Werenoi C63

A welcome return to Hyperion for Ex Cathedra and Jeffrey Skidmore, whose exuberant recordings of Baroque music from around the world have made them one of the best-loved ensembles of today. These magnificent liturgical settings from the heart of the Venetian polychoral tradition are full of drama, wonder and extraordinary spatial effects. His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts and Concerto Palatino provide the sonic gilding that would have been an essential part of the original performances, when extra musicians crowded the galleries of St Mark’s for special occasions.

These splendid performances from Anthony Halstead directing the Hanover Band from the keyboard are appealingly fluent, full of flair and vitality… His solo playing is very persuasive and the result is delightfully intimate.

Antonio Rossetti (ca. 1750 - 1792) was born Franz Anton Rossler in Bohemia. Like many other central European composers with operatic ambitions (Johann Stich, Johann Christian Bach, and even Mozart), he Italianized his Christian and surnames, and studied the craft of masters such as Pergolesi, Vivaldi, Geminiani, Albinoni. Rossetti's internalization of the fluent Italian style was as thorough-going as Giovanni Cristiano Bach's before him, but Rossetti was able to personalize it, to give it his stamp, in small demonstrations of formal and textural originality.