Weber: Sonate à mandolino e basso

The 12 Sonatas for mandolino and continuo by Francesco Weber represent one of the most interesting collections of compositions for the baroque mandolino that have come down to us. Despite his German surname clearly suggesting German ancestry, Francesco Weber, was an Italian lutenist / theorbist / mandolinist and composer, whose career was mainly in England. My research started from his will – drawn up in London under the name of John Francis Weber on April 13, 1745 – and proved several months after his death on June 5, 1751, in which the “Republic of Genova” is often mentioned concerning assets and family properties. The 5-course mandolin used for this recording was built in Genoa in 1717 by Andrea Weber (1658-1740). It is the only surviving example by this maker, and one of the very few surviving Genoese baroque “mandolinos.” It is an instrument recently discovered in a private collection, therefore completely unknown even to early mandolin experts, before this recording. An even more extraordinary aspect that distinguishes this disc is the fact that it represents a truly exceptional case – perhaps unprecedented at least in the field of early plucked string instruments – in which the music of a composer is recorded using an instrument built by his father.