L’erra

Alessandro Scarlatti was only 24 and had just begun his enormously successful operatic career when he set a libretto by that great Roman patron of the arts, Cardinal Pamphili, on the subject of repentance and divine grace. It was performed before a distinguished audience by a small group of leading singers and instrumentalists of the day in March 1685—the year of the birth of Alessandro's son Domenico (in fact, as a matter of interest, three days before the birth of J. S. Bach). This simple little morality (oratorio is too grandiose a term for it) shows Magdalen torn between youthful pleasures and repentance for hedonistic living: the subject is treated in a sequence of extremely brief arias (and a few duets) and recitatives, which add up to a rather bitty effect, all the more because of seemingly haphazard key-sequences.

Les rares femmes au pouvoir, dans l'entreprise ou en politique, ont longtemps été considérées avec méfiance. Suspectes "d'être pire que les hommes", d'avoir réussi grâce à une promotion canapé, d'avoir de l'ambition, un gros mot pour le sexe faible. Les réflexes conditionnés ont la peau dure mais ils évoluent au nom du principe de réalité. …

Carl Heinrich Graun (1703/4–59) was one of the two most famous composers of Italian opera in 18th-century Germany, his only serious rival being Johann Adolf Hasse at the court in Dresden. He was the court composer of Prussian King Frederick the Great. He wrote at least 26 highly acclaimed operas for the Berlin Unter den Linden opera house that Frederick built for that purpose, in addition to the six he had written for an earlier patron.

Until recently all traces of Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio Il martirio di Santa Cecilia had been lost. Discovered in the manuscript collection of the Fondation Martin Bodmer in Cologny, near Geneva, this oratorio which had been undiscovered for decades was immediately performed in Zurich. Karl Böhmer (the booklet author) and Oliver Mattern produced the first modern edition of the work. The interpreters on that occasion are again featured on the present recording. This sacred tragedy could rightly be termed one of the most dramatic and mature oratorios of the Roman baroque.

Together with Johann Adolf Hasse, Carl Heinrich Graun was the chief representative of Italian Opera in Germany in the 18th century. The story of »Montezuma« accords with the historical fate of the last ruler of the Aztecs. The text is by King Frederick II, Graun had a close friendship to him and became chief of the circle of Berlin composers. »Montezuma« can be seen as Frederick’s countersignature to his own fate, which made him into a martial war-prince. »Montezuma« shows him in a field of tension: thus the artistically-minded idealistic prince became the royal practical politician: if justice is to be seen to be done to life’s reality, Montezuma must die. Montezuma is mor than just a Baroque opera. This opera can allude to the history of its own nation. It directs our ear to the destiny of America and the destiny of Prussia, to the German’s view, 200 years ago, of America, and American history as the mirror of its own.

For the 1727 season – the waning days of opera's popularity in London – transplanted German composer George Frederick Handel wrote no less than three operas for the English capital's stage. Tolomeo, rè d'Egitto was the last and least enthusiastically received of them. Unsuccessfully revived in 1730 and then again in 1733, Tolomeo was unperformed for the next 200 years, and even now, it remains one of Handel's least performed and recorded operas. Prior to this Archiv set, only a 1995 Vox recording of the work with Richard Auldon Clark leading the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra had been released in the digital era.