"The 17th century is surely the most interesting musical period to go rooting around in. While the 16th and 18th centuries are generally more stylistically uniform, in the mid-17th century you never know what you’re going to find. Yet digging up another ‘undiscovered masterpiece’ does require quality control. Some music is better left in libraries, falling out of use with good reason; Orazio Benevoli’s Missa Tu es Petrus mass is quite spectacularly not one of those pieces. At the recording sessions, the performers were amazed by its bravura, its invention and drama – and its very significant demands on them! This was also true of the motets by Benevoli’s Roman contemporary, Bonifazio Graziani. These miniatures go further than Monteverdi in some ways but have a similar intensity. We hope you enjoy discovering them."
I Fagiolini explore the dazzling multi-choir soundworld of Orazio Benevoli - a crucial figure in 17th-century Italian music. As maestro of the papal choir and providing four-choir masses for special occasions, Benevoli invigorated the multi-choir style with vocal lines full of cross-rhythms, and voluptuous tutti sections with unexpected dissonances. Despite its beauty and historical importance, there have been few attempts to record Benevoli's music. His Missa Tu es Petrus - recorded here for the first time - was based on Palestrina's famous motet and perhaps written for the newly finished basilica of St Peter in Rome. It appears here alongside four delightful solo-voice motets by his contemporary Bonifazio Graziani, each of them premiere recordings.
“ Vulnerasti cor meum ” literally translates as “You have wounded my heart” – which is not only the most classic of amorous metaphors, but also one of the most celebrated to be featured in the Song of Songs . In this, perhaps the greatest love poem in the history of literature, the two central characters of the story exchange promises of love that are pervaded by sensual metaphors and passionate similes verging on the erotic, in a style that lies on the border between the sacred and the secular.
Richard Strauss is considered to be both the last ‘Classical’ composer and a champion of modernity. His wide-ranging output stands as a monument to one of the most successful and influential composers of the 20th century. His spirited and compact First Horn Concerto was the product of his teenage years, while the Second Horn Concerto came six decades later, echoing the expressively lyrical and dynamic character of its youthful predecessor. Both of these concertos share the chamber orchestra character of the Four Last Songs in its arrangement by Eberhard Kloke. The Andante in C major and Alphorn in E flat major, originally composed with piano accompaniment, are heard here in arrangements for chamber orchestra by Lars Opfermann.