Singer and actress Maria Dolores Pradera was born in Madrid on August 29, 1924. She spent much of her childhood in Chile, her family brought there by her father's business. She began working as an actress on both stage and screen as early as her late teens. Her first major works were the films Yo No Ne Caso in 1944 and Los Habitantes de la Casa Deshabitada in 1946. It was while working on Los Habitantes that Pradera met Fernando Fernan Gómez, whom she would marry in 1947. From there she would perform in various theaters in Spain, France, and Mexico, collaborating with the most important directors of the day.
Over the past ten years, thanks in part to the stimulus of the Vivaldi Edition project, several manuscripts by Vivaldi have surfaced in different countries. Federico Maria Sardelli has decided to record the finest of them. So this recording does indeed present new works by Vivaldi. The content is very diverse, ranging from a motet, which is performed by the mezzo-soprano Romina Basso, to an Oboe Concerto, a Recorder Concerto, arias and other gems. There is a clear pattern to these discoveries. Almost all come from peripheral sources, and most appear to originate from special commissions at the margin of the composer’s activity.
Duos don’t always have the temperament for the smouldering fires of Franck as well as the sudden whims of Debussy. Dumay and Pires join the select few. They take their time to find Debussy’s opening pulse, but they establish an individual, thoughtful freedom that ‘speaks’ sensuously and assertively. In the finale, they let unexpected passion grow from the central waltz, setting up a brilliant final flourish. Implicit in the initial, floated phrases of the Franck is a sense of the arduous journey to come. Intensity surges up by degrees towards the soul-torturing struggles at the sonata’s centre, and recedes before a gradual return of serenity and confidence.