Ghislieri

Après le grand succès de leur premier enregistrement pour Arcana, consacré à deux chefs-d'oeuvre restés non publiés de Pergolesi, Giulio Prandi et le Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri nous reviennent avec un enregistrement consacré au Requiem de Niccolò Jommelli. Composé en 1756 pour les obsèques de la mère du duc de Wurtemberg, il est devenu le Requiem le plus populaire en Europe jusqu à 1791, date de la composition de celui de Mozart.

The splendour of Mozart’s motet Exsultate, jubilate stands out in a repertoire that has for too long remained in the shadows: the magnificent output of church music composed in 18th-century Milan, the city in which Mozart, then not even 17 years old, wrote his first masterpiece of sacred music precisely 250 years ago. The virtuosity and melodic beauty of that score, conceived for the celebrated castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, can finally be heard alongside the brilliant works – for soloists and choir, in both the stile antico and the new modern manner – composed for the exacting noble patrons of the capital of Austrian Lombardy by musicians of great refinement and talent: names that include the universally renowned Johann Christian Bach, Giovanni Andrea Fioroni, the then maestro di cappella of the cathedral, and the hitherto obscure Melchiorre Chiesa.

The splendour of Mozart’s motet Exsultate, jubilate stands out in a repertoire that has for too long remained in the shadows: the magnificent output of church music composed in 18th century.

At the end of 1706, not yet 22 years of age, George Frideric Handel arrived in Rome. “Having shown off his skills to the amazement of everyone” on the organ of St John Lateran on 14 January 1707, the young talent from beyond the Alps immediately established himself in the lively cultural fabric of the city, causing a disruptive reaction, an alchemy that was to transform the traveller as much as his hosts. The compositions recorded here testify to this meeting: a dialogue between two musical cultures that shared an illustrious history & an extremely dynamic modernity; a dialogue captured in the first annus mirabilis of the crucial Italian tour that gave rise to the earliest masterpieces by the Saxon, as German musicians were often called in Italy.

For Glossa s new 'Passio' release Antonio Florio has discovered and prepared a performing edition of the 1685 St John Passion setting by the Neapolitan composer Gaetano Veneziano: a contemporary of Scarlatti, favoured pupil of Francesco Provenzale and maestro in the royal chapel. It features countertenor Raffaele Pe in the technically demanding role of the Evangelist. Until recently, Italian Passiontide settings from the Baroque era have amounted to only that by Alessandro Scarlatti, but this score by Veneziano has been found in the Archivio dell Oratorio dei Girolamini in Naples.

Since it's inception in 2001, the Vivaldi Edition has explored the fantastic diversity of the work of the Prete Rosso.

L’inquisitore domenicano Michele Ghislieri ascese al soglio pontificio il 7 gennaio 1566 col nome di Pio V. Durante il suo pontificato, durato in tutto sei anni, combatté strenuamente i nemici della cristianità che minavano l’autorità papale da ogni lato, agendo in modo infaticabile per applicare con rigore i dettami della Chiesa stabiliti durante il Concilio di Trento. Fra le figure più carismatiche del suo tempo, Pio V tentò in ogni modo di arginare il dilagare delle eresie in Europa e l’affermarsi del protestantesimo e del calvinismo in diversi Paesi. Strinse alleanze con i sovrani cattolici dell’epoca e sostenne il lavoro dell’Inquisizione, monitorando con grande cura l’ortodossia di imperatori e re, cardinali e ordini monastici, e giungendo persino a scomunicare Elisabetta I d’Inghilterra..