Alessandro Scarlatti

This disc brings together two composers from Naples, albeit from different generations. They are also different in that Scarlatti was an important contributor to the genre of opera, whereas Durante never composed anything for the theatre. They have also something in common: both were considered rather conservative - Scarlatti in particular towards the end of his career - and in the oeuvre of both the traditional counterpoint plays an important role.

A Lenten oratorio in the Italian tradition of sacred opera, Il Dolore di Maria Vergine is widely held to be the outstanding masterpiece in the genre by Alessandro Scarlatti. Structured in two extended parts, it assigns roles to the Virgin Mary, St John, Nicodemus and to a High Priest named Onìa. The challenge taken on by the composer and his anonymous librettist early in 1717 was to make a mere four characters effective as vehicles for conveying the drama of the Passion, moving as Bach does from the capture of Jesus in Gethsemane, to his interrogation by Pilate, his scourging and crowning with thorns, his journey to Calvary and his crucifixion and death.

Giuditta is based on the Biblical story of Judith, a beautiful Israelite widow who insinuates herself within the camp of the conquering Assyrian tribe and deceives their general, Holofernes, before decapitating him and carrying off his head in triumph. This is the second version of the oratorio, known as the Cambridge version after the location of the manuscript when it was turned up in modern times. Scarlatti had considered the original version, composed for Rome in 1693, to be his finest oratorio. This is no mean assessment from the composer of masterworks which have been more celebrated in our own time such as La Maddalena, for their expressive pathos and superbly grateful vocal lines.

Right now the music of Alessandro Scarlatti is getting more attention than ever before, but musicians are still very selective in what they are performing. One part of Scarlatti's oeuvre that is widely neglected is his keyboard music. Alexander Weimann is not the first to pay attention to this genre: the Italian keyboard player and director of the Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini, devoted a disc to the genre. But Weimann is the first to plan to record it all. He writes in the booklet, "as a composer for the keyboard, Alessandro Scarlatti … deserves the same respect that we show for his vocal works."

Con questo terzo CD, dedicato a varie composizioni di Alessandro (Pietro Gaspare) Scarlatti (Palermo, 2 maggio 1660 – Napoli, 22 ottobre 1725) destinate precipuamente all’organo, continua il progetto che prevede la registrazione degli «Opera Omnia per tastiera» del grande compositore «Palermitano».

In the eighteenth century the cantata was considered to be the supreme challenge for a composer's artistry. Here are recorded three fine examples from the enormous corpus of such works by Alessandro Scarlatti, two for solo voice with continuo, and one which includes a particularly demanding part for obbligato trumpet, faultlessly played by Crispian Steele-Perkins.

In attempting to select something from the vast pool of solo cantatas left behind by Alessandro Scarlatti, it's hard to know what to highlight. Argentine soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr, a prominent European early music specialist who honed her craft in the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under René Jacobs, casts in her lot with both the elder Scarlatti and Concerto Soave in a recital consisting of three of the elder Scarlatti's solo cantatas in Harmonia Mundi's Alessandro Scarlatti: Bella madre de' fiori.

I Musici di Santa Pelagia hanno partecipato a numerose rassegne musicali e a manifestazioni di risonanza internazionale sia in Italia sia all’estero. Roma Festival Barocco, MiTo, Les concerts à Saint-Germain (Ginevra) e Mille anni di Musica Italiana (Madrid), ottenendo ampi consensi di pubblico e critica.

This is our fourth CD containing compositions by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725) that were chiefly meant for the harpsichord and performed on it. The project stemmed, in a natural, almost parallel fashion, from the programme for the study and publication of the vast corpus of manuscript sources (no less than 25) of Alessandro Scarlatti’s pieces for keyboard instruments that was started by us more than ten years ago: the publication of his Opera Omnia per strumento a tastiera by the publisher Ut Orpheus Edizioni of Bologna (edited by Andrea Macinanti and Francesco Tasini) began in 2000 and was completed in 2012 with the printing of the sixth and last volume.

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.