Gennari Rinaldo

In this programme entitled Variations on Variations, Rinaldo Alessandrini, one of the today’s references on Baroque music, has chosen to adapt the Goldberg Variations and the Aria variata alla maniera italiana - initially composed for the keyboard - for small string ensemble, from duo to quartet.

Rinaldo’s libretto, based on Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, relates the siege of Jerusalem, during the first Crusade, by the Christian army lead by Godefroy de Bouillon. In this production, Goffredo is a preacher – nice suit and white teeth – who seems to be in conflict with the vamp Armida and her night club called “Gerusalemme”. Argante is the Saracen bouncer of the night club and particularly resistant to Goffredo’s speech. Almirena, Goffredo’s daughter, is a good looking maid who appears looking like a sort of Jeanne d’Arc but rapidly changes into a pom-pom girl. She is lusted after by Armida for her night club and is used by her father to manipulate or at least to motivate Rinaldo – an Eliott Ness or Dick Tracy like hero. Note that Almirena’s capture, which precedes and triggers Rinaldo’s famous lament “Cara sposa”, looks like a tribute to Hitchcock’s Birds.

Handel’s Italian oratorio seems to offer a great deal of fascination to continental-based ensembles presumably because the Italian texts make the works easier to perform well with non-Anglophone singers. But there are significant differences, between this work and the later oratorios. The later works use choruses and have quite strong narrative and moral elements. The English Oratorios were written for mainly English-trained singers whose style was expressive rather than virtuoso; in them the older Handel aimed for a new style.

Handel, Scarlatti, Corelli, Stradella, Muffat … From 1650 to the beginning of the eighteenth century, Rome exercised an immense power in attracting composers from all over Europe and experienced an intense moment of musical activity, because of - or in spite of - the papal administration. It was a prosperous period with a melting pot of influences. The programme devised here by the Roman conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini, offers a complete and personal vision of the time, passionate and secular, lyrical (made sublime by Sandrine Piau) and orchestral, romantic in every way. Rinaldo Alessandrini is one of the leading figures in the international early music scene.

Two musical titans in the classical world, award-winning Italian bass Lorenzo Regazzo and Italian conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini, are brought together once again to record the greatest operatic arias by George Frederic Handel. Handel, one of the most celebrated operatic composers of the eighteenth century, always remained out of step with the preferences of his era - notably his attachment to the 'natural' male voice in a time when the high voices of women or castratos triumphed everywhere.

Naïve continues its collaboration with renowned conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini, which sees him lead the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra in an exciting release featuring the overtures from Mozart’s greatest operas. This is in fact Alessandrini’s first recording with an orchestra playing on modern instruments and resulted from Alessandrini’s position as Principal Guest conductor of the Norwegian National Opera that he’s held since 2005. He chose this repertoire as during his years in this position, it was the sublime music of Mozart that the Orchestra responded to best.

Following the success of their Odradek release Canciones para una Reina - art songs by Emilio Arrieta - soprano Sofia Esparza and pianist Rinaldo Zhok return with an album of world-premiere recordings showcasing the cancion output of 19th-century Spanish composer Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, marking the composer's 200th anniversary.

Armida is the tenth opera in the Vivaldi Edition; it's the second one to be recorded by Rinaldo Alessandrini (their first was L’Olimpiade). It's a great success. Marking the end of Vivaldi's first period in Venice, it lacks music for Act II. Alessandrini has reconstructed it here using carefully chosen existing music of the composer with the assistance of the musicologist Frédéric Delaméa.