa, conductor).
• Synclavier document encryption by David Ocker
• Engineered by Bob Stone and Mark Pinske
• Second engineer: Tom Ehle

Background

The album's subtitle reads: "The Music Of Francesco Zappa (fl. 1763-1788). His First Digital Recording In Over 2300 Years". Francesco Zappa was an obscure composer living in Milan.

Cover art for the album was done by Donald Roller Wilson.

[Grove's] entry reads:

Zappa, Francesco

(b Milan; fl 1763–88). Italian cellist and composer. The dedication of his six trios for two violins and bass (London, 1765) shows that he had given the Duke of York, the dedicatee, music lessons in Italy (the duke had been in Italy from late November 1763 to mid-1764). By 1767, the year of the duke’s death, he had entered his service as maestro di musica, as shown by the title-page of his trio sonatas op.2. He then apparently took up residence in The Hague as a music master. He was still there in 1788, according to the place and date of a manuscript Quartetto concertante (inD-Bsb). He had a reputation among his contemporaries as a virtuoso and he toured Germany in 1771, playing in Danzig and, on 22 September, in Frankfurt. According to Mendel, he made another concert tour of Germany in 1781 (though this may be an error for 1771).

Zappa’s writing is lyrical, but tends towards a seriousness of manner in which the galant elements are tempered by a Classical dignity. His works with obbligato cello demonstrate an easy familiarity with thumb position fingerings, slurred staccato bowings and idiomatic string crossing patterns.