Fabio Scoto

Jephtha (1752) was George Frederick Handel's final oratorio, and it was composed during a period of incipient blindness and declining health. Yet the composer's artistic powers were undiminished in this dramatization of the Biblical story, for the arias and choruses are as memorable as any from Handel's earlier works in the genre, including Messiah and Israel in Egypt.

Preceded by a solemn prologue in which Iride admonishes mortals that they should not offend the gods, the story of Cavalli’s Didone comes to life thanks to numerous solo passages of highly varied character and structure, designed both for simple basso continuo support and for a more complex instrumental accompaniment, for five real parts which enjoy some independent moments and which create a diversion from the action or blend in with it in a wholly logical way, intensifying it in a studied, evocative manner.

For his third album for Sony Classical Fabio di Càsola has recorded works by Carl Maria von Weber, accompanied by the Chamber Philharmonic of St. Petersburg under the baton of its principal conductor Juri Gilbo. Weber came to know and love the clarinet through his friendship with Heinrich Baermann, a famous clarinettist of his day. The three most important works dedicated to Baermann are brought together on this CD: the two Clarinet Concertos and the Clarinet Quintet, which is to be heard on our recording in a version for clarinet and string orchestra.

With this exciting release, Fabio Biondi, the outstanding Europa Galante, and a cast led by stars Véronique Gens and Vivica Genaux strike a decisive blow for Alessandro Scarlatti's obscure Oratorio per la Santissima Trinità. Old-fashioned even in its day, the work is a musicalized instructional debate about the mysteries of the Holy Trinity between the allegorical personae of Faith, Theology, Faithlessness, Time, and Divine Love. If you're asleep already, it's for good reason. The libretto is the definition of dry – boring both for its rhetorical contrivance and its verbosity. But before you run for the nearest exit, know that Scarlatti responded to this uninspired mess of ideological bickering with outstanding music, entertaining from beginning to end. Drawing only on a small ensemble of strings and continuo, he created an improbably diverse-sounding score full of infectious rhythms, appealing vocal melodies, and rich textures.

Antonio Caldara was a mainstay at the Hapsburg court of Charles VI, and this large-scale oratorio (almost 80 minutes long) to a text by the renowned Metastasio was premiered at the royal chapel in 1730. It's a series of recitatives, arias, and intermittent choral interjections telling the story of the Passion and meditating on it. The overall mood is devotional, but the attractive music occasionally startles, as in the trombone accompaniment to the soprano aria "Dovunque il guardo." The attractive soloists wrap their voices around sonorous verbal felicities, and Fabio Biondi's fine early-music band plays with verve, making this a welcome exploration of a substantial work by an important contemporary of Vivaldi.