There is no doubt that the best of Alessandro Stradella's output lies in his valuable sacred works. The Christmas cantatas are representative of his typically Roman art and illustrate the story of the Nativity with a certain theatricality, by means of polichorality. We are at the origin of the concerto grosso genre, with a large ensemble in conversation with a concertino of soloists, while delicate, heavenly vocal atmospheres alternate with infernal fury. The recording reveals Stradella as one of the greater geniuses of the seventeenth century, possibly the most versatile in both vocal and instrumental writing. Enrico Gatti The complete Christmas cantatas. Alessandro Stradella was one of the most important Italian composers of the seventeenth century. This recording presents the only two cantatas Stradella composed for Christmas, preceded by the instrumental Sonata di Viole, the earliest entirely instrumental works (i.e., unconnected to a vocal source) for the concertino-concerto grosso ensemble in the history of the genre.

Winter feasts like the Latin Saturnalia and the Germanic Yule, airborne gift-giving figures like the Norse Odinn Jólnir, the Slavic Ded Moroz, the Dutch Sinterklaas: from time immemorial December skies have been rather busy. Pagan patterns were readapted to Christianity – and a canonised bishop from fourth-century Asia Minor, Nikolaos, whose feast occurred near the winter solstice, merged with another bearded benefactor. Wotan’s hood and Nicholas’s mitre were mixed up, and by the nineteenth century Santa Claus was ready to don new red and white robes and to deliver toys on both sides of the Atlantic. The pieces on this recording (mainly from a thirteenth-century English manuscript) belong to the liturgy for the eve of the Feast of St Nicholas: they allude to his picturesque feats, such as the rescue of three needy maidens or the taming of a storm. Readings and additional songs come from the repertory associated with this widely popular saint, celebrated throughout the Middle Ages from Italy to Iceland. Originally released in 1998, this joint performance by La Reverdie and Cantori Gregoriani received enthusiastic reviews in several music magazines: ‘For those who want to enjoy some of the best liturgical singing this is highly recommended’ (Early Music, 1999).

With this fourth installment of the Stradella Project, Andrea De Carlo and Ensemble Mare Nostrum continue their exploration of the oratorio output, following the recent rediscoveries of San Giovanni Crisostomo and Santa Editta. A pretty dancing-girl at the imperial court of Antioch in Syria, Pelagia, is the object of rivalry between an evil angel, Mondo (the World), urging her to enjoy life to the full before old age destroys her beauty, and Bishop Nonno of Edessa, who with the help of a good angel, Religione, invites her to a life in the service of God. Pelagia succumbs to the flattery offered by Mondo, but just as the latter is celebrating his victory, she retires unexpectedly to a lonely cave in the wilderness where she can dedicate the rest of her life to the loving service of God. Stradella cannot resist revealing his point of view about this sudden change, giving the oratorio a surprise ending. Soprano Roberta Mameli offers us a complex and seductive portrayal of the title role, surrounded by a distinguished cast including Sergio Foresti as Mondo, Raffaele Pe as Religione and Luca Cervoni as Nonno. As in previous installments, the recording was made within the framework of the Alessandro Stradella International Festival in Nepi, the composer’s birthplace.

Rome-based Andrea De Carlo and his Ensemble Mare Nostrum inaugurate here a new series of recordings devoted to Rome’s vast and multifaceted musical heritage. This world premiere recording took place in Nepi, Viterbo province, where Alessandro Stradella was born. ‘La forza delle stelle’ offers an opportunity to sample some of the fruits of the collaboration between this exceptionally expressive Baroque composer and the Roman poet Sebastiano Baldini, under the patronage of the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden. Stradella biographer Carolyn Gianturco authored the booklet notes.

Alessandro Stradella’s place in the annals of the history of music is not only due to the adventurous circumstances that marked his brief existence, but also to the reputation as an opera composer he has acquired since the 18th century. Inaccessible for many decades to specialists and scholars, La Doriclea is definitely the least known of all Stradella’s operas. However, it constitutes a particularly significant chapter in his overall output: composed in Rome during the early 1670s, to our knowledge La Doriclea represents the first opera entirely composed by Stradella. From the dramatic point of view, La Doriclea belongs to the comedy of intrigue genre typical of the 17th century Spanish theatre tradition. Refined and amusing, it alternates touching lamentos with irresistibly comic scenes, in which the character of Giraldo, a veritable precursor of the basso buffo, allows us to glimpse Rossinian atmospheres. Em?ke Baráth (Doriclea) and Xavier Sabata (Fidalbo) alongside Giuseppina Bridelli (Lucinda) and Luca Cervoni (Celindo) and the comic couple of Delfina (Gabriella Martellacci) and Giraldo (Riccardo Novaro) bring a complex and fascinating role-playing game to life. This world premiere release of La Doriclea is a major achievement for The Stradella Project, which here reaches its fifth volume. “Through his festival and recording project, Andrea De Carlo is raising the profile of this pioneering Italian composer.” (Gramophone)

Twelve years younger than Bach and Handel, Giovanni Benedetto Platti left us a collection of nine Concerti per il cembalo obligato which rank not only among the very early examples of composition for keyboard instrument and strings, but also and above all, the first specimens especially conceived for the fortepiano, the new instrument invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Brilliant soloist and regular keyboard player of Zefiro, Luca Guglielmi offers us, for the first time on period instruments three brilliant and foreseeing piano concertos, interspersed with the large-­--scale Piano Sonata in C minor, a very widespread composition at the time, and the baroque Sonata for oboe, with a special appearance by Paolo Grazzi. An astonishing music from a composer who deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest of his time.

The Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina is a crossroads of historical and musical doubts and paradoxes. After all, legends such as these are always nourished first in the shadows of history, in the ambiguous folds of testimonies; enigma is the birthplace of creative fantasy, spurring the collective imagination in its constant aspiration to embody mythical forms. Palestrina himself was probably the first to consciously set the stage for the creation of the myth which would surround him and his work. Already with his earliest publication, the Liber primus missarum of 1554, the entire enterprise seemed fueled by a desire for majesty and success, from the large format of the volume to the meticulously prepared graphics, from the dedication to a great ecclesiastical personage (Pope Julius III) to - last but not least - the musical contents: Masses of contrapuntal and formal perfection, exemplifying a masterful use of all the important compositional techniques of the time. Marco Della Sciucca, from the liner notes Some of the best Italian male voices, specialists in the performance of Renaissance and Baroque music, sing in Odhecaton under the direction of Paolo Da Col. Since its beginning in 1998, Odhecaton has been the recipient of some of the most prestigious discographic awards: "De Passione" (Josquin Desprez) was awarded the Diapason d'Or of the Year 2003, while the more recent "O gente brunette" (Ramee) took the Diapason d'Or of February 2010 ?A landmark recording. Odhectaton is making their debut on Arcana with the Missa Papae Marcelli of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, a recording sure to become a point of reference for this sacred masterwork. ?How and where. For the first time in recording history, Odhecaton has recreated as much as possible a hypothetical performance by the pontifical chapel at the time of Pope Marcellus II. ? Performance forces. With an ensemble of about twenty singers, Odhecaton comes close to the formation of the pontifical chapel which, between 1510 and 1585, numbered between twenty and thirty-six singers. ? Only men allowed. Odhecaton excludes soprano and treble voices, extraneous to the pontifical chapel in the second half of the sixteenth century, and employs only adult male voices: basses, baritones, tenors and countertenors. ? Palestrina made in Italy. Until now the discography of the Missa Papae Marcelli has been dominated by British ensembles and choirs, inclined to emphasize the balanced purity of the vocal lines, the ethereal side of Palestrina. Odhecaton instead highlights the Mediterranean qualities of his vocal style. ? The liturgical context. The performance places the Missa Papae Marcelli in a liturgical context which emphasizes its original function, reconstructing a hypothetical liturgy (the Easter Mass) with music as it might have been celebrated at the Sistine Chapel.

Classical Music

During the reign of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444-76), Milan experienced an extraordinary musical era. In the 1470s, the Duke set out to form a 'famous and worthy choir', recruiting a 'goodly number of singers from beyond the Alps and from various countries'. He soon assembled a musical ensemble that boasted some of the most celebrated musicians in the Franco-Flemish polyphony of the day, from Italy and beyond. The Duke brought into being a new kind of polyphonic mass, a cycle of motets called missales to replace the traditional ordinarium, with texts attributing special importance to the worship of Our Lady of Grace and Mercy, much beloved by the Sforza family. A masterpiece of the genre is the so-called Missa Galeazescha for five voices, composed by Loyset Comp�re and performed here by an ensemble inspired by the impressive size of Galeazzo Maria Sforza's cappella. This recording brings together four vocal-instrumental groups.

At the beginning of the 18th century Italian instrumental music reached France and began to make its decisive impact. Michele Mascitti was a protagonist of this remarkable change. The young violinist moved from Naples to Paris where he spent most of his long life and managed to publish nine collections of instrumental music between 1704 and 1738. The extraordinary success and popularity of Mascitti’s works allowed him to live for many years as a free-lance musician and to be applauded and admired in the artistic circles of the French capital. His music brings us back to the fashionable and refined atmospheres of the Parisian aristocratic salons and to the galanterie so beautifully illustrated in the paintings of the time. The violin sonatas recorded for the first time in this album blend the brilliant and passionate expressivity emanating from the Neapolitan legacy with the elegance and grace of the French instrumental tradition and offer an exquisite example of the new union of tastes.

With a selection from Benedetto Marcello’s Estro poetico-armonico, a monumental musical setting of the first fifty psalms, the first edition of which was accompanied by letters of praise from such musicians as Telemann, Mattheson and Bononcini, L’Amoroso finds an original way of celebrating its initial passion, the Italian repertory with viola da gamba, of which the ensemble has made a speciality at the instigation of Guido Balestracci. The artistic project here renews the group’s ties with the centrality of melody, the dialogue between voices and instruments, and experimentation with vocal sound. The two singers, the ductile and sensitive soprano Caroline Pelon and the alto Melodie Ruvio with her deep tone-colours, appear in both solo and duet formation. A sonata from the composer’s op.2, testifying to the taste for the viola da gamba typical of Baroque culture in Venice, completes this recording, a new collaboration between the ensemble and Outhere that also marks the debut of L’Amoroso and Guido Balestracci on the Arcana label.

The Bauyn Manuscript, a key collection of seventeenth century harpsichord and other music, displays the influence of various schools of composition on the writing and performance of the great clavecinistes of the mid-seventeenth century. The recording includes works of Chambonnieres and Louis Couperin, displaying their different styles which led Le Gallois to write that ''one touched the heart and the other touched the ear'', as well as other contemporary composers such as Hardel and d'Anglebert. The Denis harpsichord of 1658 is the extraordinary protagonist of this recording, in which Giulia Nuti explores the expressive capacities of one of the earliest extant French double-manual harpsichords, displaying how instrumental refinement enables performance choies. The approach is that of Giulia Nuti's award-winning first solo recording of eighteenth-century French harpsichord music, Les Sauvages, recorded on the Taskin of 1788, which received a Diapason d'Or.

What is most remarkable in his work is precisely the perfect equilibrium that is found between different tendencies within each work: audacity and boldness, but profoundly reflected thought, presented without haste and with a sure grasp. A perfect correctness of style, without coldness, on the other hand a certain lyricis, particularly in the slow movements, whose pace is grave and almost majestic. Sometimes there is tenderness but always it is contained: sometimes there is also ardour, ma non troppo. And so there is always a balance which also affects the way in which he combines the Italian tradition of writing and the manipulation of the violin with the French tradition. Philippe Beaussant, from the liner notes A shadowy, unstable and misanthropic character, died mysteriously from a knife wound inflicted by an unknown assailant, Jean-Marie Leclair is the real creator of the French violin school and one of the greatest violinists of the Eighteenth Century. His prolific output, almost exclusively devoted to the violin, consists of a series of collections of sonatas published throughout his lifetime, in which stand out 48 sonatas for violin and bass (four volumes). The First Book of Sonatas for Solo Violin with Basso Continuo dates from 1723 and represents Leclair's first publication. Four sonatas are performed here by Fabio Biondi, one of the most authoritative Baroque performers, joined by an all-star continuo group featuring Rinaldo Alessandrini, Pascal Monteilhet and Maurizio Naddeo.

A musical-poetic genre first developed by Saint Francis of Assisi, the Lauda is one of the most remarkable expressions of Italian popular musical culture from the Middle Ages to the present day, and one of the oldest historically. + La Reverdie presents a rich, 2CD anthology of Italian monophonic Laude from the repertoire’s two principal sources: the Cortona (ca. 1270) and Florence (ca. 1320) manuscripts. + Many of the Florence pieces have never been recorded. + The accompanying booklet contains detailed introductory essays on the music’s reconstruction and wider cultural significance.

In August 1986 two pairs of young sisters (Claudia and Livia Caffagni, and Elisabetta and Ella de Mircovich) founded the ensemble La Reverdie. The name, derived from a poetic genre that celebrates the return of Spring, reveals perhaps the principal trait of a group that, for 30 years now, has captivated audiences and critics alike for the variety in its approach to the vast and varied musical repertoire of Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

To mark the ensemble's 30th anniversary, Arcana has brought together in a single release all of the themed projects that, over the years, La Reverdie has devoted to various aspects of Medieval culture. From the image of femininity to courtly love, from the music in Medieval thought to the symbolism of light and darkness, each theme developed in this musical collection- an excellent introduction to Medieval music- explores specific repertoires from different points of view, either geographical or literary and philosophical. A journey of discovery that, by virtue of the issues addressed and the freshness of their approach, gives the listener the idea that music in Middle Ages is a fantastic kaleidoscope of sounds and words which reflect the spirit of the time. The history of Europe itself resounds in this anthology of music between 13th and 15th centuries; Latin and vernacular poetry, as well as monody and polyphony, voices and instruments feature a colorful and bright artistic landscape.

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REVIEW:

This is the box to have if it comes to Music of the Middle Ages. The musicians of La Reverdie are all masters in their game, and make it sound absolutely authentic in every way. Singing chanting speaking, it's all done with a great feel for the drama, but they never overdo it. It all comes quite naturally to all of them, and are helped by a state of the art recording.

– Harry’s Classical Music Corner (Harry van der Wal)