My own music is influenced by the music of Bach. Having studied in the Bach city" of Leipzig, fallen in love with his fugues as a child and won with his Preludes in the Jugend musiziert competition, achieved my first Bach cycle with the Goldberg Variations (in the USA for my Master in music and my first album recording) - then I was moved more and more deeply by the Credo, the inner conviction, in Bach's music. My imaginative powers, my musical energy (timbres, sounds, creativity, poetry) must be imbued with this richness. New music looks quite different from what it was in Bach's day (some even say it is all philosophy now, no melodies, notes or harmonies required). If modern music is still to be music, even today, and if it is still to enrich people's lives, a thing of value that they can and will remember, then Bach's store of wealth can always come to the aid of us composers. And so it is that J.S. Bach, who never left Germany and spent so long in Leipzig for want of a better position, today more than ever embraces the whole world with a web of his music, in all the places he never travelled to, whether Spain, Franconia, Hesse, Sweden, or far beyond Europe." (Ann-Helena Schlüter)

For the first time in modern times, Festival della Valle d'Itria stages the Neapolitan version of Handel's Rinaldo, a pastiche with a Mediterranean allure which Leonardo Leo assembled in 1718 and which was considered lost until a few years ago. The story behind this most rare opera is captivating: the score of Handel's masterpiece was illegally brought to Naples by the castrato singer Nicolò Grimaldi, who first interpreted Rinaldo in London. Once in Italy, the work was rehashed by Leo as well as other local composers, who adapted it to the taste of the local Neapolitan public, adding some intermezzos and amusing characters. Director Giorgio Sangati turns this work into a "ba-rock" opera set in the 1980's, where the struggle between Christians and Turks becomes a battle between pop-rock singers (the Christians) and dark-metal ones (the Turks). These two factions represent two opposite perspectives on love and life. Conductor Fabio Luisi is at the head of the baroque Ensemble La Scintilla, a group of specialists in the baroque repertoire. Excellent reviews for the vocal cast who endured an almost 4 hour performance, special mentions to Carmela Remigio (Armida) who was defined "vocally majestic and most convincing in her acting skills", whereas Teresa Iervolino (Rinaldo) impressed the critics for her vocal and acting skills en travesti and her ability "to convey all the melancholic shades of Handel's music" (Luca Ciammarughi, classicaviva. Com).

Markku Luolajan-Mikkola has a reputation for excellence and already has two Gramophone Awards. With a fan base to match, Luolajan-Mikkola is at the top of his game. In Luolajan-Mikkola’s Linn debut, he tackles the pinnacle of Bach’s productions for violinists: the Partitas and Sonatas. Luolajan-Mikkola transcribed these works for cello. His goal with this recording has been to encapsulate expression and emotion according to the character of each movement. A historically informed musician, he performs on baroque cello.

Review:

Luolajan-Mikkola is nothing if not resolute, and he seems to embrace the struggle as an expressive end in itself. His staunch approach to articulation is tricky to love, but the payoff comes in the slow movements: Sarabandes sung low and husky, unadorned, flawed, and beautiful.

– Guardian (UK)

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

In Venice in the 18th century, Christmas was celebrated as only Venetians know how to celebrate: according to one account, more wax was burnt to light up the three storeys of the Procuratie on Christmas Eve, than in all the rest of Italy in an entire year. At the same time, rather than being an independent feast – and as such, the most singularly important one of the year – the Venetian Christmas was also part of the city's famous Carnevale, which at this time lasted for almost six months. This lent a rather special character to the celebrations, compared with for instance the more clerically inclined Rome. We know that much of the Christmas festivities – in churches, in the streets or at private parties – involved music, but very little of the actual repertoire has been identified. Possibly this is also a reflection of the role of Christmas in Venice – although a festive occasion, it wasn't an isolated one, and much of the music heard at Christmas would or could be played on suitable feast days throughout the year. Together with the soloists Ruby Hughes and Komalé Akakpo, Martin Gester and Arte dei Suonatori have constructed a colourful programme of music that we either know or can easily conjecture was being played during a typical Venetian Christmas. Naturally it includes music by Antonio Vivaldi, the city's great son, as well as by Johann Adolph Hasse, who throughout his life was a regular visitor, and who spent his last ten years there. It also features the psaltery or salterio, an instrument beloved by the Venetians, heard here as solo as well as continuo instrument. Three of the works by Vivaldi are performed in versions prepared by Olivier Fourès, and are recorded here for the first time, including the Andante ‘Il Riposo per il Santissimo Natale’ with Ewa Goli?ska, co-leader of Arte dei Suonatori, as violin soloist.

On her first Pentatone album, pianist Tamara Stefanovich presents a highly personal selection of solo works by Bach, Bartók, Ives and Messiaen. Influences shows how these extraordinarily original and idiosyncratic composers let themselves be inspired by the exterior world, thereby demonstrating how authenticity comes from looking outside as well as inside. The repertoire spans from Bach’s embrace of Italian musical elements in his Aria variata alla maniera italiana, Bartók’s incorporation of folk elements in his Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, and Messiaen’s use of Hindu rhythms in Cantéyodjayâ to the collage of marching bands, sounds of trains and machinery, church hymns, ragtime and blues in Ives’ first piano sonata. In all cases, the exterior influences lead to deeply original and personal sonic galaxies. In that respect, the pieces presented here underline how identity results from a constant dialogue with our surroundings, ever changing and enriching our perceptions of ourselves and the world.

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REVIEW:

The overall excellence of Tamara Stefanovich’s interpretations is enhanced by a superb multichannel recording characterised by full-bodied ambience an concert-hall realism. Stefanovich voices Ives’s thick and ringing choral dissonances from the bottom up, taking full measure of the music’s spaciousness and resonant potential. After more than an hour of substantial 20th-century fare, the appearance of Bach proves a veritable tonic in Stefanovich’s hands.

– Gramophone

On this sixth volume of Alessandro Scarlatti's opera omnia for keyboard, once again the star is the eighteenth century Italian Anonymous Ferrarese harpsichord owned by Francesco Tasini. Toccatas, Arpeggi, Introduzioni, and even the famous "Folly of Spain," are contained in this volume featuring the brilliant and rich harmonics of the precious historical instrument. Extremely interesting is the interpretation by Francesco Tasini, that - absolute master of the period performance practice - succeeds in giving us a perfect understanding of the correct approach to the compositions by Alessandro Scarlatti, true founder of the Neapolitan keyboard School. Francesco Tasini studied at the Conservatories of Bologna and Milan, graduating cum laude in Organ and Organ Composition, and Harpsichord and Composition. He is a member of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, and of the Diocesan Commissions of Sacred Music of the Archdiocese of Bologna and of the Diocese of Ferrara.