Endimione

A beguiling rarity. Johann Sebastian’s youngest and most cosmopolitan son composed this serenata in London in 1772. The plot revolves around the triangular relationship between Diana, her nymph Nice and Endymion, slyly manipulated by Cupid and culminating in the obligatory paean to love. In the booklet, Bruno Weil dubs Endimione ‘one of the first operettas’; but though there are touches of cruel humour, usually at Nice’s expense, the musical idiom and structure, based on a sequence of elaborate arias, are essentially those of opera seria. Bach’s suave, mellifluous style often sounds like Mozart minus the master’s dynamic impulse and control of long-range tensions.

The works presented on this dise are by the young Scarlatti, freshly appointed master of thé Chapel Royal in Naples (1684). Despite an occasional use of the da capo, the form is extremely free, more often obeying theatrical instinct than more musical convention. With the présence of ritornelli and with its declamatory recitatives reminiscent of Monteverdi and Legrenzi, the writing testifies to an evident relationship with the Venetian style. The mostly monosyllabic arias occasionally give way to vocalises not in any spirit of virtuosity, but in order to develop an expressive idea. The words here take centre stage ; the broad and dramatic melodie lines call to mind the reforms of Gluck as well as Italian verismo. Apparent here are signs ofan inspirational vein which reappears throughout musical history, complying with a cycle which oscillates between the stylish and the genuine.

This luxurious set containing 39 CDs, 3 DVDs, 1 CD-Rom and four detailed booklets will tell you the full story of Baroque opera in Italy, France, England, and Germany. No fewer than 17 complete operas (including two on DVD) and two supplementary CDs (the dawn of opera, Overtures for the Hamburg Opera) provide the most comprehensive overview of the genre ever attempted! The finest performers are assembled here under the direction of René Jacobs and William Christie to offer you 47 hours of music. An opportunity to discover or to hear again the masterpieces of Baroque opera, some of which have been unavailable on CD for many years.

Leo was born in San Vito degli Schiavoni (current San Vito dei Normanni, province of Brindisi), then part of the Kingdom of Naples.
He became a student at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini at Naples in 1703, and was a pupil first of Francesco Provenzale and later of Nicola Fago. It has been supposed that he was a pupil of Pitoni and Alessandro Scarlatti, but he could not possibly have studied with either of these composers, although he was undoubtedly influenced by their compositions. His earliest known work was a sacred drama, L'infedelta abbattuta, performed by his fellow-students in 1712.

Raymond Leppard's second and more renowned contribution to the modern revival of Cavalli: a classic among Baroque opera recordings which won the coveted Rosette award from the Penguin Record Guide. In 1651, seven years after Ormindo (also reissued by Eloquence in Leppard's recording, 482 9382), Cavalli and his librettist Faustini scored another hit with the hungry but demanding Venetian opera public with a tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The change that all of Ovid's central characters undergo is in this case suffered by the nymph Calisto, who is rejected by the goddess Diana, turned into a bear by the Furies and back into a human by Jupiter, who finally sets her among the stars in reward for her patience and her love. Writing as editor of the Musical Times in the summer of 1970, Stanley Sadie observed that.

Luigi Rossi (ca. 1597 – 20 February 1653) was an Italian Baroque composer. Rossi was born in Torremaggiore, a small town near Foggia, in the ancient kingdom of Naples and at an early age he went to Naples. There he studied music with the Franco-Flemish composer Jean de Macque who was organist of the Santa Casa dell’Annunziata and maestro di cappella to the Spanish viceroy. Rossi later entered the service of the Caetani, dukes of Traetta. Luigi Rossi composed just two operas: Il palazzo incantato, which was given at Rome in 1642; and Orfeo, written after he was invited by Cardinal Mazarin in 1646 to go to Paris for that purpose, and given its premiere there in 1647. Rossi returned to France in 1648 hoping to write another opera, but no production was possible because the court had sought refuge outside Paris. Rossi returned to Rome by 1650 and never attempted anything more for the stage.