Maurizio Bling

Born in Palermo in 1660, Alessandro Scarlatti led a very itinerant life. His activity as a musician, officially begun in 1679, and took him to the most important Italian cultural centres, including Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. Traditionally the beginnings of his musical training dates back to the roman meeting of a twelve-year-old Scarlatti with Giacomo Carissimi, the undisputed father of the cantata genre, and from whom it acquired its final form, given by the alternation of the recitativo and arioso styles, the latter resulting in the Aria.

Giuseppe Verdi’s second opera Un giorno di regno is one of the composer’s least known works. The premiere in Milan in 1840 was a failure, which Verdi said was due to his own personal circumstances: During the creative process two of his children and his first wife died within two months. Despite the rather weak libretto, the stage work has its merits and captivates, for example, with fresh, catchy melodies that, although they can not deny the influence of Rossini and Donizetti, are by no means imitative.

Nel vastissimo catalogo delle opere di Antonio Vivaldi (circa 1.000 numeri considerando le appendici), la musica da camera rappresenta una parte non considerevole e, probabilmente, una delle meno note rispetto alla frequentatissima produzione concertistica e sacra, a cui si è agggiunta, negli ultimi anni, quella operistica. Per quest'ultima si pensi, ad esempio, alle recenti produzioni dell'etichetta "Naive" o alle arie d'opera riscoperte e magistralmente eseguite in forma di concerto da Cecilia Bartoli.

…it's one of the quartet's last recordings, but the legendary luminosity of sound is still there, as is the beautiful precision, perfectly complemented by Pollini's clarity and control of touch. But it's by no means a cold, clinical performance - the first movement is powerfully dramatic, the Andante expansively lyrical, and the start of the Scherzo has never sounded darker or more mysterious.