Italian

Star tenor Helmut Lotti is back! After great successes with classical, African, Latin American and Russian musical excursions and further albums with Elvis songs and great American standards, he now comes back with a very romantic album: "Italian Songbook" is a collection of Italian hits, which Helmut reinterprets in his very own, romantic way - as always with a big orchestra There are a lot of classic Neapolitan titles, Italian evergreens but also some world hits which we didn't suspect to be originally Italian. Let us surprise you!

For its second release, this fascinating ensemble chose to record two extended suites by band members Bruno Tommaso and Giorgio Gaslini. Tommaso's "Il Maestro Muratore" (The Master Mason), inspired by the Sardinian sculptor Constantino Nivola, begins superbly with a spirited romp based on a Sardinian folk dance and featuring high-wire soloing by trumpeter (and founder) Pino Minafra and Carlo Actis Dato on bass clarinet.

The singular record production “Ex tempore” is proposed to us by the instrumental ensemble “The Italian Consort”, with the collaboration of Andrea Inghisciano, an exceptional guest and international star of the Renaissance cornetto. The ancestral sounds of the consort of dulciane, accompanied by the lute of Gian Giacomo Pinardi and the organ of Cinzia Guarino, guide us to listen to a repertoire of both early music - represented by composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries - and contemporary, thanks to the compositional contribution of Marco Betta and Giovanni Sollima. The particular timbres of the ancient instruments are the expressive key to intricate labyrinths of contrapuntal alchemies, intense relationships with sacred or poetic texts and implied invitations to dance, in a continuous search for imitation of the human voice that in the Renaissance was considered as the absolute reference for any musical instrument.

The unpublished CD features Andrea Manco, flute; Luisa Prandina, harp, in a tribute to the immortal art of Mozart, accompanied by the Orchestra Italian Opera Florence conducted by David Boldrini: Concerts for flute and orchestra n. 1 in G major K 313 and no. 2 in D major K 314 and Concerto for flute, harp and orchestra in C major K 299.

Italian songbook é un progetto discografico che inizia adesso per declinarsi in altri album nel tempo. Un album doppio diviso in due parti che nasce con l'intento di raccogliere le più belle interpretazioni di Mina in italiano. Non solo i suoi grandi successi di una carriera lunga e straordinaria che continua ancora oggi, ma anche le cover fatte da Mina dei grandi pezzi di autori e cantautori come della tradizione della musica italiana. Un Canzoniere con le più belle canzoni che tutti conosciamo con alcune perle da riscoprire prese dalla vasta produzione discografica di Mina. Una canzona inedita per ogni album e delle fotografie inedite arricchiscono le prime due uscite di questo progetto.

Robert Schumann considered Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner the most promising operatic composer in the country, yet despite his 21 operas he has been almost forgotten. Like most leading German composers of his time he took Meyerbeer's historical grand operas, conceived in Paris, as his model. Set in Sicily at the dawn of the 1848 revolution, Il vespro siciliano ('Die sizilianische Vesper' / 'The Sicilian Vespers') is a dramatic four-act opera that reveals why he was held in such esteem by Schumann, Spohr and Mendelssohn: expressive harmonies, folksong-like strophic songs, rich orchestration, the use of the latest stylistic devices, and tuneful bel canto melodies that point to the work's Franco-Italian lineage.