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Tartini’s habit of giving his sonatas enigmatic titles drawn from Metastasio’s Classical dramas also anticipates the Classical period, when composers wanted their instrumental music to have a dramatic, operatic quality. The title ‘Didone abbandonata’ for Sonata No 10 in G minor only became popular in the nineteenth century, but it is certainly appropriate to the mood of the work, pathetic and tempestuous by turns, and it may go back to the composer.

from notes by Peter Holman © 1992