Lumi 32

Donizetti Le Nozze in Villa opera to a libretto by Bartolomeo Merelli. Directed 2020 by Davide Marranchelli at the Teatro Donizetti Bergamo. Stars Gaia Petrone (Sabina), Omar Montanari (Don Petronio), Fabio Capitanucci (Trifoglio), Giorgio Misseri (Claudio), Manuela Custer (Anastasia), Claudia Urru (Rosaura), and Daniel Lettieri (Anselmo).

The world-premiere recording of Siroe re di Persia by Johann Adolf Hasse, whose music encapsulates the refined aristocratic cultural tastes of the European Ancien Régime. Offering true musical fireworks and delights, Siroe is led by Max Cencic in the title role with the vital orchestra of Armonia Atenea and their high-powered conductor, George Petrou: the same vibrant partnership which saw their first album on Decca, Handel’s Alessandro, win a clutch of top awards. Renowned for his gifts as a melodist, in Siroe Hasse offers a feast of rare vocal delights in the telling of a vivid story of passion, jealousy and intrigue.

Composed during his Italian stay at the beginning of the 18th century, Handel’s cantatas, interpreted by the soprano Anna Kasyan, draw a nuanced picture of opera heroin’s heart. At this time, women were not often allowed to appear in front of an audience. However, the Italian prima donna Margherita Durastanti, one of the few professional female singers of the period, delighted listeners with her brilliant interpretations of Handel’s cantatas.

The irresistible and warm voice of counter-tenor Xavier Sabata never ends to bewitch us in his new medley of jubilant baroque arias. Alexander the Great inspired him the theme his new album: Porpora, Händel, Bononcini and many other composers were seduced by this character who mingled the strength of the Emperor and the sensibility of a man.

Sir Neville Marriner Rivaled only by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Neville Marriner was one of the most important of the early figures who spearheaded the reawakening of modern interest in Baroque and early Classical music. In the 1950s, he founded Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the first British early music ensemble to find a large international audience. Marriner has since become one of the most popular conductors in the world, acclaimed for his interpretations of composers from Bach to Britten. Marriner was first taught the violin as a child, by his father, and attended the Royal College of Music, beginning at age thirteen. Wounded during World War II, he met future collaborator Thurston Dart during his hospitalization. In 1948 he became professor at the Royal Academy of Music. As well as joining the Martin String Quartet as second violin, he formed a violin-and-harpsichord duet with Dart, and their performances led to the formation of the Jacobean Ensemble, an early music group that recorded the Purcell trio sonatas in 1950. Around this time, he began studying conducting with Pierre Monteux at Monteux's school in Maine. Marriner's reputation in general music circles also grew; in 1956 he was appointed principal second violin with the London Symphony Orchestra.

This album pays tribute to the transmission of Italian baroque singing, evoking the depths of the relationship between teachers and students, tracing a musical journey through the stylistic evolutions from the 17th to the 18th century.

Vivaldi and the violin concerto? Vivaldi is the violin concerto! One must get past the cliché (‘Vivaldi composed the same concerto 500 times’) to understand the extent to which composer, instrument and genre form an indissoluble whole; and that is what Théotime Langlois de Swarte and the musicians of Le Consort have set out to do. From his early youth in Venice to his last days in Vienna, the ‘red-haired priest’ pushed back technical and academic boundaries, constantly creating new narrative forms: the journey of a lifetime.

Carlo Agostino Badia was one of the many Italian musicians making his fortune at the court of Vienna where he was hired as a composer in 1694. We have no news about his education, but the musical historiography is mentioning about his great compositional period lasting forty-four years at the service of the emperors Leopold i and Joseph i, in which he produced in large quantities cantatas, melodramas and oratorios greatly appreciated at the Austrian court. From his musical writing it is clear how he was a “ferryer” of that late Baroque (followed by Antonio Caldara who succeeded him at the Viennese court) anticipating the forms of the imminent galant style.

"The Passion music Johann David Heinichen wrote for the Dresden court is a document of cultural and confessional openness of the Saxon residence, and his two Italian oratorios heard here are surrogates of large-scale Passion music. ""Come? S'imbruna il ciel"" - composed in 1728 - is the latest of the sepolcri, his other Passion ""L'aride tempie ignude"" the first of the sepolcri to survive from Heinichen in Dresden. Both texts are by Stefano Pallavicino, who had been active at the Dresden court since 1719. In the first-mentioned Passion, the meditation on the Passion event recurs to the experience of the earthquake that, according to biblical accounts, occurred immediately after the death of Jesus.