Fabio Biondi

Sandrine Piau, Gloria Banditelli, Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi – Handel: Arie e Duetti d'Amore (1996)

Sandrine Piau, Gloria Banditelli, Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi – Handel: Arie e Duetti d'Amore (1996)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:11:33 | 355 MB
Genre: Classical, Vocal | Label: Opus111 | Catalog: OPS30-174

Sandrine Piau does it again or should I say she did it already! This collection of superb Handel arias from '96 could be considered an earlier version or forerunner of the recently released Handel Opera Seria, and certainly very complementary to it. The ensemble she plays with is different (Fabio Bondi and his charismatic Europa Galante players), possibly somewhat less refined from the "early music" style perspective but this consideration is blown away by the dramatic presence and the stellar precision of this non-pareil Baroque vocalist.
Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi & Emöke Baráth - Vivaldi: Argippo (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/88]

Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi & Emöke Baráth - Vivaldi: Argippo (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Front Cover & Digital Booklet | Time - 122:38 minutes | 2,21 GB
Classical, Vocal | Label: naïve, Official Digital Download

With this second contribution to the Vivaldi Edition, Fabio Biondi and his ensemble Europa Galante sign here the recording of the twentieth opera of the collection - a pasticcio in which Vivaldi ‘recycles’ hit tunes from the ‘World of Warcraft’ operas of his contemporaries.
Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Francesco Cavalli: La Didone (2007)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Francesco Cavalli: La Didone (2007)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (Dolby AC3, 6 ch) | 173 min | 4.13+7.27 Gb (DVD5+DVD9)
Classical | Label: Dynamic | Sub: Italiano, English, Francais, Deutsch, Espanol | Recorded: 2006

Preceded by a solemn prologue in which Iride admonishes mortals that they should not offend the gods, the story of Cavalli’s Didone comes to life thanks to numerous solo passages of highly varied character and structure, designed both for simple basso continuo support and for a more complex instrumental accompaniment, for five real parts which enjoy some independent moments and which create a diversion from the action or blend in with it in a wholly logical way, intensifying it in a studied, evocative manner.
Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Il Diario di Chiara: Music from La Pietà in Venice in the 18th century (2014)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Il Diario di Chiara: Music from La Pietà in Venice in the 18th century (2014)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 419 Mb | Total time: 72:30 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Glossa | GCD 923401 | Recorded: 2013

Abandoned at the age of two months and taken in by the Ospedale della Pietà, Chiara (or Chiaretta) rose – within that enclosed charitable institution in Venice – to become one of the leading European violinists of the middle of the 18th century. No stranger to such acclaim himself from two and a half centuries later, Fabio Biondi, on his first release for Glossa, has devised a programme drawing on the personal diary of this remarkable musician – taught by Antonio Vivaldi, and later a virtuoso soloist on the violin as well as the viola d’amore – of concertos and sinfonias by composers who, like the prete rosso, taught at the Pietà: Porta, Porpora, Martinelli, Latilla, Perotti and Bernasconi are all musicians whose compositions charm and delight as much today as they will have done in the time of Chiara.
Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Francesco Maria Veracini: Adriano in Siria (2014)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Francesco Maria Veracini: Adriano in Siria (2014)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 902 Mb | Total time: 172' | Scans included
Classical | Label: Fra Bernardo | # FB 1409491 | Recorded: 2013

Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768) is today best known as an eccentric violin virtuoso and composer of instrumental music, but he has also successfully operated as an opera composer during his time in London. His first opera Adriano in Siria was created in 1735 for the London Opera of Nobility, the rival company to Handel's opera troupe. The company had only a few years earlier (including the soprano castrato Senesino and Francesca Cuzzoni) poached all singing stars from Handel. Even worse: since 1734, it could also score with the castrato legend Farinelli. Veracini's Adriano in Siria is, in every respect, a spectacular and fascinating opera. The recording of Fabio Biondi and an appropriate illustrious singers ensemble is based on a highly successful concert performance series of the work at the Vienna Konzerthaus in 2013, which made alive again the spectacular opera event of 1735.
Christophe Rousset, Herve Niquet, Jordi Savall, Fabio Biondi - Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un automne musical à Versailles (2005)

Christophe Rousset, Herve Niquet, Jordi Savall, Fabio Biondi, Gérard Lesne, Christina Pluhar - Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un automne musical à Versailles (2005)
PAL 16:9 (720x576) | Français | (Dolby AC3, 2 ch) | 150 min | 7,74 Gb (DVD9)
Classical | Label: Armide | Sub: English, Français, Deutsch | Recorded: 2003

Studio Armide represents magnificent documentary film Olivier Simonnet «Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un automne musical à Versailles». Marc-Antoine Charpentier never had an official function at the court of Louis XIV. In 2004 Versailles finally opened its doors to him for the tercentennial commemorations of his death. The finest performers of baroque music, from Jordi Savall to Christophe Rousset, played the most important works of the time in the Royal Chapel opera house, as well as in the chateau salons and galleries: from instrumental music (Lully’s Alceste) to vocal music (Actéon), from lyric tragedy (Médée) to sacred music (Missa assumpta est Maria). The life of this collaborator of Molière’s and cultural life under Louis XIV are enriched by the participation of conductors and musicians.
Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Vivaldi: Concerti per violino XI 'Per Anna Maria' (2023)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Vivaldi: Concerti per violino XI 'Per Anna Maria' (2023)
WEB FLAC (Tracks) 310 MB | Cover | 01:02:41 | MP3 CBR 320 kbps | 145 MB
Classical | Label: naïve

Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante expand the Vivaldi edition with the eleventh volume of violin concertos bearing the name of one of the most famous interpreters of the early eighteenth century: Anna Maria. Hailed as a "child prodigy" and outstanding artist of the Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi taught for forty years, Anna Maria was an accomplished violinist, but also mastered the viola d'amore and theorbo, as well as the harpsichord, cello, lute, and mandolin. Her reputation spread throughout Europe, and we know that Vivaldi dedicated at least twenty-four concertos to her.
Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Antonio Vivaldi: Concerti per violino VI 'La boemia' (2018)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Antonio Vivaldi: Concerti per violino VI 'La boemia' (2018)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 379 Mb | Total time: 68:45 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # OP 30572 | Recorded: 2017

Vivaldi wrote hundreds of violin concertos, yet even this tiny sample of six, written during the composer’s visit to Prague between 1730 and 1731, demonstrates in every movement his genius of harmonic and dramatic surprise. Each concerto is startlingly original, from the opening movement of the E Minor RV 278 that pits daring solo passages against a hypnotic, pulsing orchestra, while the same concerto’s Largo even feels modern in its angularity. A more familiar Vivaldi can be heard in the C Major RV 186, with its Italianate innocence and winsome middle Largo. But whatever the composer’s mood, Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante thrill to his ingenuity at every step.
Fabio Biondi, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra - Alessandro Scarlatti: Carlo Re d'Alemagna (2013)

Fabio Biondi, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra - Alessandro Scarlatti: Carlo Re d'Alemagna (2013)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 824 Mb | Total time: 66:56+62:19+40:05 | Scans included
Classical | Label: agOgique | # AGO015 | Recorded: 2009

Fabio Biondi returns with the first recording of 'Carlo, Re d'Alemagna' by Alessandro Scarlatti, first performed in Naples in January 1716. The opera was resurrected in 2003 by Biondi (the leader of the innovative ensemble Europa Galante) who led a concert performance with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. This studio recording was made in late 2009. It is in many ways a typical example of Neapolitan Baroque opera with action assigned to the recitatives whilst the characters are developed during the arias. The opera deals with the accession to power and its exercise: an ever present problem in many ways and about the legitimacy of Carlo, successor to the late king. A mixture of opera seria and opera buffo, a requirement for the contemporary Neapolitan public c1690, is also found here.
Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Cavalli: La virtu de strali d'Amore (2011/2008)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante - Cavalli: La virtù de strali d'Amore (2011/2008)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Italiano | LinearPCM, 2 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | DTS, 6 ch | 2.83+6.21 Gb (DVD5+DVD9) | 150 min
Classical | Naxos | Sub.: English, Italiano

La virtù de’ strali d’Amore was the first of ten operas Cavalli wrote with librettist Giovanni Faustini. Set in Cyprus, the plot involves enchanted and pastoral elements, love and its thwarting, the counterpointing of Man and God, sorcery, revelation and ultimate resolution, all accomplished in a brilliant series of scenes. A follower of Monteverdi, Cavalli reveals the influence of the older man but also his own pronounced independence. Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante have become one of the most admired partnerships in the history of baroque music performance.