x Files Stagione

When it comes to old Italian vocal music, the Italian choir "La Stagione Armonica" from Padua under the direction of Sergio Balestracci has proven its high musical level several times. After the recording with responsories, which Alessandro Scarlatti composed for Good Saturday, the follow-up album with Scarlatti's responsories for Good Friday is now released.

Telemann wrote wind concertos for up to four solo instruments. A majority of the concertos (including all but one on this recording) are in four movements, usually slow-fast-slow-fast format, though there are many in the Italian three-movement style of fast-slow-fast.

How admirably Telemann succeeds may be heard listening to these concertos. Eschewing the Italian three-movement model of fast-slow-fast, he adheres to the German layout of four movements: slow-fast-slow-fast. Also in contrast to the works of his Italian counterparts, who not infrequently fell into the lazy habit of writing the same concerto over and over again, each of Telemann’s examples is strikingly different, not just in its instrumentation, but in its melodic and harmonic content and in the patterning of its passagework. Nonetheless, exquisitely beautiful as some of his slow movements are—listen to the Largo of the A-Major Oboe d’amore Concerto—it would be disingenuous to pretend that Telemann (or German Baroque composers in general) ever mastered the art of the Italian instrumental cantilena that grew out of the melodiousness of the language and Italy’s long vocal tradition. Nothing in these concertos can compare, for example, to the timeless beauty of the Adagio from Albinoni’s D-Minor Oboe Concerto, op. 9/2, written at approximately the same time as the Telemann.

An outstanding Italian musican, Stefano Demicheli has been René Jacobs' closest assistant for many years and with him has performed on Europe's main opera stages. A distinguished harpsichordist, who studied with Ottavio Dantone, he is now the leader of the Dolce & Tempesta ensemble, consisting of the best soloists from the European period instrument ensembles.This new recording on Fuga Libera gives us the world première of the three Notturni composed c.1740 by Porpora, Handel's strongest rival in London, for the All Souls Day in Naples. Carried by one of the most powerfully expressive texts in the Christian canon, this is an opportunity to hear two stunning soloists: Monica Piccinini and Romina Basso and also the Stagione Armonica of Padova.

Mateo Flecha the elder (1481–1553), better known than his son, composed ensaladas from 1543 to 1548, when he was in charge of music for Maria and Juana, the two daughters of Charles V; his service ended when Maria married her cousin, the future Maximilian II. The form, popular in 16th-century Spain, consisted of a narrative interrupted by quotations of other texts, making up a “salad” that could be varied according to the composer’s taste. They were invariably centered on the themes of Advent and Christmas. Six of these works have been available on disc in multiple versions, notably collections by Paul van Nevel La justa tells the story of redemption as a knightly tournament in which Lucifer defeats Adam and in turn is overcome by the newborn Savior.