Christina Queen

After nearly forty years of musical and personal camaraderie, drummer and producer Bob Christina began studio work with Matt "Guitar" Murphy on what would become Murphy's final project. After he passed in June of 2018, the fate of the unfinished project was placed in Christina's hands. He began outreach to musicians who were friends of Murphy, played with him, or were otherwise influenced by him. The response was overwhelming.

After nearly forty years of musical and personal camaraderie, drummer and producer Bob Christina began studio work with Matt "Guitar" Murphy on what would become Murphy's final project. After he passed in June of 2018, the fate of the unfinished project was placed in Christina's hands. He began outreach to musicians who were friends of Murphy, played with him, or were otherwise influenced by him. The response was overwhelming.

After nearly forty years of musical and personal camaraderie, drummer and producer Bob Christina began studio work with Matt "Guitar" Murphy on what would become Murphy's final project. After he passed in June of 2018, the fate of the unfinished project was placed in Christina's hands. He began outreach to musicians who were friends of Murphy, played with him, or were otherwise influenced by him. The response was overwhelming.

The latest album from Christina Pluhar and her instrumental ensemble L’Arpeggiata sheds new light on the chamber cantatas of 17th century Italian composer, Luigi Rossi. He wrote more than 300 of these works and Christina Pluhar’s new double album includes an impressive number of 21 world premiere recordings, which are the fruit of Christina Pluhar’s research among music manuscripts held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Vatican Library.

That's right, King! in Swedish, "Kong" rather than "Drottning"! Christina (1626-1689) was the only surviving child of Sweden's greatest monarch Gustavus Adolphus Vasa, who raised her to rule as a king and whose ministers executed his will by crowning the six-year-old girl King! Christina ruled under a regency until age 18, and then personally and earnestly over some eight years until her abdication in 1654. Her involvement in Swedish affair didn't terminate with her abdication, however. She returned to Sweden several times, on the last of which she might well have resumed her throne but for her whimsical conversion to Catholicism. She also drew her wealth, in her initial years in Italy, from vast estates in Sweden.

A tinge of nationalistic pride gleams through the notes and the selections of music on "Christinas Resa". Soprano Susanne Rydén is Swedish, as are most members of the Stockholm Baroque Ensemble which accompanies her vivaciously on these arias from baroque operas and cantatas. It's the superb singing of Susanne Rydén that makes this CD extremely attractive. Rydén has both the rich timbres of an operatic diva and the supple control of an Historically Informed performer specializing in the baroque.