Respiri Silenziosi

The members of the ensemble La Venexiana won in 1994 the Gramophone Award for Early Music under the name Concerto Italiano. They are some of the most experienced European performers in the early music field, and have been singing together for many years, establishing a new style in Italian early music performances: a warm, truly Mediterranean blend of textual declamation, textural color and harmonic refinement. This repertoire seems to be created as if to let them fully show their expressive powers. Barbara Strozzi's talent shines in this pieces, designed to show her excepcional dramatic powers and unique gifts for musical imaginery. Many of these madrigals have the appearance of a succession of operatic scenes in miniature, each with its particular dramatic atmosphere and with the participation of several soloists.

Marco Vitale continues his thrilling project to record the complete cantatas by Handel, many of which have never before been recorded in their entirety or indeed at all, together with ensemble Contrasto Armonico and here featuring the Italian soprano Beatrice Palumbo. Six cantatas are presented in this third volume of the series, grouped together by the common theme of unrequited love, including "Chi rapì la pace", one of the earliest of Handel's Italian works.

In Greek mythology Phaedra, sister of Ariadne, is married to Theseus, but falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’s son by another woman. Hippolytus turns her down and Phaedra, in revenge, tells Theseus that Hippolytus has raped her. Theseus believes her. What happens then is an open question, since there are several versions of the story. In one of them Theseus turns to Poseidon, who frightens Hippolytus’s horses and Hippolytus dies. In another version Theseus kills his son and Phaedra commits suicide. In a third version Phaedra doesn’t kill herself but Dionysus sends a bull which frightens Hippolytus’s horses.

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