Giochi Sacri

In 1614, Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (1560– 1627) published his most important collection of monodies. A truly monumental contribution to the vocal solo repertoire, it comprises one hundred motets with basso continuo, twenty-five for each of the four main vocal registers. This collection survives today in only two copies of its 1615 German print with the title Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola.

In 1614, Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (1560– 1627) published his most important collection of monodies. A truly monumental contribution to the vocal solo repertoire, it comprises one hundred motets with basso continuo, twenty-five for each of the four main vocal registers. This collection survives today in only two copies of its 1615 German print with the title Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola.

This is the only recording of sacred music by the extraordinary 17th-century Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi. The Latin works in her collection Sacri Affetti Musicali were entirely suitable for church performance–something Strozzi herself, as a woman outside a convent, was forbidden to do. Most likely she performed these pieces as "spiritual recreation" at meetings of the "Academy of the Unisons" founded by her father, a well-known poet.

With this new recording, La Reverdie explores the well-known collection of medieval songbooks known as Carmina Burana. The manuscript features a series of texts, mostly in Latin, compiled between the 12th and early 13th century at the request of an anonymous abbot of Kloster Neustift in the southern Tyrol. Already the object of many recordings, these refined songs are presented here in an absolutely new approach. This recording focuses on the amorous and, above all, moralizing poems, partly because of the topicality of their messages. Performed in universities and ecclesiastical circles throughout all of Europe, they are a sort of highly refined ‘clerical entertainment’, lacking neither irony nor tender nostalgia.

Alessandro Scarlatti was born in Palermo on 2 May 1660. In 1678 he married Antonia Anzalone by whom he had ten children, including the great Domenico. When still quite young, Scarlatti made himself known in Roman musical circles through his pastoral fable Gli equivoci del sembiante performed in 1679. In addition to writing operas, Scarlatti tried his hand at the cantata - one of the musical genres preferred by the nobility of the time - and sacred music. The writing of sacred compositions became a professional obligation following the composer's appointment as maestro di cappella at the church of S.Gerolamo della Carità.

Following on from the highly expressive psalm settings, we now present the glorious antiphons of the master from Schärding am Inn: exquisite church music which Emperor Leopold I himself proclaimed as being definitive for the Catholic lands.

Chailly and La Scala maintain the gold standard for Verdi in this new release coupling two great but rarely recorded choral works. The Hymn of the Nations (Inno delle nazioni) features Decca’s star tenor Freddie De Tommaso, the first tenor to record this work for Decca since Pavarotti. First performed in London in 1862 the Hymn incorporates ‘God Save the Queen’, ‘La Marseillaise’ and ‘Il Canto degli Italiani’: the national anthems of Great Britain, France and Italy. The Four Scared Pieces were published as a set in 1898, shortly before Verdi died. It portrays themes promising peace and the hope of paradise. This album follows the success of ‘Verdi Choruses’ which BBC Music Magazine awarded a 5* review: “Chorus and orchestra are both on their mettle here: the orchestral playing is clean and brilliant, the choral tone full and healthy.” “Chailly is meticulous and pays attention to the fine details, drawing performances from the chorus that are always sonorous and tasteful.” - Gramophone