BBC Music Magazine has highlighted Cristina Prats Costa’s Spiritillo Mediterraneo, with critic Nicholas Kenyon praising outstandingly lovely violin playing that he calls agile, clear and fresh throughout the disc.
The review centers on Falconieri’s Il Spiritillo Brando, which lends the album its name and generating idea, with Kenyon noting the superb Baroque violin playing that carries Prats Costa through a varied collection of pieces, including Nicola Matteis’s Ayres for the Violin. He singles out several unaccompanied moments as particular highlights, including Matteis’s Preludio in A minor and a gentle version of Striggio’s famous Nasce la pena mia.
Kenyon also points to Biber’s Sonata No. 5 in E minor as compellingly virtuosic, placing it above much of the rest of the programme. While noting that Prats Costa draws on her Spanish heritage in her own arrangements of works by Murcia, Sanz, and Nebra, the review calls the overall concept eclectic, tying together a wide range of Mediterranean influences.
Spiritillo Mediterraneo is out now on PENTATONE.
