Il pomo d’oro and Francesco Corti present Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and Armida abbandonata, together with two outstanding vocalists: soprano Kathryn Lewek (Armida & Dafne) and baritone John Chest (Apollo). Handel composed these two cantatas shortly after his Italian sojourn (1706-1709), and they demonstrate his acquaintance with and aptitude for Italian operatic music. Compared to opera, supporting roles are left out of these relatively compact cantatas, increasing the focus on the main characters, and heightening the expressive depth of their music. Il pomo d’oro performs these pieces with historically-informed ears, lively and colourful. The cantatas alternate with several delightful orchestral pieces by Handel, including several movements from his Almira Suite.
Star countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic steps into new musical territory with the world premiere recording of Catone in Utica by Leonardo Vinci, a forgotten genius of Italian opera. The opera tells a powerful tale of Julius Caesar’s defeat of the Republican forces led by Marcus Porcius Cato in 46 BC, exploring the eternal themes of love, duty and honor. Featuring five countertenors along with conductor Riccardo Minasi who leads il pomo d’oro.
Franco Fagioli lavishes his "extraordinary agility and richly upholstered voice" (Gramophone) on Leonardo Vinci, the Neapolitan composer who influenced Handel and many later masters of Italian opera. Fagioli is joined again by Il Pomo d'Oro led by Zefira Valova, the superb period-instrument ensemble on his previous album. Veni, Vidi, Vinci features seven world premiere recordings from the Neapolitan composer, unearthed for this great recording.
Countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic has emerged as a new star of the specialty partly through fearless programming, and this collection of Arie Napoletane, Neapolitan arias or arias from Naples, is no exception. There really isn't a "Neapolitan school." Rather, Naples was on the musical cutting edge in the second quarter of the 18th century, and the arias here represent both a classic opera seria style, in the pieces by the massively prolific Alessandro Scarlatti, and music by the composers who pointed the way toward the melodically simpler future of Gluck and eventually Mozart, like Leonardo Leo and Leonardo Vinci. These latter are hardly household names, and Cencic, offering several recorded premieres, renders a valuable service simply by finding and choosing the deliberate and sensuous arias heard here. Moreover, the album's stylistic contrasts play to Cencic's strengths.
The year 1603 marked a turning point for Carlo Gesualdo: at the age of thirty-seven, the Prince of Venosa, having made a name for himself with his first four books of madrigals, turned to sacred compositions with two substantial collections of Sacræ Cantiones, published that year in Naples by Costantino Vitale. The first volume (presented here) consists of nineteen five-part motets, while the second one, which has not survived in its entirety, contains the same number of six- part motets and a motet for seven voices.
Naples in 1750 was one of the ten biggest cities in the world, and it spawned two of the biggest musical stars of the era: the castrati Farinelli and the much lesser known Caffarelli, whose real name was Gaetano Majorano. This release consists of arias written for Caffarelli, and you might treasure it for the flamboyant, high-volume singing of countertenor Franco Fagioli, who arguably comes as close as any of his contemporaries to conveying what the high-powered sound of the castrati was like (in the understandable absence of the genuine article). Or, you might be grateful to hear the music associated with Caffarelli, who in his own time had a reputation for being troublesome and has generally ignored by the historical opera revival movement.
For today s audiences, Vivaldi s name exemplifies Venetian opera in the early 18th century but he was not the only composer to shape the distinctive musical aesthetic of the great trading city known as La Serenissima. In this release of arias by Vivaldi and his contemporaries, countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic further explores Venice s contribution to world s rich store of Baroque opera. Cencic recreates the Venetian ambiance with the support of Italian violinist/conductor Riccardo Minasi and his ensemble Il Pomo d Oro.
The Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli, with his mighty voice, has always been easy to imagine as one of the castrati with whom Handel contended at the height of his operatic career. He brings both power and flair to fast passagework, and that doesn't change here in such arias as Venti, turbine, prestate, from Rinaldo, HWV 7a. What's different this time is the expertise Fagioli brings to the slow numbers. For the most part, Fagioli does not essay unusual repertory here, except in the final Ch'io parta?, from Partenope, HWV 27, which elegantly ends the program on a question and frames the whole thing nicely with the opening aria from Oreste, HWV A11. For the most part, though, Fagioli sticks to familiar territory, and he lays claim to it. Sample the intense but understated performance of Ombra mai fu, from Act One of Serse, HWV 40, which seems to allude to its suppressed emotion rather than laying it on the line.
Bach’s harpsichord concertos are arguably the first in the history of music designed specifically for this instrument. Composing them, Bach aimed to adapt the string writing of Italian instrumental concertos to a keyboard instrument, while simultaneously enriching this style with typically-German traits such as counterpoint and motivic development. Francesco Corti and il pomo d’oro present concertos BWV 1052, 1053, 1055 and 1058 as the first volume of what should become a cycle spanning four albums. Corti has chosen to combine these four concertos for the full orchestral sound they call for, while later recordings in this series will have a chamber setting in comparison. For tempo choices and melodic variations, Corti has been inspired by treatises from Bach’s time, as well as the composer’s own written-out ornamentations.