Xsing I

To welcome the spring, British ensemble I Fagiolini puts aside it's beloved Monteverdi to uncover it's own national heritage: the best of John Wilbye's classic Golden Age madrigals. Whilst his oeuvre may have been small (just 75 works that we know of and most just a couple of minutes long), time and again, in these exquisite cameos, Wilbye delivers what might be reckoned the ultimate madrigal experience. The plangent dissonance of 'Draw on, sweet night' and 'Weep, weep, mine eyes' perfectly evoke English melancholy, while 'Sweet honey-sucking bees' and 'Adieu, sweet Amaryllis' are such sheer pleasure to sing that many listeners will scrabble to unearth old scores. This album is, in a nutshell, 75 minutes of madrigalian bliss! Rediscover or enjoy anew this central part of English choral culture, strangely out of fashion for so long, sung by a group that has matured into the repertoire like a good wine.

I Solisti Italiani is a chamber string orchestra consisting of about 12 players, known particularly for their spirited readings of works from the Baroque and Classical periods. They have performed and recorded much Vivaldi over the years and have devoted nearly as much effort to the works of Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Rossini…

On her second PENTATONE album Maria & Maddalena, star soprano Francesca Aspromonte explores the Two Marys in oratorios by Lulier, Bononcini, Leopoldo I d’Asburgo, Caldara, Perti, Handel and Scarlatti, partly in new editions, documenting the extremely bloom of the genre in the years around 1700. She performs these works together with violinist Boris Begelman as well as the seasoned players of I Barocchisti under the baton of the eminent Diego Fasolis. Traditionally seen as two feminine opposites, with far-reaching moral implications, Aspromonte brings the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene together as two beautiful and strong women who turned their lives upside down by making the choice to dedicate themselves completely to an ideal. Her interpretation of these exceptional pieces explores all the emotions of the Two Marys, constituting a fascinating and profoundly moving portrait of what it means to be a woman.