Giovanni Sciara – La Grotta Del Fico Nero

In 1996, the complete recording of the oratorio La morte del cor penitente (The Death of the Penitent Heart), composed around 1671, by the Northern Italian Early-Music ensemble Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca was a special event: for the first time, the Italian composer Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690) an important creator of sacred and chamber music – was introduced with a voluminous work. At the same time, the recording, which went on to win several awards, also marked the beginning of the career of the Sonatori around Andrea Marcon, now long famous. Legrenzi was a master of baroque musical rhetoric: expressive harmonies and melodic elegance transformed the libretto by an unknown author, which illustrates its theme with numerous metaphors, into a sensuous pleasure.

While the entire corpus of Alessandro Scarlatti’s cantatas boasts over 800 titles, only a precious fraction of them call for two violin parts in addition to the voice and continuo. Of these, the Quartetto Vanvitelli, in its fifth recording for Arcana (and here joined by Lena Yokoyama as second violin), offers us four unpublished cantatas: works associated with the formidable Roman patronage of the last decade of the 17th century and, more specifically, with “La Giorgina” (as Angela Voglia was known), the celebrated soprano linked first to Christina of Sweden, then to the Spanish Duke of Medinaceli, whose lover she was, both in Rome and at the viceregal court of Naples. The singer entrusted with the task of reviving Giorgina’s voice and appeal is Valeria La Grotta, a Baroque specialist and a distinguished interpreter of a repertoire she has also tackled as a scholar by conducting first-hand research of the sources. This is a valuable addition to the catalogue of an iconic composer, the 300th anniversary of whose death will be celebrated in 2025.

While the entire corpus of Alessandro Scarlatti’s cantatas boasts over 800 titles, only a precious fraction of them call for two violin parts in addition to the voice and continuo. Of these, the Quartetto Vanvitelli, in its fifth recording for Arcana (and here joined by Lena Yokoyama as second violin), offers us four unpublished cantatas: works associated with the formidable Roman patronage of the last decade of the 17th century and, more specifically, with “La Giorgina” (as Angela Voglia was known), the celebrated soprano linked first to Christina of Sweden, then to the Spanish Duke of Medinaceli, whose lover she was, both in Rome and at the viceregal court of Naples. The singer entrusted with the task of reviving Giorgina’s voice and appeal is Valeria La Grotta, a Baroque specialist and a distinguished interpreter of a repertoire she has also tackled as a scholar by conducting first-hand research of the sources. This is a valuable addition to the catalogue of an iconic composer, the 300th anniversary of whose death will be celebrated in 2025.