Vaghe Stelle Dell'orsa

Matia Bazar is an Italian pop band formed in Genoa in 1975. The original members of the group were Piero Cassano (keyboards), Aldo Stellita (bass), Carlo Marrale (guitar, vocals), Giancarlo Golzi (drums) and Antonella Ruggiero (vocals). They represented Italy in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest with a song called Raggio di luna. Their major hits were Solo tu (1978), Vacanze Romane (1982) and Ti Sento (1985), which peaked the charts in Belgium and Italy. Ruggiero and Marrale, the two principal vocalists in the band, left respectively in 1989 and 1994 to pursue solo careers. Stellita died in 1998 and Colzi in 2015. Cassano, the last original member, left in May 2017. The band is currently led by Fabio Perversi aided by a new group of musicians.

Matia Bazar is an Italian pop band formed in Genoa in 1975. The original members of the group were Piero Cassano (keyboards), Aldo Stellita (bass), Carlo Marrale (guitar, vocals), Giancarlo Golzi (drums) and Antonella Ruggiero (vocals). They represented Italy in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest with a song called Raggio di luna.

The disc under review here is the fourth in a series, called ‘The Stradella Project’. I don't know which parts of Stradella's oeuvre will be included in this project. He was a prolific composer, and his extant output comprises music for the stage, liturgical and non-liturgical sacred music, madrigals and cantatas. It also includes six oratorios, and two of them were the subject of volumes 2 and 3. I am sure that the two best-known oratorios, San Giovanni Battista and Susanna, will be recorded at a later stage. As these are available in several performances, it was a good idea to start with those oratorios which are seldom performed. That also goes for Santa Pelagia.

Handel’s cantatas represent an important musical repertoire that until recently has been little known. Consisting of about 100 separate works, most were written over a period of a few years for private performance in Italy. They range from musical miniatures containing only two arias connected by recitative and accompanied by continuo to larger works with named characters, a dramatic story, and rich instrumental forces. Telling more often than not about the pangs of love, these are intimate works, with texts frequently written by (and sometimes about) members of the privileged audience for which they were composed.

Following four successful recordings released on the Ricercar, Alpha and Arcana labels, Rome-based Andrea De Carlo and his Ensemble Mare Nostrum continue their exploration of the Roman repertoire and inaugurate here a new series of recordings, with its own distinctive artwork, devoted to the vast and multifaceted musical heritage of the Eternal City.