Camilla Ronzullo

For most listeners, the great thing here will be the 1952 recording of Sibelius' Violin Concerto with soloist Camilla Wicks accompanied by Sixten Ehrling leading the Stockholm Radio Symphony. An American born in Long Beach, CA, of Norwegian stock, the young Wicks was so deeply, passionately, and completely under the skin of the concerto that a more sympathetic and exciting performance of the work is hard to imagine.

Camilla de Rossi, Romana was one of four women who composed oratorios in Vienna in the early 1700s. She likely had musical training on stringed instruments, as evidenced by the exploration of unique instrumental colors in her compositions. All of her oratorios were written for solo voices and orchestra, alternating throughout between recitatives and arias. Four of de Rossi’s oratorios, written for Holy Week and other church celebrations at the Imperial Chapel in Vienna under Emperor Joseph I, and one cantata, have survived. Her first oratorio, Santa Beatrice d'Este (1707), was commissioned by the Emperor and later performed in Perugia in 1712. Il Sacrifizio de Abramo was written for Holy Week in 1708 and employed a single reed woodwind, the chalumeau, for interesting effect.