Rinaldo

Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Claudio Monteverdi: Libri de’ madrigali  [5CDs] (2001)

Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Claudio Monteverdi: Libri de’ madrigali (2001)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 1.31 Gb | Total time: 5h 29 m | Scans included
Classical | Label: Opus 111 | # OP 30348 | Recorded: 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998

Monteverdi was only 23 when he published his Second Book of Madrigals in 1590, but he was already a master of the form, and these contrapuntally lively pieces, with their supple and astute text setting, are crowning works of late Renaissance secular polyphony. With this release of the Second Book, Rinaldo Alessandrini moves closer to his goal of recording all of Monteverdi's eight Books of Madrigals, performed by Concerto Italiano, the ensemble he founded in 1984. The series has received much-deserved critical acclaim; three of the releases won Gramophone Awards, and this 1994 recording won a Diapason d'Or. Concerto Italiano is a group whose roster is flexible, based on the requirements of the music performed, and here seven unaccompanied singers configure themselves in a variety of combinations in the five-part madrigals.
Rinaldo Alessandrini - Alessandro Scarlatti: Toccate per Cembalo (2010)

Rinaldo Alessandrini - Alessandro Scarlatti: Toccate per Cembalo (2010)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 498 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 168 Mb | Scans ~ 190 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: Arcana | # A323 | Time: 01:13:23

The music for harpsichord has been considered an inexplicable chance occurrence in Alessandro Scarlatti's output, and in assessing it, we should avoid unfair and unappropriate comparisons with the work of his exceptionally gifted son. Alessandro's cultural background was quite different and very precise in the way it affected keyboard music: Frescobaldi was the first in a series of figures who are known to a greater or lesser extent today and whose teaching came down to Scarlatti in a solid stylistic tradition. Pasquini, his extremely diligent and prolific contemporary, the last of the line, was strongly motivated by his patron, the Prince Borghese in writing harpsichord music. Alessandro also wished to try his hand in this area. 250th Anniversary Release. On the occasion of the 350th anniversary of Alessandro Scarlatti's birth (Palermo, 2 May 1660), Arcana is re-releasing this anthology of toccatas and fugues by the elder Scarlatti, father of the better-known Domenico.
Boris Begelman, Rinaldo Alessandrini & Concerto Italiano - Vivaldi: Concerti per violino IX "Le nuove vie" (2021)

Boris Begelman, Rinaldo Alessandrini & Concerto Italiano - Vivaldi: Concerti per violino IX "Le nuove vie" (2021)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 393 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 180 Mb | Digital booklet | 01:13:16
Classical | Label: naïve

Boris Begelman, the highly acclaimed leader of Concerto Italiano, frequently takes on the role of soloist in the many concerts that Rinaldo Alessandrini’s celebrated orchestra devotes to the music of Vivaldi and his contemporaries. High time then for Begelman to take centre stage in one of the Vivaldi Edition’s solo violin recordings. This ninth concerto volume sees the welcome return of Rinaldo Alessandrini’s ensemble, which already features in thirteen albums of the Vivaldi collection. In this purely instrumental repertoire they excel as much as they do in vocal music, deploying generously sweeping melodic lines, inspired dynamics, and a musical language already mastered to perfection yet always interpreted anew.
Sandrine Piau, Sara Mingardo, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - George Frideric Handel: Arias & Duets (2008)

Sandrine Piau, Sara Mingardo, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - George Frideric Handel: Arias & Duets (2008)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 351 Mb | Total time: 72:28 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # OP 30483 | Recorded: 2008

The arias, duets, recitatives and overtures in this recording are not grouped according to a set theme or singing style: heroic tenors, rival queens or famous castrati. Instead, if the sleeve-notes are to be believed, soprano Sandrine Piau, contralto Sara Mingardo and conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini set out simply to enjoy themselves by performing favourite works from across Handel’s operatic output. Their only rules were to omit the very famous numbers - ‘Cara sposa’ from Rinaldo, for example, is not included - maintain a sense of mood contrast, and to include opening recitatives as a means of placing the characters within the dramatic context of each opera.
Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Carlo Gesualdo: O Dolorosa Gioia (2000)

Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Carlo Gesualdo: O Dolorosa Gioia (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 245 Mb | Total time: 68:23 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Opus 111 | # OPS 30-238 | Recorded: 1999

Concerto Italiano, founded and directed by Renaissance and Baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini, is an outstanding vocal and instrumental ensemble. Each of its singers has an exceptionally lovely voice: strong, pure, focused, and full of character. Together, they produce a fabulously rich blend that is warm and sensual without sacrificing purity. The individuality of the members and their ability to meld into a seamless unity are characteristics ideal for late Renaissance madrigals, especially the idiosyncratic madrigals of Gesualdo, where the distinctiveness of each voice is essential for music that is essentially driven by its counterpoint, and the unanimity of the blend allows the eccentricities of harmony to make their maximum impact.
Rinaldo Alessandini, Concerto Italiano - Monteverdi: Daylight. Stories of Songs, Dances and Loves (2021)

Rinaldo Alessandini, Concerto Italiano - Monteverdi: Daylight. Stories of Songs, Dances and Loves (2021)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 316 Mb | Total time: 61:46 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # OP 7366 | Recorded: 2020

This new recording is like an insert between the books of madrigals that mark the course of Rinaldo Alessandrini’s discography, in his long-term progress towards a complete recorded edition. Daylight is a continuation of Night, which appeared on the occasion of the 350th Anniversary of the composer’s birth. Not only do we have the same thematic, non- chronological concept - a sort of ‘Best Of’ Monteverdi’s nine books of madrigals and opera arias, augmented by instrumental pieces by Falconieri and Marini - but it also has its own discrete dramaturgy, from dawn to the full sunlight of day, a scenario conceived by the Italian conductor and harpsichordist.
Enrico Gatti & Rinaldo Alessandrini - Cross-dressing Bach: Chamber Rarities & Alternative Versions (2018)

Enrico Gatti & Rinaldo Alessandrini - Cross-dressing Bach: Chamber Rarities & Alternative Versions (2018)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 396 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 159 Mb | Digital booklet | 01:08:54
Classical | Label: Glossa Music

The musical partnership of violinist Enrico Gatti and harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini now goes back a number of decades to when this pair of Italians, both with a voracious appetite for early music, were setting out on their careers. The years pass and both artists make fabulous recordings, often directing their own ensembles.
Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini - Antonio Maria Bononcini: Messa; Stabat Mater (2012)

Antonio Maria Bononcini: Messa; Stabat Mater (2012)
Concerto Italiano, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 372 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 186 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Choral | Label: Naive | # OP 30537 | Time: 01:19:56

This disc is a tour de force, a world premiere recording of stunning music splendidly performed. The unjustly obscure Antonio Maria Bononcini was appointed late in life to be maestro di cappella in Modena, a post which allowed him to pour his store of invention into two grand sacred works, a Mass and a Stabat Mater. Conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini engages deeply with the composer’s imagination, opening up his dense counterpoint and delicately binding together his vocal and obbligato lines. The musical rhetoric of the Concerto Italiano is spellbinding, particularly when band and singers heighten gestures to surge powerfully towards a passage’s final cadence. However heated their delivery becomes – and the Stabat Mater does sizzle – the artists never rush. This is particularly crucial for bringing out Bononcini’s modulations and textures, which, because they shift rapidly, need space to breathe.
Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Luca Marenzio: Madrigali a quattro voci, Libro Primo 1585 (1994)

Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Luca Marenzio: Madrigali a quattro voci, Libro Primo 1585 (1994)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 270 Mb | Total time: 62:07 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Opus 111 ‎| OPS 2-117 | Recorded: 1994

Italian Renaissance composer Luca Marenzio was internationally recognized as the leading composer of madrigals at the height of his career, in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. He was so popular (and the sales of his music so lucrative) that within years of his death, both Flemish and German publishers had issued volumes of his complete five and six part madrigals, an honor almost unheard of at the time. Marenzio's madrigals, while anticipating the songlike lyricism of monody that would come to dominate vocal music of the early Baroque, made full use of the textural and expressive qualities of Renaissance polyphony.
Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Antonio Vivaldi: Vespri per l'Assunzione di Maria Vergine (2008)

Rinaldo Alessandrini, Concerto Italiano - Antonio Vivaldi: Vespri per l'Assunzione di Maria Vergine (2008)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 727 Mb | Total time: 76:42+76:24 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # OP 30543 | Recorded: 2003

This isn't the 'Vivaldi Vespers', or even a reconstruction of a specific event, but a kind of 'sacred concert' in Vespers form, of the sort that Venetian churches in Vivaldi's time would mount in the name of worship.
Whether he ever supplied all the music for any such occasion isn't clear, but he certainly set plenty of Vespers texts, enough at any rate for Rinaldo Alessandrini and scholar Frédéric Delaméa to put together this rich programme.