Teth

Alessandro Scarlatti – Lamentazioni per la Settimana Santa
Cristina Miatello - Ensemble Aurora / Enrico Gatti
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 550 MB | Artwork: 22 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Glossa # GCD 921205 | Country/Year: Europe 2011, 1992
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Sacred, Vocal

"…This is the only complete recording that I know of this work. It was recorded in 1992 for Symphonia, and probably did not have a great deal of circulation on that less well-known label. (…) If you don’t have the original release in your collection, this is definitely the one you should get. It is an outstanding recording that has certainly stood the test of time." ~Fanfare

At the time of his death, in 1741, Joseph-Hector Fiocco's widow sold the manuscripts of the composer's works to Joannes Vanden Boom, Dean and Chapel Master of the Cathedral Saint Michel and Saint Gudule in Brussels, where the composer had held the post of zangmeester (choirmaster) until his untimely death. Among this collection is a complete set of nine Lamentations for Holy Week for the unusual instrumentation of solo voice, obbligato cello and basso continuo. Fiocco’s Lamentations are conceived in the most elevated Italian style of the early eighteenth century. They are masterful and can compete with the most beautiful such compositions, given their dramatic power and poignant emotion. In addition to the nine Lamentations known from the abovementioned manuscript, the present recording offers in world premiere two new settings and a differently instrumented version found in the archives of the Fonds St.-Jacob in Antwerp.

None of us knew what to expect when we took the plunge into the first cycle of the Leçons de Ténèbres by Lambert. The secular work of this great master of the French XVII Century – one of the great singers and pedagogues of his time – was known to us, each one of us having performed many times his wonderful court airs. We thereupon thought that we were on known territory and able to adapt ourselves to suit his religious music, even though it seemed odd to us that these Leçons were not better known or often performed and even less recorded – this first cycle being the very first recording. But from the first working session, we understood why. It took a good three hours just to read the first Leçon – for about ten minutes worth of music! Indeed, the vocal line, abundantly ornamented with Gregorian ‘plainchant ’, is not rhythmically rigorously organised in relation to the basso continuo line.'

Michel Lambert was a court composer to King Louis XIV of France, and the father-in-law of Lully. He has been known, if at all, for his court airs setting common French poems of the day. He wrote two sets of Tenebrae Lessons, of which the one recorded here is the earlier. Reconstructing it sounds like a pretty speculative enterprise, which is probably why it hasn't been recorded before; contemporary descriptions mention a vocal trio, but here a single voice is used.