This selection's booklet contains the original Latin text with translations in German, French, Italian and English.
Recording information: La congrégation "Sacra Familia" à Martinengo, Bergamo (04/08/1996-04/12/1996).

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Zefiro has already proved its strong affinity with Georg Philipp Telemann's music, and the ensemble's recording of his Ouvertures a 8 was awarded a Gramophone Editor's Choice. As Julie Anne Sadie pointed out, ''the much-vaunted lean muscularity of the Ensemble Zefiro performances favors the wind instruments and, when joined with one-to-a-part strings, produces a freshly balanced sonority that alters our experience of these works''. The 250th anniversary of Telemann's death offers now a neat incentive to re-release this successful recording - originally issued on the Ambroisie label - on which his Wassermusik, generally referred to as Hamburg Ebb and Flow, is coupled with Handel's more familiar aquatic suites. Both are occasional pieces composed within a few years of each other, the former written to celebrate the centenary of the Admiralty in Hamburg, and the latter for royal water parties on the Thames. Unlike Handel's work, Telemann's suite attempts to evoke images of water, aided by references in the titles to scenes and characters associated with the sea, and may therefore be considered as ''programme music''.

This is a reissue of a performance originally released on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in Europe, one of the label’s final offerings before it was dissolved in 2008, and an import rarity that found little distribution in what was left of record retail in the US at the time. It was a shame because the recording features truly great performances in glorious, audiophile-quality sound of some of Handel’s most important and beloved orchestral works. Thankfully, Arcana has chosen to make it available once again.

For years my two longstanding reference recordings of this–the later, grander 1749 revision of the Royal Fireworks Music–were performances by Jordi Savall directing Le Concert des Nations (Astrée, now AliaVox) and Trevor Pinnock with the English Concert (DG Archiv), and I enjoyed both for different reasons. Much had to do with the tempo choices. Savall’s broader, more gracious approach–a 23-minute performance–provided a nice contrast to Pinnock’s more uptempo, often thrilling 18-minute run. At 21-plus minutes Zefiro’s performance strikes me as a “just right” middle course.

In my reference recordings I also appreciated how the relatively more spacious sound engineering of Savall’s recording complemented his performance, and how in a similar way the thinner, somewhat more detailed acoustic afforded to Pinnock complemented his. The DHM engineers astonishingly provide Zefiro with the best of both approaches in creating the illusion of a rich array of life-like instrumentation set in a convincingly wide, open-air soundstage. Savall enters the work without fanfare while Pinnock begins with a brief, celebratory drum roll. Zefiro ups Pinnock’s ante, opening the festivities with an opulent, elongated percussive roll, joined at the last moment by harpsichord and strings, in effect heightening the grandeur of the following, spectacular overture by the full orchestra. Perfect!

Zefiro’s performances of the three Concerti a due cori compare very favorably with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music’s reference versions (L’Oiseau-Lyre, now Decca). Timings, the way the movements are shaped, and the dynamics are nearly identical, though again, Zefiro benefits from noticeably superior sound. The definition of the strings, and especially the brass, far surpasses what was possible with digital recording more than 30 years ago.

Mary Pardoe’s engaging notes, loaded with fascinating quotes and anecdotes, thankfully have been retained for this reissue. Arcana’s packaging and presentation, as usual, are second to none. Don’t miss this!

-- John Greene, ClassicsToday.com

Giacomo Gorzanis (c.1530-c.1575), ‘il Cieco Pugliese’, was one of the great lute virtuosos of the sixteenth century. Born in Apulia, by 1557 he had settled in Trieste, where he soon established close contacts with the nobility of Carinthia and Carniola. His travels also took him to Graz, where he performed for Charles II, Archduke of Austria and brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Four books of his lute music and two books of ‘napolitane’ were published in Venice between 1561 and 1579. Of particular interest is his manuscript of 1567, containing twenty-four pairs of dances in all the ‘major’ and ‘minor’ modes. From intimate lute fantasias to lively dances and playful ‘villanelle alla napolitana,’ this original and colorful programme is the first to present the full range of his works. Full of little-known treasures, it is enriched by the extraordinary voice and presence of the charismatic Puglian singer Pino De Vittorio.

FRA’ DIAVOLO • Accordone Ens • ARCANA A 359 (77:35 Text and Translation)


This well-filled disc is subtitled “Music in the streets of the kingdom of Naples,” but it evokes traditional folk music through the interpretations of three members of the ensemble. Ten of the 22 selections are identified as traditional, seven of the others as compositions credited to Giuseppe de Vittorio, whose relationship to one of the singers is not stated. Marco Beasley and Pino de Vittorio divide the songs between them or sing duets, while Guido Morini plays harpsichord and leads the ensemble, which includes four other members and four guest gambists. The music is full of life and the notes are evocative without telling much about the selections or even the period of their origin. The program is the outcome of a decade’s collaboration among the three artists. The disc title evokes the Neapolitan bandit of Napoleonic times who was the subject of Auber’s most popular opera. Anyone who is interested in the traditional music of this region will enjoy it thoroughly.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Fragrant, intimate, life-affirming, poetical, utterly lyrical.

Anyone seeking sanctuary from the stresses of modern life could do much worse than listen to Bellerofonte Castaldi's beautiful music and be wafted back to a time long before mobile phones, cars, pop stars and billions of people all competing with each other for attention and the planet's resources. This recital provides an hour's worth of direct nourishment for the soul and the senses.
 
Most of the pieces are for theorbo solo or theorbo and theorbino duet, all of these coming from Castaldi's 1622 collection, Capricci a due Stromenti. The two items for voice and theorbo, the first of which does not appear until the second half of the recital, come from his 1623 publication, Il Primo Mazzetto di Fiori Musicalmente Colti dal Giardino Bellerofonteo ('The First Bouquet of Flowers Musically Gathered from the Bellerofontean Garden'). That garden metaphor is apt: Castaldi's pieces are the musical equivalent of warm evening sunshine under blue skies: fragrant, intimate, life-affirming, poetical, utterly lyrical: this is John Dowland without the melancholia!
 
The CD title Ferita d'Amore (literally 'Wound of Love', but less prosaically expressed along the lines of 'Love Hurts') comes from a galliard that appears in the recital. The musicians and track-list group the pieces into three sets, reflecting the love-related sub-themes of joy, contemplation and devotion, but there is no obvious discontinuity in the music itself.
 
Castaldi was more than a friend to Monteverdi. He was in fact a genuine Renaissance Man: lute virtuoso, poet, engraver, satirist, swordsman, rider, all-round maverick. His highly original music has received relatively little attention to date, and this Arcana release is already one of the most important CD monographs, along with a partly overlapping Toccata Classics disc released a couple of years ago and Alpha's very first release, a song-based recital by Guillemette Laurens, a decade earlier (001).
 
Argentina-born Italian lutenist Evangelina Mascardi has made many recordings for various labels and has worked with Ensemble 415 and the Ricercar Consort, among others. Her performance here is ideal: thoughtful, warm, expressive, winning. Though she does not get star billing like Mascardi, the contribution of Mónica Pustilnik, Argentinean despite her surname, is considerable. The rarely heard theorbino, or tiorbino, is, as the name suggests, a small theorbo pitched an octave higher, and adds a colour all of its own to the music of Castaldi, who is said to have invented it and was thus the first - and possibly last! - composer to write for it. Naples-born Marco Beasley is something of a specialist in early Italian Baroque repertoire, and brings a wealth of experience to his two songs. Although his folk-style interpretation may not have the same wide appeal as Mascardi's theorbo, it arguably lends the music greater authenticity and sits very well with its intimate tone.
 
The recording is of the highest quality. The church at San Rocco was rebuilt during Castaldi's lifetime, completed a year before his death. Small font aside, the lavish booklet is attractively designed, replete with lengthy quadrilingual notes, photos and sung texts. The only omission, and a rather surprising one at that, are biographies of the performers. Note-writer David Dolata gets one, even the parish church gets one, but not the musicians!
 
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

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The Croatian region of Dalmatia has many musical treasures that have long been overlooked. Resting on the boundary of Roman Catholic and Byzantine worlds, the music here features rare pieces recovered from Latin manuscripts, and polyphonic Glagolitic chants. Dialogos performs these works, conducted by Katarina Livljanic.

Rinaldo Alessandrini is one of today's most eminent Monteverdi authorities, and his highly acclaimed recordings with Concerto Italiano are now widely recognized as a reference point fo rmusic lovers all over the world. Recent achievements include the completion of Monteverdi's triology of operas at La Scala in Milan and at the Opera National de Paris, and a triumphal concert tour in Australia and New Zealand with the Vespro della Beata Vergine. To mark the 450th anniversary of Claudio Monteverdi's birth, Arcana is proud to reissue the seminal recording of the Sixth Book of Madrigals performed by Concerto Italiano, which is also one of Arcana's bestsellers. Rinaldo Alessandrini describes the Sixth Book as the book of separation: permanent in the case of death; temporary in the case of lovers at daybreak. It is the book of poignant expression which culminates in the cycles of lamenti, whose autobiographical character is well known: the successive deaths of Monteverdi's wife, Claudio Cattaneo, and his favorite singer, Caterina Martinelli. Its density of expression, its "italianita", not exempt from theatricality, by turns luminous and despairing, make it the place where interpretation is the fundamental element, capable of overwhelming our contemporaries.

Recorded in the bright acoustics of the Teatro Bibiena in Mantua ("the most beautiful theatre in the world", according to Leopold Mozart), Zefiro's second release on the Arcana label is devoted to the colourful world of Telemann's Overtures (i.e. Suites). The three masterworks presented here highlight the unique quality of this versatile ensemble - formed by the oboists Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo Grazzi, and the bassoonist Alberto Grazzi - specialising in eighteenth-century works that give particular prominence to wind instruments.

This new release is the third installment of the Stradella Project, this time exploring the composer's oratorio output. Stradella's oratorio Edith is featured here. The oratorio is named for Edith of Wilton, an English nun of noble birth born during the 10th century. Legend says that she refused to take the throne, choosing monastic life instead. Argentine soprano Veronica Cangemi performs in the title role.

The reputation of San Giovanni Battista, by far Alessandro Stradellas best-known and most recorded work by, has so far overshadowed the rest of his surviving oratorio output, amounting to a total of six works. Unlike the most representative masterwork, San Giovanni Crisostomo here released for the first time was conceived for more intimate resources and yet perfectly expresses the modernity of the oratorio genre as it appeared in the second half of the 17th century. Sacred and moral themes are combined with political, social, and sometimes erotic ones, and the subject, libretto, and music interact on multiple levels with surprising boldness and freedom.

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