Giuseppe Scarlatti

Dorothee Oberlinger brought another musical treasure to light last year at the Potsdam Music Festival. "I Portentosi Effetti della madre Natura by Giuseppe Scarlatti had its premiere in the then brand-new Palace Theatre of the New Palace in Sanssouci - with resounding success. Some 250 years later, the work, which stylistically seems to have been written five minutes before Mozart, with a mix of great seria arias and rousing folk echoes, experienced its celebrated resurrection as a production of the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci with the Ensemble 1700 and singers under the artistic direction of Dorothee Oberlinger. The production accompanying the performances will now be released as a world premiere recording on 9 June as a co-production with Musikfestspiele Potsdam and rbb Kultur on the deutsche harmonia mundi label.

Rebellious servants, capricious lovers, cross-dressing farce and a happy ending: the fast paced action of this comic Baroque opera had all the ingredients to please the self-confessed ‘low-brow taste’ of an Austro-German prince, who commissioned Giuseppe Scarlatti for a piece to celebrate his son’s wedding. This is the opera’s first revival in modern times, and it takes place in the very same Baroque theatre, impeccably restored to its original glory, which hosted the first performance. With a cast of young singers drawn from Prague’s National Theatre and a stylish period-instrument ensemble, this vivid reconstruction will delight audiences as much today as it did the aristocratic guests at Ceský Krumlov in 1768.

After the success ofDuel (Opera Choice in BBC Music Magazine, Disc of the Month in Opera magazine, etc.), Giuseppina Bridelli presents a new solo project alongside the Quartetto Vanvitelli (recently awarded ‘5 Diapasons’ in the magazine Diapason for its second recording, devoted to the violin sonatas of Michele Mascitti), in which she tackles the fascinating world of the Italian chamber cantata for voice, continuo and solo violin.

The Spanish and Portuguese influence in Domenico Scarlatti’s rhythms and, perhaps to a lesser extent, melodies are distinctive features of his keyboard style. Sophie Yates has chosen these evocative gestures in Scarlatti’s sonatas as determining characteristics of her recital Fandango – Scarlatti in Iberia. In fact, only four of the 13 items in her programme are by Scarlatti himself, the remaining pieces being by José Larrañaga, Seixas, Sebastian Albero y Añaños, and Soler, whose colourful ‘Fandango’ concludes her disc. Readers who know their Scarlatti will not need to be reminded either of the bold originality or of the wonderful variety of colours and sentiments present in his harpsichord sonatas.

A delightfull combination of well chosen program materials and expert recording techniques. Sabrina Frey and her companion musicians are top notch performers that serve a concert with well worked ensemble and group interplay.
I found the playing of Sabrina Frey most interesting. She commands her recorder with consumate skill. The works played (including 2 premières) are by Scarlatti, Sieber, Corelli, Valentini, Bononcini, and Marcello. Masters of the baroque form.

Roberto Tigani directs Orchestra dell'Accademia Romana "Arcangelo Corelli" and soprano Claudia Toti in a performance of three rarely recorded Italian sacred works.
The manuscript for the mass by Scarlatti was discovered in the 1950s in the archives of the Roman basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. It brings to eleven his surviving masses. It is the only know copy and lacks both the Benedictus and the Angus Dei.

The priest Giuseppe Cavallo was Maestro di Canto of the Conservatorio de Santa Maria de Loreto from 1672 until his death in 1684. Otherwise, virtually nothing is known about the composer, and it is only due to the musical archive of the Oratorio di Napoli, a treasure trove of rare scores, that a handful of Cavallo's works survive, including Il Giudizio Universale. This sacred oratorio presents Christ and Saint Michael, a pair of angels, two mortals, and four souls–two damned, two blessed–and begins with Christ commanding the angels to bring on the Last Judgment. What follows is a finely crafted musical drama, except for the confusion caused when the otherwise immaculately presented album fails to reveal which of the seven singers (two sopranos, three tenors, and one bass) is singing which parts.