Benigno Zaccagnini

Once again, Wolfgang Brunner and his Salzburg Hofmusik have unearthed a music-dramatic work by Michael Haydn: the Singspiel "Die Ährenleserin" was written in 1778 for the Benedictine monastery theater of Kremsmünster, based on a libretto by the librettist Christian Felix Weiße.

Once again, Wolfgang Brunner and his Salzburg Hofmusik have unearthed a music-dramatic work by Michael Haydn: the Singspiel "Die Ährenleserin" was written in 1778 for the Benedictine monastery theater of Kremsmünster, based on a libretto by the librettist Christian Felix Weiße.

From the budding blossoms of first love and the heat of passion, to when feelings subside and fade away, “the seasons of love” are the overarching theme of this programme of madrigali concertati by three notable members of the Venetian school: Biagio Marini, Giovanni Rovetta and Giovanni Valentini. The madrigals on this recording exemplify the new musical aesthetic of affetti and the seasons of nature are mirrored by the stages of love experienced by the lyrical hero. The ever-changing vocal and instrumental forces of up to six singers and seven instrumentalists lend colourful variety to the recording as it progresses from primavera, estate, autunno and inverno through the seasons of love.

From the budding blossoms of first love and the heat of passion, to when feelings subside and fade away, “the seasons of love” are the overarching theme of this programme of madrigali concertati by three notable members of the Venetian school: Biagio Marini, Giovanni Rovetta and Giovanni Valentini.

Nicola Porpora was a composer who helped to turn Italian opera into the most successful and spectacular genre in Europe.

Nicola Porpora was a composer who helped to turn Italian opera into the most successful and spectacular genre in Europe. One of the few luminaries of the ‘Neapolitan School’ to actually be born in Naples, Porpora wrote L’Angelica, a serenade for six voices and instruments, to a libretto by the young Pietro Metastasio in 1720. The work was composed for the birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christine, wife of Charles VI, and its plot is comedic, focusing on the travails of a couple in love. The opera’s success was immediate, resulting in the commissioning of further works that would lead to ever more glamorous successes for Porpora in Venice, London, Dresden and Vienna.