Lá Fora Outside (2004)

Antonio Florio et son équipe de la Cappella de'Turchini nous ont habitués à de passionnantes découvertes dans le répertoire de leur ville de Naples, au passé musical si riche et pourtant délaissé par la plupart des musiciens.

Mozart's affectionate quotation from Martín y Soler's Una cosa rara in the Don Giovanni dinner music suggests he admired his Spanish contemporary, whose music was praised by others as 'sweet' and 'graceful'. Such descriptions remain apt for a charming and brilliantly executed performance that's essential for anybody curious about late 18th-century opera beyond Mozart.

Antonio Florio et son équipe de la Cappella de'Turchini nous ont habitués à de passionnantes découvertes dans le répertoire de leur ville de Naples, au passé musical si riche et pourtant délaissé par la plupart des musiciens.

With this exciting release, Fabio Biondi, the outstanding Europa Galante, and a cast led by stars Véronique Gens and Vivica Genaux strike a decisive blow for Alessandro Scarlatti's obscure Oratorio per la Santissima Trinità. Old-fashioned even in its day, the work is a musicalized instructional debate about the mysteries of the Holy Trinity between the allegorical personae of Faith, Theology, Faithlessness, Time, and Divine Love. If you're asleep already, it's for good reason. The libretto is the definition of dry – boring both for its rhetorical contrivance and its verbosity. But before you run for the nearest exit, know that Scarlatti responded to this uninspired mess of ideological bickering with outstanding music, entertaining from beginning to end. Drawing only on a small ensemble of strings and continuo, he created an improbably diverse-sounding score full of infectious rhythms, appealing vocal melodies, and rich textures.

Stars And Fishes (2004). The Mediterranean is a wonderful symbol of warmth, and it's the inspiration behind this disc, masterminded by producers Marco Bussian and Jean-Charles Vandermynsbrugge. They provide the music and beats, which shimmer in a lovely heat haze, and bring in vocalists to add some magical singing. Often it works well, as with Ozlem Cetin's "Le Reve Est Mort," or "Conmigo," with Sol Ruiz de Galarreta providing the vocal cords. At times, however, it can veer perilously close to the murky terrain of lounge music, as on "Cosmic Lullaby," where even Clair Dietrich's singing can't rescue something mediocre. However, that's the exception to the rule: the vast majority of this disc positively glows and sticks like a burr in the mind…

Antonio Florio et son équipe de la Cappella de’Turchini nous ont habitués à de passionnantes découvertes dans le répertoire de leur ville de Naples, au passé musical si riche et pourtant délaissé par la plupart des musiciens.

If you think you've heard Handel's "Ombra mai fu" (known as his "Largo") so often, and in so many different arrangements, and sung by so many different voices, that you can no longer be moved or surprised by it, think again. This CD of Handel arias, mostly from his Theodora or the cantata La Lucrezia, ends with "Ombra mai fu," and as sung by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, it is so tender, so beautiful, so impeccably shaded, that you'll think you're hearing it for the first time. But that's only four of this disc's 67 minutes–-a follow-up to Hunt Lieberson's extraordinarily successful CD of Bach cantatas. There's not a dull or disinterested moment to be heard anywhere. As the violated Lucrezia, Hunt Lieberson alternately rages against the man who raped her and turns her grief inward; the former is terrifying in its intensity, the latter makes us almost feel as if we're eavesdropping.