Marcello Concerto

Founded in 1973 by Trevor Pinnock, the English Concert has been a leading light in the performance of Baroque and Classical music for for over 40 years. Under their present Artistic Director Harry Bicket and with distinguished guest artists they continue to perform with the passion, sophistication and technical mastery established at their creation. Such is the commitment and passion that their players bring to every performance. Drawn not only from home-grown talent, The English Concert can boast a truly international cast of musicians. Soloists in their own right, and backed-up by scholarly knowledge of style and genre, the close-knit relationship between their musicians makes for a truly special blend of sound. This new recording features the talents of these soloists in performances of Concertii by Telemann, Marcello, Dall’Abaco, Tartini and Porpora.

There are many other highly recommendable recordings by Collegium Musicum 90 under Simon Standage on the Chandos early music label, Chaconne. If you’ve heard a reasonable cross-section of the music of Vivaldi and would like to experiment with some of his near-contemporaries, their recording of Alessandro Marcello’s six Violin Concertos, Op.6, known as ‘La Cetra’, together with an extra Concerto in B-flat, would be a good place to start.

Famous Oboe Concertos" is a mistaken title to give a collection in which none of the works is really well-known and two of them not even specifically for oboe. Leelair's Concerto, for violin, flute or oboe, is a poised, elegant work, well worth including in the record; Vivaldi's D minor Concerto, for either violin or oboe, is a light, cheerful piece, very agreeable in manner without making any claims to greatness.

The Baroque Project, Vol. IV. Tomasi Albinoni. Opera Arias and Instrumental Music. Ana Quintans, soprano. Concerto de’Cavalieri. Marcello Di Lisa, conductor. Containing nine world premiere recordings, the fourth volume of The Baroque Project focuses once again on Venice, this time with the music of Tomaso Albinoni. Concertos and rare arias from Albinoni’s forgotten operas are performed with incredible energy and imagination by Marcello Di Lisa and his Concerto de’Cavalieri on period instruments. The featured soloist is the Portuguese soprano Ana Quintans, widely considered one of the leading baroque singers of our time.

This survey of Vivaldi kicks off with a gutsy yet articulate performance of the Concerto for two trumpets RV 537, featuring flamboyant playing from soloists Andrea Di Mario and Jonathan Pia; it serves as a thrilling overture that leads directly into the spectacular trumpet-laden aria ‘Con palme ed allori’ from Teuzzone (which features some extraordinary embellishments by Kristina Hammarström). A broad range of Vivaldi’s theatrical output for Venice, Mantua and Verona is represented by a pleasingly varied selection of six arias from four different operas and another two arias by Giacomelli from the pasticcio Bajazet (including the striking lament ‘Sposa son disprezzata’, perhaps the recital’s sentimental highlight).

Wherever the Kaunas Chamber Orchestra comes from, they are excellent in the Baroque repertory – possessing a fine sense of nobilmente mixed with a lively sense of rhythm. The Marcello Concert Grossi may not be quite as fine as Corelli's or Handel's opp. 6, but it is certainly the equal of Torelli's op. 8, Avison's Scarlatti-inspired or Geminiani's opp. 2-5.

Trumpet Star, Alison Balsom, Transforms The Traditional Italian Baroque Concerto In This New EMI Classics Release Following the popular and critical international success of her Haydn and Hummel concertos recording, Alison Balsom has recorded a program of Italian Baroque concertos. In this new recording, Balsom, plays various popular concertos originally composed for the violin or oboe by Vivaldi, Tartini, B. Marcello, Albinoni and Cimarosa, accompanied by the Scottish Ensemble. This collection provides an apt vehicle for the award-winning trumpeter's characteristic brilliance and grace.Alison Balsom, an exclusive EMI Classics recording artist, studied trumpet at the Guildhall School of Music, the Paris Conservatoire, and with Håkan Hardenberger.

Playing a brilliant modern trumpet, Alison Balsom engages in an adventurous and thrilling dialogue with an ensemble of period instruments as she performs six virtuoso concertos of the baroque era, originally composed for violin or oboe by Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, Albinoni and Marcello. She collaborates with Director Trevor Pinnock – the musician who originally inspired her discovery of baroque music as a child – and a specially assembled instrumental group, Pinnock’s Players. Seeing this pioneering album as “a delicious colliding of the two worlds” – baroque and modern – Alison Balsom explores the possibilities of the piccolo trumpet while savouring the sonorities of period instruments and their “compelling authenticity and ability to reveal the composer's intentions”.

Marcello Di Lisa presents three cantate con stromenti that explore the anguish of abandoned lovers; his erudite booklet-note discusses the literary tradition behind the stories of the shepherd Aminta (a stock Arcadian character with roots in Hellenistic poetry), Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, and the forsaken Olimpia (heroine of cantos 9-11 of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso), and also provides a penetrating commentary on the musical content of Scarlatti’s cantatas.