Dolce Duello

Cecilia Bartoli and Sol Gabetta – two of the most captivating women in classical music – are joining together for a new album ‘Dolce Duello’ to be released on Decca Classics on 10th November. It is a collection of Baroque masterpieces which showcase the stunning combination of voice and cello in a series of dazzling duels and wondrous arias. To coincide with the release, Bartoli and Gabetta will be performing on a European tour with Cappella Gabetta and conductor and violinist Andrés Gabetta.

Harmonia Mundi's release features four secular cantatas and a trio sonata Handel wrote during his sojourn in Italy during his early twenties. The cantatas range from the mini-opera Il duello amoroso or Amarilli vezzosa, which depicts a shepherd's vain courting of a resisting nymph, to solo works in which a narrator describes similar pastoral stories, most of which also end in rejection. In Il duello amoroso, soprano Hélène Guilmette joins countertenor Andreas Scholl, and their charming banter leaves the listener saddened that the shepherd's suit was so dismally unsuccessful.

This set presents an extensive collection of works which George Frideric Handel wrote during his short but astoundingly fruitful stay in Italy. Here he met the great composers of the day, imbuing the rich Italian style, full of drama, cantabile and instrumental brilliance.

La Reverdie - Knights, Maids and Miracles: The Spring of Middle Ages (2016) {5CD Arcana Official Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 1.54 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 769 Mb
Full Artwork (pdf+jpg) -> 229 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Arcana / Outhere Music | A 399
Classical / Medieval / Choral / Chamber Music / Vocal Music

In August 1986 two pairs of young sisters (Claudia and Livia Caffagni, Elisabetta and Ella de Mircovich) founded the ensemble La Reverdie. The name, derived from a poetic genre that celebrates the return of Spring, reveals perhaps the principal trait of a group that, for 30 years now, has captivated audiences and critics alike for the variety in its approach to the vast and varied musical repertoire of Middle Ages and early Renaissance. To mark this anniversary, Arcana brings together in a single 5-CD box-set all the themed projects that, over the years, La Reverdie has devoted to various aspects of Medieval culture.

The chamber cantata flourished in Italy as a counterpart to public opera and oratorio, cultivated by aristocratic patrons for their personal enjoyment. Perhaps because of its essentially private origins, this pervasive Baroque form remains relatively little known today.