Europa 30.07.2010

There is no complete surviving score for Vivaldi's Ercole su'l Termodonte, but there is enough existing material that modern scholars have been able to reconstruct it primarily by making new settings of the lost recitatives. The first production of the opera since Vivaldi's time was at Spoleto in 2006 in a version by Alessandro Ciccolini, which was released as a DVD. Conductor Fabio Biondi made a version introduced in Venice in 2007, which is recorded on this 2010 Virgin CD. Biondi's recording has the advantage of two international superstars in the leading roles, tenor Rolando Villazón and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and soprano Diana Damrau is nearly in their league. Villazón's earthy voice is usually associated with 19th century and verismo Italian repertoire, but he has an acute sensitivity to Baroque vocal style, and his robust, almost baritonal tenor is entirely appropriate for a larger-than-life character like Hercules.

La Santissima Annunziata est un oratorio d'Alessandro Scarlatti, écrit pour solistes (SSSAT) cordes et basse continue, créé à Rome au Palazzo della Cancelleria en 1700 ou 1703, sur un livret italien de Pietro Ottoboni.
Présenté pour la première fois le 3 avril 1700 au Palazzo della Cancelleria de Rome (résidence du cardinal) et repris postérieurement, au moins dans autres deux occasions : le 1er avril 1703 et le 25 mars 1708 (palazzo Ruspoli). Le fait qu'une annonce de la représentation de 1700 attribue la responsabilité de la musique à Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier, musicien attaché à Ottoboni, a fait douter sur le véritable auteur de celle-ci.

Didone is an opera, set to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello (later librettist for Claudio Monteverdi). The opera was first performed at Venice's Teatro San Cassiano during 1641. The plot is based on Virgil's Aeneid (Book 4 in particular), though Busenello, in his second libretto for Cavalli, replaces Dido's tragic suicide of Virgil with a happy ending in which Dido marries Iarbas, King of the Getuli, who saves Dido from herself after Aeneas abandons her. The action is divided into a prologue and 3 acts.

The legendary Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born 300 years ago, in 1710. To mark the anniversary, Naïve re-issues three renowned recordings to feature his choral music, in a specially-priced box set, headed by the Gramophone award-winning version of his Stabat Mater by Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano, considered one of the best ever recorded.

Featuring iconic songs from some of the meanest axemen to ever strap on a guitar, Pure… Guitar Heroes takes listeners on a journey through some of classic rock's greatest guitar moments…

The second solo release from the guitarist of Electrum finds him in much more prog territory, as contrasted with the elegant prog-inflected fusion of his first outing. The epic "A Poet's Talespin" with its beautiful piano lines and wonderful female vocals recalls the best of contemporary progressive rock…

Music For Film And Exhibition (2007). Peter Andersson from the Cold Meat Industry act Raison D’etre presents his sound work for film and exhibition, spanning through the years 1999 to 2006. Peter has been working on several film and exhibition projects, some of these projects never went to final completion but the music was composed in almost all the cases. Music for Film and Exhibition presents a broad spectrum of the sounds and music capabilities of Peter Andersson and those familiar with any of his different music projects including Raison D’etre, Necrophorus, Atomine Elektrine, Bocksholm etc. will most probably enjoy this double album very much…