Federico Lorka

First recording of Pericoli’s 6 Cello Sonatas. Little is known about the life of Pasquale Pericoli, who lived and worked in the second half of the 18th century. He is known to have produced operas in Stockholm for some years, he himself claimed to be of Neapolitan origin. His Neapolitan roots certainly are betrayed in his 6 Cello Sonatas, in which the formal structure of the Sonata (albeit in embryonic form, not yet fully developed as in the Classical Period) is imbued with melodic charm and cantabile, the cello seeming to sing instead of play.

The most comprehensive collection of organ music by a major forerunner to Monteverdi, recorded on a historically significant instrument by an organist with a distinguished catalogue of 17th-century repertoire.

Naïve are delighted to announce the world premiere recording of 'Orlando Furioso', the 1714 version. It scored a huge success at the Teatro San Angelo in Venice, where it was directed by none other than Vivaldi and his father. The manuscript, rediscovered 250 years later in Vivaldi’s personal library, now in Turin, was thought to be a revision of an existing 'Orlando' of 1713 by Bolognese composer Ristori. However, the musicologists in charge of the numbering of the works of Vivaldi, Peter Ryom and his successor Federico Maria Sardelli, wondered why Vivaldi should have kept this music in his personal corpus among all his other scores, and noticed that the manuscript featured many different hands and numerous pasted-in corrections of the parts.

Alessandro Scarlatti is generally considered one of the most important Italian composers of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. But his music, although it has received more attention in recent years, is still largely unknown. This is partly due to the large quantity of his output: in the genre of the chamber cantata alone at least six hundred compositions are with certainty attributable to him.

Chandos' new exclusive collaboration with the recent Salzburg and Leeds competition winner Federico Colli is kicking off with this first volume in a unique Scarlatti series. Playing on a modern Steinway, the Italian pianist internationally recognised for his intelligent, imaginative interpretations and impeccable technique here explores the keyboard sonatas of Scarlatti, taking a fresh approach from a philosophical angle, by grouping the compositions into 'chapters' in order to reflect the many contrasts of his life and his contradictory personality.

Naïve continues its admirable series of complete recordings of Vivaldi's operas with Atenaide, an opera seria that was not successful at its 1728 premiere, and received no further performances during the composer's lifetime. This recording was made as a result of the first modern production, which was presented in the same Florentine theater in which the opera had received its premiere. With an unusually convoluted plot, and lasting over three-and-a-half hours, its unlikely that Atenaide will ever make its way into the repertoire, but especially for the Vivaldi enthusiast and the lover of virtuosic Baroque vocal display, the opera should be very attractive.