Francesca Dellorusso

Five years ago, Stile Galante dedicated a CD recording with the renowned Swedish mezzosoprano Ann Hallenberg to the celebrated soprano castrato Luigi Marchesi (1754-1829). Accompanied by soprano Francesca Cassinari, Stile Galante is now going back to this extraordinary musician and presents his work as a composer of chamber vocal music. Marchesi published during his stay in London two different collections of ariettas with fortepiano and harp accompaniment. The Ariette op. 1 & 2 are sweet musical cameos dominated by remarkable elegance. They perfectly embody the taste of the time and represent Marchesi’s wish to use his popularity as an opera singer to push in front of the audience a more all-round image of himself as an artist. The programme is rounded off with brilliant instrumental pieces for fortepiano and harps by female composers Anne- Marie Krumpholz (1766-1824) and Veronika Rosalia Cianchettini (1769-1833) who worked with Marchesi in London.

Known for its championship of neglected repertoire, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective presents a programme of works by members of the Second Viennese School, based around Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Probably Schoenberg’s best-known piece – in either of its two orchestral versions or the original string sextet version heard here, Verklärte Nacht is certainly not neglected!

Being the child of a famous father can be quite a burden, in particular when father and child have the same occupation. The Bach sons knew all about it. It can also be a blessing, though. That was certainly the case with the two most famous female composers of 17th-century Italy, Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini. The latter was the daughter of Giulio Caccini who with his compositions and in his writings expressed a new approach to music in which the text was at the centre and should be depicted in the music.

Following a highly successful series of concerts in the summer of 2022, Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, Laura van der Heijden, and Federico Colli headed into the studio to record Mozart’s Piano Quartets. Whilst he may not have been the first composer to add a viola to the popular piano trio, Mozart was certainly the first to do so with such outstanding success. In his piano quartets, the strings become an equal partner to the piano, rather than mere accompaniment – much as in his piano concertos.