Stucco Veneziano

An Italian chamber orchestra, Rondó Veneziano set itself apart from many groups of similar style by not only employing mostly women musicians and making it a rule to perform in period Baroque dress, but mainly because they were able to meld traditional chamber music pieces to modern backing tracks, rhythms, and percussion lines, almost giving their classical sound a club music foundation that sometimes bordered on prog rock. Their first big break came in the United Kingdom in 1983, with the single "La Serenissima," which was followed two years later by a successful appearance providing the score to the film Not Quite Jerusalem. Their first album, a self-titled affair, was released in 1980, and was followed by more than 70 albums over the next (nearly) 30 years. In 2005, the group released a live collection entitled 25 Live.

An Italian chamber orchestra, Rondó Veneziano set itself apart from many groups of similar style by not only employing mostly women musicians and making it a rule to perform in period Baroque dress, but mainly because they were able to meld traditional chamber music pieces to modern backing tracks, rhythms, and percussion lines, almost giving their classical sound a club music foundation that sometimes bordered on prog rock. Their first big break came in the United Kingdom in 1983, with the single "La Serenissima," which was followed two years later by a successful appearance providing the score to the film Not Quite Jerusalem. Their first album, a self-titled affair, was released in 1980, and was followed by more than 70 albums over the next (nearly) 30 years. In 2005, the group released a live collection entitled 25 Live.

An Italian chamber orchestra, Rondó Veneziano set itself apart from many groups of similar style by not only employing mostly women musicians and making it a rule to perform in period Baroque dress, but mainly because they were able to meld traditional chamber music pieces to modern backing tracks, rhythms, and percussion lines, almost giving their classical sound a club music foundation that sometimes bordered on prog rock. Their first big break came in the United Kingdom in 1983, with the single "La Serenissima," which was followed two years later by a successful appearance providing the score to the film Not Quite Jerusalem. Their first album, a self-titled affair, was released in 1980, and was followed by more than 70 albums over the next (nearly) 30 years.

Rondò Veneziano is an Italian chamber orchestra, specializing in Baroque music, playing original instruments, but incorporating a rock-style rhythm section of synthesizer, bass guitar and drums, led by Maestro Gian Piero Reverberi, who is also the principal composer of all of the original Rondò Veneziano pieces. The unusual addition of modern instruments, more suitable for Jazz, combined with Reverberi's arrangements and original compositions, have resulted in lavish novel versions of classical works over the years. As a rule in their concert tours, the musicians, mostly women, add to the overall Baroque effect wearing Baroque-era attires and coiffures.

The Spanish label Glossa seems to be releasing a fair amount of sacred music, especially from the Neapolitan realms of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the rerelease of the Alessandro Scarlatti Lamentations reviewed elsewhere, though to be fair they are also a conduit, as in this recording, for other European firms as well. This selection of late 17th-century Lessons from Holy Week, along with a few instrumental works for filler, fits nicely within Glossa’s repertoire, which includes Johann Sebastian Bach and Pierre Bouteiller, in addition to a rather quirky offering titled Monteverdi Meets Jazz .

Specchio veneziano or the Venetian mirror – this programme compares and contrasts two composers from the city of the Doges: on the one hand the celebrated Vivaldi, on the other a virtual unknown, Giovanni Battista Reali, who was born there in 1681, three years after Vivaldi, and died in 1751, ten years after his illustrious colleague. A violinist himself, he composed trio sonatas, including a very spectacular Folia, which Théotime Langlois de Swarte, Sophie de Bardonnèche, Hanna Salzenstein and Justin Taylor juxtapose with Vivaldi’s Folia, alongside other highly virtuosic pieces, many of them complete rediscoveries, since half of this program has never been recorded before.

Die Blockflötistin und ECHO Klassik-Preisträgerin Dorothee Oberlinger ist mittlerweile weit über die Alte Musik- und die Klassik-Szene hinaus bekannt. Erst Ende vorigen Jahres widmete die Vogue ihr einen Artikel und in der Talkshow »3nach9« begeisterte sie die Zuschauer, auch durch ihr Duett mit Klaus Doldinger. Auf ihrer neuen CD »Flauto Veneziano« widmet sich Dorothee Oberlinger ganz der Flötenkunst Venedigs von der Renaissance bis zum Spätbarock. Die Blockflöte, im Italienischen bis zum Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts schlicht »flauto«, war in Venedig bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts ein sehr beliebtes und verbreitetes Instrument.