Niccolò Mestrino: Violin Concertos and Chamber Music Plamena Nikitassova & Les Élémens

• Niccolò Mestrino (1748 - 1789): Violin Concerto No. 6 in E Major:
• 1 Mestrino: Violin Concerto No. 6 in E Major: I. Maestoso 14:20
• 2 Mestrino: Violin Concerto No. 6 in E Major: II. Romance 04:12
• 3 Mestrino: Violin Concerto No. 6 in E Major: III. Rondo Allegro 07:10
• Sonata for Violin and Cello in D Major:
• 4 Mestrino: Sonata for Violin and Cello in D Major: I. Allegretto 08:49
• 5 Mestrino: Sonata for Violin and Cello in D Major: II. Romance Andantino 03:49
• 6 Mestrino: Sonata for Violin and Cello in D Major: III. Rondo 08:32
• Violin Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major:
• 7 Mestrino: Violin Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major: I. Allegro 17:55
• 8 Mestrino: Violin Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major: II. Romance Adagio 06:27
• 9 Mestrino: Violin Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major: III. Rondo 08:10
• Variations for Solo Violin in A Major:
• 10 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Thème varié. Moderato 01:34
• 11 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Var. I 01:10
• 12 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Var. II 01:38
• 13 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Var. III 01:25
• 14 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Var. IV 01:39
• 15 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Var. V 01:33
• 16 Mestrino: Variations for Solo Violin in A Major: Var. VI 01:41
• Total Runtime 01:30:04

Info for Niccolò Mestrino: Violin Concertos and Chamber Music

The art of composition attained a wholly new quality and a totally new aesthetic status with the works of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an art that their contemporaries already described as Classical. The standards these two masters set through their creations continue to shape our perceptions and criteria of evaluation to this day, yet we rarely think of the virtuosos who brought them to life and to whose outstanding skill they frequently owe their very existence. The Italian violinist Niccolò Mestrino was one such virtuoso. After several engagements with various orchestras in Italy he was appointed by Joseph Haydn as concertmaster of Prince Esterhazy’s famous court orchestra in Eisenstadt. Later he became the leader of the orchestra of the Théâtre de Monsieur opera house in Paris. The works that are recorded here for the first time demonstrate that Mestrino was not only an extraordinary violinist but also an accomplished composer.

Plamena Nikitassova, violin
Les Elemens

Plamena Nikitassova
In addition to her active concert career as a soloist and chamber musician, Plamena Nikitassova served as concertmaster of the Johann Sebastian Bach Foundation in St. Gallen from 2013 to 2017. From 2018 onwards, she has been regularly invited to lead various ensembles in France and Germany, including the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. In 2020, Nikitassova founded the chamber music series "Im Wandel der Zeit" (The Changing Times) in Basel; the series aims to present well-known and lesser-known compositions from the 18th and 19th centuries within their original stylistic and aesthetic contexts, using instruments with historical specifications and focusing on the specific playing techniques associated with Romantic-era string instruments.

Born in Varna, Bulgaria, Plamena Nikitassova began playing the violin at the age of five; at sixteen, she received a scholarship that took her to Switzerland for her musical studies. She studied classical violin at the Geneva Conservatory and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She obtained her soloist diploma in Geneva in 1999—graduating with distinction and the "Premier Prix de Virtuosité" under Prof. M. Karafilova—and was awarded the Leenhards Foundation Prize in Lausanne that same year. After meeting the violinist Jaap Schröder (Amsterdam), Nikitassova turned her attention to early music, completing her studies in Renaissance and Baroque violin with Chiara Banchini at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in 2005.

She has received high praise from the international press for her CD recordings—*Violin Sonatas by C. Zuccari* (2012, Diapason d’Or Découverte), *Violin Sonatas by Gaspard Fritz 1747* (2014), *The Violin’s Delight – a garden of pleasure* (2017, Diapason 5), as well as *Beethoven, Debussy and Ravel* (2016), *Mozart and His Contemporaries* (2018), and *Johann Sebastian Bach Sonatas* (2021). Her partners for these recordings included Jörg-Andreas Bötticher on harpsichord, and Rudolf Lutz and Aline Zylberajch on piano. Her research findings regarding a forgotten historical violin technique—the so-called "low position" (holding the instrument against the chest)—are reflected in two further recordings: Johann Paul von Westhoff’s *Suites for Solo Violin* (2020) and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s *Sonatae Violino Solo 1681* (2022). Both recordings were included in the "Best of List" for Early Music by the German Record Critics' Award (April 2022); the former was also awarded the *Diapason d’Or*, while the latter received a *Diapason 5* rating.

Booklet for Niccolò Mestrino: Violin Concertos and Chamber Music