J. D. HENINICHEN SONATA in c minor for Oboe & Bassoon

We are in the beautiful church of S. Floriano in Forni di Sopra in the province of Udine. This splendid mountain resort, located about 900 meters high, is the place where he was born and spent his childhood and adolescence, the oboe and bassoon builder Johannes Maria ANCIUTI exactly in the mid-eighteenth century. He became one of the most famous and best wind makers (famous masterpieces are his ivory oboes preserved in Milan and Paris). It seems that the great oboe virtuoso Giuseppe Sammartini, played an instrument of Anciuti. Who wants more news about it, I can give you. The church of S. Floriano is a true masterpiece of art. The current church is known from the year 1038, when its existence first appeared in a deed of sale. The current building belongs to the sec. XV, with a simple gabled façade surmounted by a small bell window; the roof is in wood shingles. It stands next to the parish church, separated from the street; century architecture XV, there is still a cycle of frescoes by Gianfrancesco da Tolmezzo, dated to the year 1500. The repertoire of depicted subjects is similar to the realizations previously encountered in Socchieve and Forni di Sotto and is also available here in the apse area, with few variations in features and colors. The difference is that in this work the painter was most likely helped by students, such as Giampietro from San Vito (for whom is attributed for example the Saint Valentine painted in the left aisle). cella But what makes this church a real jewel, beyond the well-preserved architecture and the contained frescoes, is the contextual presence of a precious altarpiece by the painter Andrea Bellunello (1430-1494) to the century Andrea di Bortolotto, signed and dated 1480 in the main compartment (Andrea Belunelo de Sanvido). It is a polyptych, in which the titular saint is depicted in the center, dressed as an elegant knight, while holding up a burning castle (as a protector from fires). In the other compartments the depictions of other saints and saints are arranged in a rather crowded way, on two levels. At the bottom, on the left is Sant’Orsola, with the banner that commemorates the royal birth and the palm of martyrdom. In the lower right compartment there are the Sante Dorotea with the basket of roses and Caterina d'Alessandria with the wheel and Barbara with the tower. In the middle compartment on the left there are, with miter and pastoral, the bishop San Nicolò and next, with bell and bàcolo, Sant’Antonio Abate. In the right middle compartment towards the center is San Volfango, Benedictine abbot and then bishop of Regensburg (X century), with miter and pastoral. The ax recalls the fact that with it the saint delimited and took possession of the area on which to build new monasteries, according to a practice of Celtic heritage. Next to it is Sant’Osvaldo with the raven in his hand. At the top there is an Annunciation and, in the center, the Risen Christ. The frame, with spikes and twisted pillars, reveals a fully late Gothic taste. The sonata by JD HEINICHEN can be seen and heard here is one of the masterpieces born from the fervent and ingenious mind of the German composer JD Heinichen, who has continued to enrich the prestigious and gigantic repertoire for the instrumentalist virtuosists of the legendary Dresden orchestra conducted by Heinichen if himself and by the kappelmeister and violinist Johann Georg Pisendel. Needless to say, the cornerstones of this team were, among others, the oboists Francois Le Riche and Franz Richter, who, in the opinion of Telemann, to dedicate their "Kleine Kammermusik" to them, touched him deeply in the soul for the their way of handling the oboe with taste and great virtue, demonstrating extreme mastery in passages that required an extraordinary technique for large intervals and deaf and ungrateful notes. Riche and Richter perfectly mastered the brilliant sounds that nature gave to this delicate instrument. And this sonata is a typical example that follows in all aspects what Telemann wrote about it. It should also be emphasized that there is no numbered bass in this sonata, a sign that Heinichen had conceived it only for the two double-reed instruments, without the harmonic bass of a keyboard or an archlute. So the bundle line that communicates equally with the oboe, fills and completes this sonata in two brilliantly, so it does not need the help of a further accompaniment