L'art Cene Feta

Vivaldi was prolific, composing vast quantities of instrumental and vocal music and nearly fifty operas. Of the 500 concertos he wrote the most popular in his life-time as today were the four known as Le Quattro Stagioni - The Four Seasons, works that had circulated widely in manuscript before being published in Amsterdam in 1725, when explanatory poems were added to clarify the programme of each concerto. The set was dedicated to Count Wenzel von Morzin, a cousin of Haydn's first patron. The title page describes Vivaldi himself as the Count's "maestro in Italia', as "Maestro de' Concerti" of the Pieta, as well as "Maestro di Capella di Camera" of Prince Philip, Land grave of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Imme-Jeanne Klett clearly demonstrates on this recording that one particular solo instrument had a very special place in the affections of the German baroque composer Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783): the flute. For no other instrument did he write as many concertos and chamber music works.

I know of no Rameau work more colourful, more melodious, more replete with inventive vitality, wrote Gramophone in reviewing this 1973 premiere recording of the French Baroque masters 1735 heroic ballet Les Indes galantes. There is immense enthusiasm and spirit in this performance [and] some excellent singing Among the array of sopranos I was specially impressed by the full, bright ring of Rachel Yakar Anne-Marie Rodde: a good stylist and a clean, accurate voice, coping well with Rameaus florid detail The tenor Bruce Brewer is a real find for the lyrical French roles: his voice is very smooth and graceful In all, a set which no Rameau admirer should miss. Conducted by Rameau specialist Jean-Claude Malgoire, it is now being issued for the first time on CD.

Alessandro Scarlatti La Giuditta was written for five voices and instruments. In 1697, Scarlatti set a second libretto, this time written by Cardinal Ottoboni’s father, Antonio, in which the number of characters was reduced to three. We do not know the occasion for which this second setting was created and lack information on its first performance. The differences between the two versions are discussed in Brian Robins’ review of a previous recording, which interested readers will find in the Archive. (Robins states that the second version was written for Rome in 1700. The notes to Dynamic’s recording state that the first version was the one performed in 1700.)

Visitors to Venice had borne witness to Vivaldi’s prowess as a violinist, although some found his performance more remarkable than pleasurable. He certainly explored the full possibilities of the instrument, while perfecting the newly developing form of the Italian solo concerto. He left nearly five hundred concertos. Many of these were for the violin, but there were others for a variety of solo instruments or for groups of instruments, including a score of such works for solo flute or recorder, with strings and harpsichord. He claimed to be able to compose a new work quicker than a copyist could write it out, and he clearly coupled immense facility with a remarkable capacity for variety within the confines of the three-movement form, with its faster outer movements framing a central slow movement.

For his latest solo recording, acclaimed organist Simon Nieminski returns to Resonus with this pairing of two late organ works by the unjustly neglected twentieth-century French organist, pianist and composer Eugène Reuchsel.Both completed in the year before his death in 1988 these compelling collections, La Vie du Christ and Bouquet de France, sum up Reuchsel’s illustrious career as musician and composer and are here performed on the celebrated Rieger organ of St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.