Mozart Demofoonte

With Forgotten Arias countertenor Philippe Jaroussky pays tribute to composers of the late Baroque era and to the great librettist of the age, Pietro Metasasio. All ten arias on the album, written between 1748 and 1770 by nine composers, are heard in world premiere recordings. Metasasio’s librettos were set by multiple composers – Vivaldi, Handel, Gluck and Mozart among them – resulting in hundreds of operas. The more familiar names on the multi-faceted programme of Forgotten Arias are Gluck, Johann Christian Bach, Jommelli, Hasse and Piccinni. Less well-known are Bernasconi, Ferrandini, Traetta and Valentini. Jaroussky’s partners on the album are the conductor Julien Chauvin and his orchestra Le Concert de la Loge. All in all, Forgotten Arias looks set to be highly memorable.

Mysliveček, il divino Boemo (the title seems to have been a fictional exaggeration) was particularly associated with opera. But his instrumental works outnumber the operatic by some margin and some of his best-known works, to us at least, are his concertos. The years of his greatest triumphs were between about 1767 and 1777, a decade that saw foreign successes, meetings with Mozart and considerable operatic esteem. His Six Symphonies of 1772 are indebted to the Italianate three-movement form, which they have absorbed with considerable vivacity, and they show individual touches – modulations, wind solos and the like – that give them an individual stamp.