Although named in every history of music as an important composer and as one of the creators of the Italian madrigal, principally known for the madrigal Il bianco e dolce cigno and even more so by an incorrectly attributed Ave Maria that amateur choirs have been performing since the Romantic period, Jacques Arcadelt has not yet gained the position that he deserves in the musical world of today. He was in the service of the Medici, the papacy and the kings of France; he could hardly have had a more impressive career. The recording sessions for this set created a real emotional shock on several occasions: we were convinced that Jacques Arcadelt was a true genius and it was easy to understand why his contemporaries regarded him as truly exceptional.

After the success of their album of music by Franceco Cavalli, the Cappella Mediterranea and Mariana Flores now present a programme devoted entirely to works for solo voice by Claudio Monteverdi, from the famous Lamento d’Arianna to the sublime (and much less well known) Voglio da vita uscir. Mariana Flores embodies here the most touching personalities of this section of Monteverdi’s output. Argentinean soprano Mariana Flores studied singing at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Since then she has lived and worked in Basel. She regularly sings early operas and vocal literature alongside fine ensembles like the Cappella Mediterranea. The ensemble Cappella Mediterranea was founded in 2005 by the Argentinian conductor Leonardo García-Alarcón. As its name indicates, the ensemble originally arose from a passion for the music of the Mediterranean basin, and aimed to propose a different approach to Baroque music of the Latin tradition. With more than forty-five concerts each year, the ensemble explores the madrigal, the polyphonic motet and opera, a mixture of genres that has molded a unique style characterized by an exceptionally close rapport between the conductor and his musicians.

Today regarded as one of the most innovative and active Baroque ensembles on the international scene, Cappella Mediterranea has already made several distinguished recordings for the Ricercar label. Leonardo Garcia Alarcon will continue his diverse collaborations with Ricercar, but will also release several projects with Alpha Classics, beginning with this original program of music by one of his favorite composers, Claduio Monteverdi. On the occasion of a music theater piece performed at the Doge’s Palace in Venice which was centered on Poppea, whom her nurse Arnalta warns against the vices, Cappella Mediterranea recorded this anthology of arias and madrigals alternating between sins and virtues, performed by the singers who have made the ensemble’s reputation, including Francesca Aspromonte as Poppea, Mariana Flores in Si dolce e’l tormento among others, and the tenor Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro.

“Sigismondo d’India has a “twin”, a “mirror” in music: Claudio Monteverdi. Both men developed, in parallel, a style that radically changed the history of music. A style inherited from composers such as Luca Marenzio and Carlo Gesualdo, but which d’India and Monteverdi were to transform through the creation of new techniques.

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo is naturally an iconic work for Leonardo García Alarcón. The Argentinian conductor has performed and matured his interpretation of Monteverdi’s masterpiece throughout his life. Together with his group of soloists, the Namur Chamber Choir and the Cappella Mediterranea ensemble, he now presents his vision of L’Orfeo: Monteverdi’s opera is as much the apotheosis of the Renaissance as a testimony to the nascent Baroque style. This is what strikes us when we listen to this new recording, which so eloquently emphasizes the contrasts between sometimes nostalgic glances towards the past and the most innovative expressions of operatic language. The printed score, published two years after the premiere in Mantua in 1607, offers contrasts too: is it the snapshot of a specific performance or a ‘blueprint’ intended for future performers? In fact, it is both, and that is where we find the tricky questions that must be answered by those who open this precious document; Leonardo García Alarcón does so here in a manner at once respectful, inventive and theatrical.

This recording, an exploration of sacred and secular music in the New World during the first years of the Baroque period, was made at the conclusion of a successful concert tour that formed part of the Festival de Wallonie 2012. Hanacpachap, recorded here, was the first sacred work in a native language to be published in Latin America.

The lockdown of Spring 2020 allowed Sonya Yoncheva and conductor Leonardo García Alarcón to make the album they had been considering for ten years. Rebirth is a message of hope but also the exploration of an idea: that silence and inactivity are the best prelude to creative renewal. Yoncheva’s fourth solo album for Sony Classical includes music spanning more than five centuries, from folksong to pop, via some of the most powerful moments in seventeenth-century opera. All the music, in Yoncheva’s view, is contemporary. ‘Certain styles of musical composition have remained surprisingly close to us through 500 years of history, combining enormous emotional thrust with great simplicity,’ she says. From the dawn of opera and music by Monteverdi, the album plots a thematic journey from the Italy of Cavalli, his pupil Strozzi and heir Stradella to the England of Dowland, Gibbons and Ferrabosco – whose motet Hear me, O God employs the same four-note theme as ABBA’s Like an Angel Passing Through My Room. After dance-inspired works from Spain and Latin America, and Alarcón’s reconstruction of an aria by Antonio Draghi, Yoncheva offers a traditional folksong from her Bulgarian homeland. Media were full of praise after Sonya Yoncheva performed her album repertoire at the Salzburg Festival after the lockdown in August 2020. ‘Music that moves you to tears’ wrote the APA and the FAZ raved about her Bulgarian folksong ‘Zableinano mi agunce’ being “an unforgettable emotional experience.” Rebirth was recorded in the concert hall of La Chaux-de-Fonds, with Alarcón and his ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, during the first European lockdown. The feeling of the acoustic, Alarcón says, was equivalent to ‘playing inside a vast lute.’

Classical Music

The original score of El Prometeo (Prometheus) is held in the Leopoldine Library in Vienna. It dates from 1669 and was written by Antonio Draghi, a composer who was also a singer, notably in the operas of Cavalli. For the first time in history, an Italian set a text in Spanish. The last act of El Prometeo has disappeared. But since the libretto of this act has survived, Leonardo Garc�a Alarc�n decided to rewrite all the music for it. 'I immersed myself in Draghi's music in order to understand his style, his favorite intervals, the type of melody he composed and the type of basso continuo he was fond of, so as to try to produce a score that is worthy of him. So I hope that this third act will measure up to his music, his intentions and his creativity!' says the Argentinian conductor. Directing a brilliant cast (Fabio Tr�mpy, Mariana Flores, Giuseppina Bridelli, Scott Conner, Borja Quisa, Zachary Wilder, Ana Quintans), Leonardo Garc�a Alarc�n brings this Baroque opera to life in Spanish, an opportunity to show his love for his mother tongue, 'a supremely musical language'!

On the occasion of the 2015 exhibition that the Grand Palais in Paris is devoting to Diego Velazquez, this disc proposes an evocation of the music that one could have been heard at the court of Spain under the reigns of Philip III and Philip IV. Heirs to the tradition of the Flemish polyphonists, the sacred and secular repertoires increasingly assimilated the influences of the melodies and rhythms of folk music. As attested to by the painter's stays in Italy, Spanish composers were also charmed by the novelties of the Italians' Baroque language.

Leonardo Garcia Alarcon presents and contrasts two monumental works: a Messa Concertata by the choirmaster of the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna and the famous Dixit Dominus composed by George Frideric Handel in Rome in 1707. A fascinating comparison between a first recording of a forgotten masterpiece and a new interpretation of one of the most brilliant works by the young Handel, dazzled as he was by his discovery of the Italian Baroque.

Given that not one of the Masses by Jacques Arcadelt was included in our boxed set that revealed his immense musical personality to the world, we now remedy this situation with an indispensable addition. Leonardo Garcia Alarcon chose the Missa Noe Noe, which is presented here in the context of the Christmas liturgy. We have also included motets not only by Arcadelt but also by Josquin Desprez, as he was the great model for musicians of his generation. The recording ends resoundingly with Josquin’s imposing Benedicta es coelorum regina for six voices, although in an expanded version for twelve voices by Jean Guyot de Châtelet (1512 – 1588): another Walloon composer to be discovered!

The sorceress Armide, infatuated with the valiant knight Roland, but desperate for Roland to return her love, tries at all costs to lure him into her arms. At the same time, the courageous Herminie tries to protect Tancrede, Roland's companion, from the dangers that threaten him. Published in 1704, Suite d'Armide ou Jerusalem delivree is as rare as it is unique: in the handwriting of the Regent Philippe d'Orleans, it's composition testifies to a certain talent and a refined ear. Leonardo Garcia-Alarcon and Cappella Mediterranea brilliantly restore the little-known genius of the sovereign.

When Atys was first performed before the court in 1676, Lully was at the peak of his triumph: his tragedie lyrique became "the King's opera," so highly did the monarch esteem it's quality. The chords unfold to embody human passions and divine wills, guiding the young Atys's romantic impulses and the wounded fury of the goddess Cybele. With Atys, Lully establishes love as the central thread of the drama, weaving around this sovereign passion a tale where the impulses of the heart, celestial jealousies, and human flaws intertwine to seal the fate of the heroes. Leonardo Garcia-Alarcon conducts this new version with exquisite finesse, elevating Lully's music to carry souls into an enchanting dream.

How to take the place of the empress of Rome? Poppaea, a courtesan and mistress of Emperor Nero, removes every obstacle that stands between her and the throne: she leaves her lover, Otho, the philosopher Seneca commits suicide, Empress Octavia is banished, and finally she achieves her goal, marrying Nero. Through Monteverdi’s music, this triumph of immorality is elevated into a hymn to the power of desire. Monteverdi’s last opera is also the first masterpiece of the genre, extraordinarily and enduringly modern. Here, it is filmed at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, with a young and committed cast, guided through a mafia-baroque world by director Ted Huffman and the sensational Leonardo García Alarcón!

Love, drama and betrayal under the Sicilian sun: this ‘pasticcio’ of folk melodies and music by ‘learned’ composers was born of the love of Leonardo García Alarcón and the singers and musicians of the Cappella Mediterranea for Calabrian, Sicilian and Neapolitan songs dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We hear music by Alessandro Scarlatti and Sigismondo d’India, both born in Palermo, as well as works from the extraordinarily rich collection of St John’s
Co-Cathedral in Malta (notably by Vincenzo Tozzi). Leonardo García Alarcón even composed a five-part fugue on La canzone di Cecilia, associated with the heroine of the drama. The music was arranged by Quito Gato. This tribute to southern Italy by Cappella Mediterranea has triumphed on stage for years; now this recording immortalises it.

14 December 1645: for the pleasure of the Queen Mother Anne of Austria, and attended by a young King Louis XIV, Cardinal Mazarin put on the first Italian opera in Paris. The Italian company, invited at great expense, performed Sacrati's La Finta Pazza, composed in Venice in 1641. To capture the young 7-year-old monarch’s interest, a flurry of monkeys, bears and ostriches was added! The opulent set decoration by Giacomo Torelli, boasting machinery the likes of which had never before been seen in France, cemented the triumph of this “Feigned Madwoman”, which also featured the first major scene of madness in history: Deidamia must feign madness to keep hold of her lover, the famous Achilles, himself disguised as a woman to escape his fate! Leonardo García Alarcón leads a beautiful and colorful revival of this foundational masterpiece for opera in France, a true miracle of music.