Cecilia 2

This compilation of selections from a number of Cecilia Bartoli's recitals from between 1994 and 2009, plus several newly released tracks, is unified by the theme of sighs, "sospiri." The music expresses a variety of moods, including sighs of resignation, relaxation, grief, ecstasy, and romantic pleasure. The first of the two CDs is devoted to secular music, much of it operatic, and the second to sacred pieces. The album should offer few surprises to anyone who has a preconceived opinion of Bartoli's vocalism.

GRAMOPHONE Magazine Editor's Choice - February 2016. dB Productions celebrate the 150th anniversary of Carl Nielsen with two CD volumes of his music! Featured again on this second volume is one of Sweden’s leading violinists, Cecilia Zilliacus, in Nielsen’s violin concerto. The Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra is conducted by young rising star, Daniel Blendulf.

For generations Bellini’s “Norma” has been looked at from the vantage point of the Verismo era at the beginning of the 20th century. Now Cecilia Bartoli unveils the opera’s original pre-romantic style and colour by taking Norma back to its roots. For the first time ever the entire music is recorded with period instruments from Bellini’s time. Traditional cuts are reinstated. Keys and tonalities are put back into place and the music is executed according to Bellini’s own tempo indications.

Ein Rückblick auf zehn Jahre Cecilia Bartoli: Die Arie "Non piú mesto" aus der 1992 entstandenen Gesamtaufnahme von Rossinis La Cenerentola ist das älteste Tondokument dieser Anthologie, und mancher, der wie der Rezensent diese Cenerentola damals erworben hat, wird sich gut erinnern an die unbeschreiblich elektrisierende Wirkung, die die junge Italienerin mit ihrem vollblütigen Stimmmaterial, ihrem Temperament und ihrer faszinierenden Virtuosität auf ihn ausübte. Das Besondere: Die Geschwindigkeit der rasend schnellen Koloraturen geht niemals zu Lasten des Ausdrucks oder der Intensität.

This is a beautiful anthology of sacred liturgical music. Chung coordinates his forces in larger choral pieces with power and vertical balance. Contributions by Cecilia Bartoli find the mezzo in top form, and Bryn Terfel brings charismatic presence to “Pie Jesu” from the Fauré Requiem. Also included are the interminable "Song for Athene" by John Taverner and a great performance by Andrea Bocelli in Eric Levi's hymn for the world, "I Believe".

Superlatives don't do justice to this priceless and incomparable collection of duets by opera's two most charismatic singers, whose interpretations are brimming with nuance only the truly gifted could capture. However pleasing Cecilia Bartoli's renditions of Cherubino and others in Mozart Arias, the depth of Susanna's emotional life that Bartoli conveys has yet to be even imagined by other sopranos, as she rips through opera's boundaries, creating her very own Fach and threatening the jobs of soubrettes the world over. Once she and Bryn Terfel draw you into their world of stellar, multidimensional creations, there's no escape from pleasure; in their talented hands, recitative becomes as interesting as any aria.

The triumphant release of Mission in autumn 2012 drew rave reviews and was followed up in September 2013 with Steffani’s Stabat Mater, alongside his greatest sacred works for chorus, orchestra and soloists, and a further disc of dances and overtures with the celebrated I Barrochisti conducted by Diego Fasolis. On the Stabat Mater, Bartoli leads an array of internationally celebrated singers including countertenor Franco Fagioli, the bass Salvo Vitale and the two young German tenors Daniel Behle and Julian Prégardien. The final album of the collection is Danze & Ouvertures’, contains 43 great tracks of enchanting early-baroque music.

Antonio Pappano conducts Rome’s Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in two works from the earlier phase of Richard Strauss’s career: a comparative rarity, the mercurial, virtuosic Burleske for piano and orchestra, with Bertrand Chamayou as soloist, and the epic autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben, one of the composer’s orchestral masterpieces. “Strauss always thought dramaturgically,” says Pappano. “Recording this music in Italy, the link has to be through opera, with all its theatricality, temperament, contrast and colour …You need a certain charisma in the sound, which these players achieve.”