Jaime Gomez Obregon

In a new recording of music by Alessandro Scarlatti, Josetxu Obregón’s La Ritirata parades its dazzling vocal and instrumental talents in presenting the four cantatas which involve recorders and violins, together with an additional standalone soprano aria, for a further Glossa Neapolitan-flavored release. Drawn from his well over 800 secular cantatas these works combine fully-integrated, imaginative recitatives, expressive and dramatic arias and colorful and exacting instrumental sinfonias and ritornelli into elegant and compact wholes, and featuring poetic texts which typically followed the aspirations of the Accademia degli Arcadi literary circle initiated in Rome around the turn of the eighteenth century.

World premiere of the complete performance of the baroque oratorio Il Giardino del Rose by Alessandro Scarlatti, performed by the ensemble La Ritirata under the direction of Josetxu Obregón.
This pastoral work premiered on Easter Sunday, April 24, 1707, in the grand Sala dell’Accademia of the Palazzo Bonelli, as part of the Easter celebrations. At that time, opera performances were prohibited in Rome by papal decree, so the oratorio was used as an alternative.

In his youth in Venice (in the 1680s/1690s), Caldara drew significant praise for his own cello playing, and his understanding of the instrument and its possibilities stayed with him throughout a career which saw him immersed also in the rich musical cultures of Mantua and Rome before he became a valued member of the Hofkapelle in Vienna; he worked there for the last twenty years of his life, contributing to the glories of the Austro-Italian Baroque at the Imperial Court of the highly musical Charles VI (whom Caldara had also served in Barcelona).Here, the cello, ranging from the lyrical to the virtuosic, is called upon as a soloist in concerto, sinfonia and sonata pieces, but this recording is enriched further by the presence of two singers, soprano Eugenia Boix and mezzo Luciana Mancini – a cantata, Porgete per pietà, from the former and three arias from the latter. Mancini sings Pompe inutili (from the oratorio Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo), whose ravishing vocal lines are matched by the obbligato cello part.Josetxu Obregón has made a number of previous Glossa recordings exploring the early history of the cello, and in the company of La Ritirata has also contributed to the burgeoning reassessment of this major composing figure with their Caldara "The Cervantes Operas programme". Now comes a vivid and varied release to commemorate 350 years since the birth of Antonio Caldara!

The first in a new cycle of Dvořák symphony recordings, ‘Dvořák: Symphonies 5 & 6’ is the second release from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and its Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Jaime Martín, on the MSO’s own recordlabel.

“Ultimately the Earth is set apart from its neighbours in this solar system by our humanity. And so, in the process of composing this work I decided to include that which truly defines us—our Voice.” Deborah Cheetham Fraillon