Juan Benetella Penombra

If Boccherini was mischievously dubbed “the wife of Haydn”, then Arriaga must have been his second cousin or so. These three quartets are lovely works. Particularly noteworthy is the Quartet in E-flat major (No. 3), with its charming “Pastorale” second movement, but they are all rewarding pieces. The Guarneri Quartet plays them beautifully. Because they are marginal pieces in the quartet repertoire, and because this disc appeared in the mid-1990s when the classical glut was in full “glutitude”, it was easy to overlook these performances. However, if you enjoy Haydn and his school, you won’t find a better release than this one—and it’s extremely well recorded too. It’s good to see it back.

In his latest Decca DVD release, bel canto star Juan Diego Flórez undertakes the role of Elvino in Bellini’s romantic drama, playing opposite the mercurial French soprano, Natalie Dessay, in the Met’s striking, modern-dress production from March 2009. Bellini’s romantic opera La Sonnambula (1831), hinges on the love and misunderstanding between Elvino and Amina (the ‘sleepwalker’ of the title). Discovered in the bedroom of Rodolfo, Amina is assumed to have been unfaithful, and Elvino cancels their wedding. But in the dramatic final scene, he witnesses Amina sleepwalking, understands her innocence, and all ends happily. Mary Zimmerman’s production plays with the dual realities of a rehearsal of the opera and a performance of the opera itself.

Juan García de Salazar was a Spanish Baroque composer from the Basque country who spent most of his career working at Zamora Cathedral; he is so obscure the entry for him in the New Grove doesn't even include a list of his works. Musicologist Manuel Sagastume Arregi has pulled together a number of Salazar's extant movements related to the Vespers service with additional material to create Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady in Naxos' Spanish Classics series. It is performed by the Basque ensemble Capilla Peñaflorida and features the period wind group Ministriles de Marsias and the fine baritone of Josep Cabré. There are no stars here, though – everything on Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady is done to the service of the music, which is outstanding. Sagastume Arregi's realization of García de Salazar's Vespers service incorporates appropriate plainchant sections taken from a Basque hymnal dated 1692, organ music by García de Salazar's contemporaries José Ximenez and Martín Garcia de Olagüe, instrumental arrangements of García de Salazar's motets, and an arrangement of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Vidi speciosam probably made by García de Salazar himself.

Here is yet another operatic masterpiece reborn thanks to Juan Bautista Otero and his splendid Réal Compania Opera de Camara. 'Aminta, il re pastore' is an extraordinary work which the famed castrato Farinelli commissioned from the Bolognese composer Mazzoni after the huge success of his two operas produced in Lisbon, 'La clemenza di Tito' and 'Antigono'. Faithfully following Metastasio's original libretto, Mazzoni composed here a sublime opera seria in 3 acts, shorter than usual, with a blend of pathos, delicacy of expression and virtuosity that gives a marvelously complete picture of what one might call 'the Farinelli sound'.

History and landscape form the two main elements of a nation, and for the German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus —as Matthew Riley and Anthony D. Smith wrote— “folklorism in nineteenth-century music — which is not the same as nationalism but is related to it— is, compositionally speaking, essentially the same as exoticism: the musical description of a remote and foreign culture”.

The RCOC is an independent operatic ensemble performing on period instruments, created by the conductor and musicologist Juan Bautista Otero and the stage producer Isidro Olmo. It focuses its activity on the rediscovery of the musical heritage related to Spain and the old Bolurbon kingdoms in Italy during the 18th century, specially concerning the music for the stage of the Neapolitan operatic masters as David Pérez, Domingo Terradellas, Domenico Scarlatti, Mariana Martínez or Martín y Soler as commissioned by the great castrato Farinelli. This is clearly a project close to Juan Bautista Otero's heart, and one that he has been associated with since 1998.

This staging of Nabucco, the first since 1960 at the MET, featuring the Russian soprano Maria Guleghina was given in the centenary year of Verdi’s death. The production by MET regular Elijah Moshinsky and the sheer power of Verdi’s score drives this opera and brings the drama and its characters to life. James Levine leads the MET Orchestra and the cast is rounded out by two familiar Verdi specialists Juan Pons and Samuel Ramey.