Propius Cantate Dominus

In the seventeenth century, the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice took in young orphan girls who received advanced musical instruction. The concerts given there attracted visitors from all over the world, curious to hear these divine voices which remained invisible, since the girls performed hidden behind the grilles of the chapel gallery. Vivaldi became Maestro de’ Concerti of the Pietà in 1714, and it was his pupils who performed his famous Nisi Dominus. Today they are succeeded by the mezzo-soprano Eva Zaïcik, who brings out the full poignancy of the aria ‘Cum dederit’. Another motet by Vivaldi, Invicti bellate, also composed for the Pietà, features in this programme planned and conducted by Vincent Dumestre. He invites us on a musical journey centred on the figure of woman and on divine praise, with composers awaiting discovery such as Serafino Razzi (1534-1619) and Soto de Langa (1531-1611).

The Belgian early music group Vox Luminis has made several wonderful recordings of lesser-known Baroque repertory. They cultivate a distinctive sound with ten or 15 singers (here there are ten) and a small instrumental group, diverging completely from the general Italianate-operatic trend toward brisk tempos, sharp accents, and dramatic conceptions. Here they take on two very familiar works and meet the challenge of creating unique interpretations. Even in the splendid Bach Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 (sample one of the big choruses, perhaps "Fecit potentiam"), they are smooth and even delicate. The sound is all the more impressive in that leader Lionel Meunier does not really conduct; he sings in the choir itself. Yet the carefully burnished sound is extremely coherent. The effect is to deliver a personal aspect even to these highly public works. In this kind of reading there is the necessity for the performers to deliver text intelligibility and for the instrumentalists to deliver balance, and all succeed nicely, as do Alpha Classics' engineers, working in a pair of churches (Belgian for the Handel, Dutch for the Bach). This is a beautifully rendered representation of standard repertory that draws you into entirely new ways of looking at the music.

As usual with Harry Christophers and the Sixteen, the performance is very "clean", in some places perhaps to the point of being "clinical". There are, nevertheless, a number of "peaks" (such as when Michael George begins his "Sicut sagittae in manu potentis" or in the "De torrente in via bibet" for two sopranos and choir towards the end of the Dixit Dominus). … "Silete Venti" by far excels the other two pieces on the disc. Lynne Dawson, possibly the best female Handelian in the entire English early music scene, performs the whole motet with warmth, inner conviction and personal charm, and her vocal timbre, pure as a bell, magnificently complements Handel's typical strings-with-oboes orchestral sound.

The chamber cantata flourished in Italy as a counterpart to public opera and oratorio, cultivated by aristocratic patrons for their personal enjoyment. Perhaps because of its essentially private origins, this pervasive Baroque form remains little known today. During his years in Italy (1706-1710), George Frideric Handel composed nearly 100 cantatas for a series of important patrons, but they have tended to be passed over in favor of his larger operas, oratorios, concertos and orchestral suites. The plan of La Risonanza to perform and record all of the cantatas with instrumental accompaniment (about one-third of the total) is therefore of signal importance for all music lovers, as it will bring this extraordinarily beautiful music once again to life (2006-2009).

What we get is a work steeped in Cimarosa’s operatic experience, but conventionally ‘sacred’ in form. Thus we get to hear all the musical forces at beginning and end of the work, and in between soloists alternate with chorus. The music is, unsurprisingly, very well put together; there are plenty of enticing melodies and the whole has considerable charm. But compared to the great settings of the same Psalm it lacks both profundity and real grandeur of conception. Still, take it on its own terms and there is much to enjoy.