Maddalena

Though unfinished at his death, Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue is both his musical last testament and a cornerstone of Western composition. At once a miracle of intellectual achievement, musical invention, technical challenges and emotional power, The Art of Fugue draws on all of Bach’s resources as a master of counterpoint. It is here performed, as the composer apparently intended, on harpsichord, by Sergio Vartolo who uses his own recently-published facsimile edition of the autograph score, and of the engraved first edition (1751/1752).

Giovanni Bononcini composed the four part oratorio La Conversione di Maddalena for the Habsburg emperor Leopold I in 1701. The musician from Modena, at the time at the apex of his European fame, had at his disposal the best forces of the Imperial Chapel: four singers (two sopranos, a contralto and a bass) of top rate and an instrumental ensemble, limited to strings but adequately consistent to articulate a concert dialectic with tutti-concertino, including soloist pages for the violin, the cello and the viola da gamba.The extremely popular story of Mary Magdalene – a subject among the most fascinating in the Baroque spirituality of the Counter-reformation – is dealt with in original terms by the anonymous author of the libretto, who through a suggestive use of poetry “places on stage” the difficult journey of conversion of the sinner saint. Mary Magdalene is urged by the percussive incitement of her sister Marta (like in the painting of Caravaggio), who at the end of several stages of a contradicting drama plot, will succeed in winning her over to the field of Sacred Love, making vain the offers and threats of Profane Love.Bononcini reacts to the suggestions of the text by producing a score that holds a wonderful variety and a constant novelty of invention, and in which immediate heartfelt expressiveness, conspicuous vocal requirements and many nuances of timbre and harmony concur to define a sculpted profile for each character.

Giovanni Bononcini composed the four-part oratorio La conversione di Maddalena for the Habsburg emperor Leopold I in 1701. The musician from Modena, at the time at the apex of his European fame, had at his disposal the best forces of the Imperial Chapel: four singers (two sopranos, a contralto and a bass) of top rate and an instrumental ensemble, limited to strings but adequately consistent to articulate a concert dialectic with tutti-concertino, including soloist pages for the violin, the cello and the viola da gamba.

There is no shortage of parallels to be drawn between Caldara and Vivaldi: both Venetians, both boasting an impressive body of work running to several hundred pieces of all genres, both died in Vienna (in the same street and in the same penury!), although Caldara had written more operas and oratorios than the Red Priest. And here is one of these very 32 known oratorios, Maddalena ai piedi di Christo written in Venice around 1698; it is "oratorio volgare", that is, recited in Italian, rather than Latin.

Quartet Records presents a 50th-anniversary remastered edition of the innovative, cult-classic score by Ennio Morricone, a key work which launched one of the composer’s best known themes. Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz in 1971, Maddalena is a one-off venture of the Polish director into the territory of Italian cinema. Starring Lisa Gastoni as the title character and Eric Woofe as the priest whose faith she tests, the movie is an erotic drama focused on poetic sex scenes, psychedelic flashbacks and deviant erotic games all mixed into a beautiful fever dream. Maddalena is a relatively obscure entry in the Morricone filmography despite the importance of launching “Chi mai,” one of the composer best-known cues and famous worldwide a decade later when it was re-used in the film Le Professionel.