Gemitaiz Noi Siamo Così

The long awaited first album by Promenade from Genova. Skilled performances, melodies, a various palette of colors(acoustic and electric elements), all the right moves are included in their mix , everything spread by an Italian flavour and the characteristic voice of Matteo Barisone. A new discover…a future classic.

Veteran Italian rock band Pooh formed in Bologna in 1966. During the late '60s, the band featured Roby Facchinetti, Valerio Negrini, Dodi Battaglia, and Riccardo Fogli, but after Negrini left in 1971, the band recruited guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Red Canzian plus drummer and percussionist Stefano D'Orazio, and began a long run as one of the best and most popular Italian rockers of their times. The band recorded for many labels, including CBS, Vedette, CGD (Compagnia Generale del Disco), and Warner Music Italy, selling over 100 million records in the process. Pooh continued to tour and record continually up into the 2010s, but in late 2016 they decided to call it quits by the end of the year, in order to complete their 50-year anniversary as a band. The concert album Pooh 50: L'Ultima Notte Insieme, recorded in mid-June at two shows in Milan, promptly hit number one in the Italian charts upon release in September.

‘Così amor mi fai languir’ is the title of an aria from the opera La forza dell’amor paterno by Alessandro Stradella, a composer who distinguished himself not only in the field of opera, but also in an even more prolific genre that is today much less popular: the cantata, a wonderful laboratory for creation and exploration. This CD presents a superb selection of little known works, here recorded for the first time, which cover the full expressive palette of amorous feelings.

Beethoven thought the libretto immoral, Wagner thought it trivial. It was Herbert von Karajan’s mentor and inspiration, the composer and conductor Richard Strauss, who brought Mozart’s Così fan tutte back centre stage in the early years of the 20th century, since when this exquisite, witty and subtly disturbing exploration of sexual politics has become one of Mozart’s best-loved works. The present set preserves one of its most admired recordings, originally released in the autumn of 1955 on the eve of the bicentenary of Mozart’s birth. Gramophone described it as a ‘superlative issue’, perfectly staged for the microphone with an ideal cast and conducting and playing of the finest quality. ‘Listening with friends in my music room’, wrote the critic Alec Robertson, ‘gave the impression that by some miracle the opera was being performed there to a scale proportionate to its size, enabling us to savour the exquisite music, without any of the usual distractions.’

This recording of Così fan tutte was made when the cast was preparing for performances at the 1993 Edinburgh Festival, so the cast had the advantage of enough rehearsal time together to relax into the opera's humor. Their easy rapport is most evident in the spirited recitatives, which sparkle with spontaneity and wit. The fact that the principals are talented comedians makes their unforced interactions genuinely fun, and they sound like they are thoroughly enjoying themselves. Although they are not all international superstars, the performances are stellar. The soloists bring out the humanity and complexity of the opera, and artfully convey their characters' emotional development.