Pcgo Magazin 2020

The soprano Ania Vegry, the recipient of many prizes, was nominated by Opernwelt as the Young Artist of the Year in 2009 and has been an ensemble member at the State Opera of Lower Saxony in Hanover since 2007. The Online Musik Magazin certifies that »her soprano voice, most highly fluent in the coloraturas, possesses warmth and substance, expressive power, and flawless intonation« – which makes her the ideal choice for the rich affections of the arias of Florian Leopold Gassmann, an Austrian composer on the cusp between the Baroque and Early Classicism. After two years of study with Giovanni Battista Martini, Gassmann became an organist in Venice. In 1757 he composed his first opera, and through 1762 he composed an opera every year for the Carnival season In Venice.

Overshadowed by such prominent Spanish Renaissance composers as Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Juan Esquivel was considered a minor and fairly obscure figure until his reputation was elevated by inclusion in the revised edition of Robert Stevenson’s Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age. Today, his works are increasingly appreciated by modern scholars and listeners thanks to the discovery in 1973 of a large volume of Esquivel’s music, published in 1613, which included masses, psalms, Magnificats, hymns, a Te Deum, a Requiem, and numerous antiphons and responsories.