Musicali

The Ensemble Fiori Musicali Austria was founded by the Italian harpsichordist and pianist Marinka Brecelj in 2002 to perform Renaissance and Baroque music from Italy. Over the years, crossover elements of traditional Italian, Sephardic, Oriental or South American music have also enriched the spectrum, as can be impressively experienced on the album "Baroque Arabesque".

Charles-Joseph Van Helmont played a leading role in music in Brussels during the Baroque period. In 1737 he followed in the footsteps of Joseph-Hector Fiocco and composed a cycle of nine Leçons de ténèbres for solo voice and continuo.

Handel came to the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1703 and played as a violinist in the theatre at the Gänsemarkt, the local market place. On later occasions, he also played the harpsichord in the orchestra. His first opera – announced as a Singspiel although it has no spoken dialogue – was premiered on 8 January 1705, after being composed in the months directly preceding this. An Italian libretto was written by Giulio Pancieri in Venice in 1691 for Giuseppe Boniventi's opera L'Almira. The German translation used by Handel was made by Friedrich Christian Feustking. The recitatives of the opera are in German, while some of the arias are also in German, others in Italian, as was the custom at the opera house in Hamburg. Almira is the sole example among Handel's many operas with no role for a castrato.

La Catena d Adone was first performed in 1626 and marked the arrival of opera in Rome. With all the characteristics of the genre, a pastoral tale in one prologue and five acts, it chronicles the tumultuous love lives of Adonis, Apollo, Venus, and Falsirena. The frivolous and sensual even erotic tone is placed in sharp contrast with Christian morality in a perfectly mastered Recitarcantando style supported by a wealth of instruments. Besides being a world premiere recording, the opera inaugurates the arrival of a very young conductor to the Alpha catalog. Nicolas Achten is also a director, singer, and player of theorbo, harpsichord, and harp, and follows the path set by great musical pioneers such as Vincent Dumestre and Pablo Valetti.

Dominico Scarlatti: Love's Sweet Torment - Late Cantatas Vol 1 [IMPORT] Penelope Rapson (Conductor), Fiori Musicali (Orchestra), Kate Eckersley (Performer) is a beautifull recording with the talent Kate Eckersley. Her vocal skills are sublime and it truly sounds angelic when she sings. Unicorn-Kanchana Records have cheaped out completely on the book-let with a terrible font and it is truly paper thin. The essay written by Ms Eckersley is very well-written and informative. Over all this is a great production and I give it 5 well-deserved stars.

Giovanni Battista Colonna (1637-95) spent most of his career in Bologna as maestro di cappella of the basilica of San Petronio. Since he had at his disposal this imposing building with its two choir organs, well known to lovers of the instrument, and its very generous acoustics, Colonna wrote a large number of sacred compositions for imposing vocal and instrumental forces. But, in a more intimate vein, he also devoted two collections to the repertory of ‘small motets’. The pieces recorded here come from the 1681 set of Motetti a due e tre voci (1681). They display a wide variety of formulas, combining traditional elements and innovative aspects that were to be further developed in the following generations.

In this new recording, Scherzi Musicali explores the fascinating world of Alessandro Scarlatti s Arcadian cantatas: the six mostly unpublished cantatas selected here sublimate the affects of nymphs and shepherds far from their beloved. Both the arias and the recitatives are exceptionally beautiful, varied and colorful: the accomplished theatrical sense of these cantatas has stimulated the soprano Deborah Cachet, the baritone Nicolas Achten and the abundant instrumental forces that provide a setting for their voices to a passionate and captivating realization, in which poetry, rhetoric, inventive ornamentation and opulence of sound reign supreme.