Andreas Scholl

The acclaimed recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger and her ensemble 1700 team up with famous countertenor Andreas Scholl for this inspiring new album featuring the work of J.S. Bach. The album includes arias from Bach cantatas for alto, a concerto for harpsichord arranged for flute, the cantata BWV 170 “Vergnügte Ruh” and the famed Brandenburg concertos No. 2 and No. 4. Dorothee Oberlinger is one of the most amazing discoveries of recent years, an expressive virtuoso who - quite rightly - received numerous awards while still very young.

For the first time with naïve, the counter-tenor Andreas Scholl joins the Accademia Bizantina and Alessandro Tampieri to present a Neapolitan programme, centred on the Virgin Mary.

Certainly fans of countertenor Andreas Scholl and lovers of Handel's Italian cantatas will not be disappointed with this new release. Scholl's voice retains its clear, fluid, golden-toned beauty, and he absolutely owns these little dramas centered around the common themes of the quest for love (or attempts to avoid its "cruel trap"). On hearing the very early cantata Vedendo Amor, you can't help being overcome with the sheer loveliness of the melodic invention (and the correspondingly lovely singing!) in the aria "Camminando lei pian piano…", and it's always a pleasure to be reminded that the Op. 2 No. 1 trio sonata, an effective complement to the vocal works, contains some of Handel's finest music in the chamber instrumental genre.

–David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Senesino, the voice that inspired Handel's greatest operas showpiece arias by Handel, Lotti, Albinoni, Porpora and Scarlatti. One of the truly outstanding voices of today, star countertenor Andreas Scholl celebrates one of the 18th Century's greatest vocal superstars, the remarkable male alto known as Senesino. Senesino's place in history was secured by his extraordinary association with Handel, who after travelling to Dresden to hear him, brought him to London to join his Italian Opera Company, where he was greatly celebrated by the public, and much admired by the ladies.

Countertenor Andreas Scholl's new CD is devoted to little-known, late-17th- and early-18th-century cantatas whose subject matter is Arcadia, a real region in Greece, but more frequently evoked as an idyllic place filled with innocent, simple shepherds and shepherdesses. Scholl employs a more operatic tone and attitude than we're accustomed to from countertenors. Not only does he use vibrato and "lean" on the voice, but he dips down, as in the final moments of a cantata by Marcello, into a deep, dark baritone range. The effect is dramatic and apt. Elsewhere his tone is just gorgeous and always expressive, he pays attention to the text of these works and captures the theatrical moment in each. The last movement of a work by Francesco Gasparini is excitingly acrobatic.

“Here's a very attractively prepared menu whose main course is the Stabatmater for countertenor and strings. Hors-d'oeuvres and side-dishes consist of a ripieno concerto (RV114), a chamber cantata for countertenor and strings (RV684), a string sonata in E flat (RV130) and an introductory motet to a lost Miserere (RV638). Taken together, the pieces demonstrate something of Vivaldi's diverse style as a composer. The chamber cantata, if closely related to the two sacred vocal items on the disc in respect of tonal colour, differs from them in character.

More than many opera seria, Handel's 1725 Italian opera, "Rodelinda", provides such a palpable story of jealousy, revenge and undying devotion that it is no wonder the opera itself has been given such widely diverse translations over the years. I was fortunate to experience two wonderful productions of "Rodelinda" just this past year. The first was Stephen Wadsworth's elaborate Metropolitan Opera production set on a beautiful 18th-century country estate, starring superstar soprano Renée Fleming in the title role and the extraordinary countertenor David Daniels as her husband Bertarido. The second also starred Daniels but with rising soprano Catherine Naglestad in David Alden's expressionistic film noir adaptation at the San Francisco Opera (first staged by Munich's Bavarian State Opera)… By Ed Uyeshima

Arvo Pärt is one of the greatest and most performed of living composers. Slow and meditative, often religious, reflecting his mystical experiences, Pärt’s works are unmistakeable. Here Morphing Chamber Orchestra, under its artistic director Tomasz Wabnic, performs some of the Estonian composer’s finest instrumental works, Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel and Summa, together with one of his vocal masterpieces, the Stabat Mater, presented here in a new arrangement, sung by three of today’s greatest operatic voices, Roberto Alagna, Aleksandra Kurzak and Andreas Scholl. Several shorter pieces, marvels of poetry and purity, sung by Andreas Scholl, complete this programme.