Giuseppe Oddo, Riccardo Antoniani L'italia Nel Petrolio

Philip Gossett calls this 'a Rossinian curio cabinet'. 'A banquet made with leftovers from the Rossini kitchen' would do as well. Whatever the analogy, the art is as much in the assembling of the materials as in the materials themselves. The most familiar music – gleanings from Zelmira, Armida and La donna del lago – is to be found in the very first item, the overture to the Rossinian pastiche Robert Bruce, assembled for the Paris Opéra in 1846 by the composer Louis Niedermeyer. The other orchestral items are all echt-Rossini.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Tartini, Mario Brunello and the Accademia dell’Annunciata commemorate one of the great partnerships in the history of eighteenth-century music: the relationship between Tartini and Antonio Vandini, a cellist born in Bologna (cradle of the Italian cello school), active in Padua for fifty years, and the author of the first biography of Tartini, whom he had known since the 1720s. Coupled here for the first time are Tartini’s two cello concertos, probably intended for his friend and colleague, alongside the only surviving concerto by Vandini himself.

In 1778 Antonio Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta became the first work to be performed at the Milanese theatre later known as the Teatro alla Scala. Despite this honour, Europa riconosciuta (Europa recognised) remained unperformed for 226 years until 2004, when Riccardo Muti, then Music Director of La Scala, chose it to reopen the legendary theatre after three years of renovation work. “I love Salieri," Diana Damrau has said. "He was an important man and a musical authority in Vienna, a teacher and an heir to Gluck as a successful opera composer. And, like Mozart, he was a dramatist in music. Europa Riconosciuta is masterly in its construction and builds up step by step.

Nadine Sierra’s childhood intuition – that she was born to sing opera – has proved correct in every way and is reflected in the title of her second solo album for DG. The dramatic presence, searing passion and technical brilliance for which the American lyric soprano regularly scores rave reviews are captured in Made for Opera, which trains the spotlight on three of the most demanding roles in the repertoire – Verdi’s Violetta, Donizetti’s Lucia and Gounod’s Juliette. Recorded with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai and Capella Cracoviensis under Riccardo Frizza, the album not only reflects Nadine Sierra’s command of bel canto technique and rich range of vocal colours, but also documents her insights into the psychology of the ill-starred heroines of La traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor and Roméo et Juliette.

One of the very rare incursions of Riccardo Muti in pre-romantic repertoire, and featuring trumpetist Maurice André, this album gathers together two heavyweights in their discipline. It includes masterpieces of the trumpet concerto (with notably a virtuoso transcription of a violin concerto by Torelli) and the second Brandenburg Concerto, in which the trumpet holds a prominent place.

Riccardo Muti takes time out here to present some of the lesser known, rarely heard orchestral scores of his fellow countrymen, and a superbly played, enjoyable concert it is too. Proceedings commence with a fine and spirited performance of Alfredo Casella's divertimento Paganiniana—not a great piece by any means but a work possessing plenty of charm and humour nevertheless; the outer movements are a bit of a romp (very opera buffa) and must have been as much fun to write as they clearly are for the La Scala Philharmonic to play.

The programme presented by Ann Hallenberg for DHM is a homage to the historical roman figure of Agrippina, one of the earliest historical women to inspire the fantasy of librettists and composers. Ann Hallenberg and a team of musicologists researched the musical archives to unearth all surviving operatic manuscripts containing the figure of Agrippina. Twelve of the arias are WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS. Apart from Handel’s famous opera ‘Agrippina’ and Telemann’s ‘Germanicus’, all music on this album has been recorded for the first time.

Ein Rückblick auf zehn Jahre Cecilia Bartoli: Die Arie "Non piú mesto" aus der 1992 entstandenen Gesamtaufnahme von Rossinis La Cenerentola ist das älteste Tondokument dieser Anthologie, und mancher, der wie der Rezensent diese Cenerentola damals erworben hat, wird sich gut erinnern an die unbeschreiblich elektrisierende Wirkung, die die junge Italienerin mit ihrem vollblütigen Stimmmaterial, ihrem Temperament und ihrer faszinierenden Virtuosität auf ihn ausübte. Das Besondere: Die Geschwindigkeit der rasend schnellen Koloraturen geht niemals zu Lasten des Ausdrucks oder der Intensität.

Rossini's La donna del lago ("The Lady of the Lake") is a lush, positively verdant dramatic opera, first performed in 1819, that deserves to be better known. Derived from Sir Walter Scott's famous poem, the story concerns love both unrequited and requited amid rebellious Scottish clans, as the titular lady is wooed by two rivals while her heart is pledged to another. Given Rossini's luxuriant orchestration and emphasis on romance, one can't help feeling that the composer had the hills of Tuscany more in mind than the rugged Scottish highlands. A succession of highly charged scenas contrast with languid melodies, such as Ellen's delightful introductory "Oh mattutini albori", making this a less bloodily melodramatic companion-piece to Donizetti's Scott-inspired Lucia di Lammermoor.