Antonio Soler
Antonio Soler (1729–83) was choirmaster and monk at El Escorial, composing keyboard sonatas, organ concertos, and church music for the monastery and royal court.
Based at Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Soler wrote for liturgy and for the palace that shared the foundation. His surviving catalogue is dominated by keyboard music: well over a hundred sonatas, six quintets for strings and keyboard, and six concertos for two organs, alongside Masses, Misereres, and villancicos.
On Move he is heard in the flamboyant Fandango and Concerto No. VI, in organ-duet Concierto I, and in paired sonatas on The Convict Harpsichordist.
Compositions by Antonio Soler appear on
The Convict Harpsichordist
John Grant, frustrated in love, shot a London lawyer in the buttock and was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. Granted a reprieve, he reached Sydney Cove in 1804 with Australia’s first harpsichord. What music did he play? Elizabeth Anderson answers on the instrument he brought.
Organ at the Opera
One of Move's all-time best sellers. Sydney City organist Robert Ampt and Amy Johansen play popular organ duets on the famous Ronald Sharp organ in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.
Fandango
Flamboyant Spanish and French Baroque keyboard music from harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson, joined by Douglas Lawrence on chamber organ for Soler’s two-keyboard concerto and Couperin’s musettes.