Meeting Of The Minds

The subtitle "The Poet Sings" does not refer specifically to Pablo Neruda or to the Neruda poems set in this collection by the fine small American choir Conspirare. Instead, the designation comes from a series of concerts performed by the group in its home base of Austin, Texas, all of which will be devoted to settings of works by specific poets. As it happens, Neruda, whose poetry Conspirare has touched on before (on Threshold of Night, its Harmonia Mundi debut), makes an ideal subject for this experiment.

Following the success of his solo recordings, Paolo Zanzu returns at the head of his ensemble Le Stagioni with ‘Officina Romana’, featuring the countertenor Carlo Vistoli. In the early eighteenth century, Rome was one of the great music capitals of Europe. In the space of a few years, Corelli, Handel, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Caldara, Cesarini and many others crossed paths there, surrounded by painters, sculptors, poets and philosophers who were among the great names of the age. The fruit of long reflection and research, ‘Officina Romana’ crystallises this unique moment in the history of music by recreating an idealised musical evening, a conversazione, a sort of liberal meeting of lofty minds in the palace of a Roman cardinal, with a programme mingling vocal and instrumental music in both orchestral and chamber formation.