Claudio Ferlan, I Gesuiti

Galuppi was a very accomplished composer and harpsichord player by the age of twenty with a reputation in both Venice and Florence. He was a pupil of Marcello and played for Vivaldi. He composed many serious and comic operas as well as much sacred and keyboard music. During his 79 years he travelled to St Petersburg and was well-known to the Tsar‘s family. He collaborated with the famous Italian playwright Goldoni in many projects. Goldoni‘s epigram on Galuppi: “What music! What style! What masterworks!”

The plot concerns the feisty eponymous heroine Isabella. She has been sailing in the Mediterranean, accompanied by an elderly admirer Taddeo, in search of her lover Lindoro. After her ship is wrecked Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers, believes her the ideal replacement for his neglected wife who he intends to marry off to a captured slave, who happens to be Lindoro. Complicated situations ensue involving Taddeo being awarded the honour of Kaimakan and Mustafa in turn becoming a Pappataci, a spoof award invented by Isabella to keep him obeying her strict instructions. All ends well in a rousing finale with the Italians escaping from the clutches of the Bey.

As a genre, the concerto grosso is virtually unique in its ability to capture the verve and elegance of baroque music. Its most outstanding exponent was Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), whose principal concerti grossi are brought together in the present release. Recorded in the magnificent antique Basilica di San Marco in Rome, whose Baroque style dates back to the restorations of the 17th and 18th centuries, this DVD recreates a wonderful historical atmosphere. Played by I Solisti Veneti under their founder and director Claudio Scimone, this DVD also provides for an unforgettable musical experience thanks to the performers’ eminence in this repertory.

There are three absolutely amazing performances on this set, and not because the voices are more or less beautiful than usual: those of Victoria de los Angeles, Marilyn Horne, and Sesto Bruscantini. The first-named sings here with dramatic expression, cleanly executed coloratura runs, and trills, none of which she was known for through most of her career. By dramatic expression I do not mean the generalized drama of her Butterfly, but word-painting and attention to text, of getting inside the character. Her coloratura runs here are far more cleanly executed than on her famous recording of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. As for trills, yes, she attempted a couple of imperfect ones on her recordings, but none in her Jewel Song from Faust, neither the mono recording from 1952 nor the stereo remake of 1957, neither in Nedda’s 1953 “Ballatella” nor in Antonia’s music in the 1965 Contes d’Hoffman.

This is a fine recording of the complete set of concertos for strings with solo violin and harpsichord by Tomaso Albinoni, performed by I Solisti Veneti directed by Claudio Scimone. Albinoni was a contemporary of the better-known Antonio Vivaldi and wrote concertos in a similar style. String instruments much as we know them today were developed in Cremona in the 17th and 18th centuries by three families in particular - Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari - to replace the viols that had been used in the previous centuries. As a result there were several composers, in Italy especially but also elsewhere in Europe, who composed works for these exciting new-sounding instruments.

"Arias for mezzo soprano", it says, and authentically minded readers may already have noted that most of them would be sung by a countertenor these days, being originally for castrati. A little while ago I reviewed a record, "Arias for Farinelli", by Vivica Genaux, which came with a fascinating essay by René Jacobs in which he argued that the nearest we can get these days to the sound of the castrati is not the countertenor, which he rudely says should really be called a "falsettist", but the mezzo soprano, who is able to reproduce the strong, warm chest tones in her lower range which contemporary commentators tell us were at the base of the castrato voice production, the voice becoming sweeter and softer as it goes into the higher range.

Salieri's own autograph work-list contains the following entry: 'Two concertos for the pianoforte, written for two ladies." Unfortunately we do not know who these two ladies were. All that we can say for certain is that they must both have been technically accomplished and trained to the highest musical standards. Salieri's demanding concertos are distinguished in the main by their middle movements, traditionally the genre's most fertile field of experimentation.

Posterity has recorded neither date of composition nor dedicatee of this “pastoral revel,” although modern scholars theorize the work was composed for the birth of Maria-Theresa in 1717. With its strict sequence of recitative, aria and occasional chorus, and gracious allegorical aura, Albinoni seems more inclined to conform to oratorio tradition than to advance the cause of the still-young operatic form. This live 1983 Venice performance (complete with unruly bursts of applause at appropriate moments) suggests the charms of the piece without convincing that it is a milestone. Anderson’s silvery soprano soars in florid passages, while Browne’s incisive mezzo brings unusual depth to Apollo. Scimone leads a superior performance, born of stylistic discrimination and theatrical fire.

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of Schoenberg's birth (September 13, 2024) Schoenberg is praised for his avant-garde style, but he is also considered part of the German Romantic lineage, and the "old style" suite was composed shortly after he emigrated to the US to escape persecution from the Nazis. "Nacht der Klein" is in the "Post-Wagner" style. This is a collection of works that can be said to be unique for a recording by Claudio Simone & I Solisti Veneti. Recorded in 1984.