Italian instrumental music was at its zenith when the works of these ten composers were written and each of those selected was a significant figure in the expansion of music for the harpsichord. Frescobaldi, represented by two athletic Toccatas, was influential across Germany while Merula’s beautiful Capriccio and Zipoli’s gracefully austere Sonata in C major reveal the breadth and variety to be found in Italian keyboard music of the period. The Venetian-born Pescetti draws the music from the Baroque onward to the new galant style.

Johann Sebastian Bach hardly ever left his native Saxony; yet he was always up to date on what was going on elsewhere in Europe. Naturally; he paid close attention to innovations from Italy; the cradle of the concertante style; and instilled transalpine sparkle in his brilliant counterpoint; especially in his keyboard works. Proof of this may be found in the pieces based on originals by the Venetians Antonio Vivaldi and Benedetto Marcello; in which Bach transcends everything with his polyphonic genius. In the large-scale Italian Concerto; the future composer of the Goldberg Variations revisits Corelli and; once again; Vivaldi. After several solo recordings devoted to musical dynasties (La Famille Forqueray; La Famille Rameau and Les Frères Francoeur); Justin Taylor sets off on a voyage of exploration of Bach and Italy.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Naples’ fame as a musical center attracted travelers, composers, instrumentalists and virtuoso singers alike. Among the aspiring musicians, the most highly-trained and sought-after were the castrati, promising boys aged between 8 and 12 who were subjected to an operation intended to preserve the exceptionally pure timbre of their treble voice. Forever virginal beings whose superhuman voices mesmerized their listeners, they were nicknamed angiolilli, ‘little angels’, and sang in the most important churches and theatres of ‘Castrapolis’, a term coined to describe the southern capital and its high concentration of castrato sopranos.

Nicolò Balducci is one of the rapidly rising countertenors and sopranists of his generation. Together with the ensemble Dolci Affetti, directed by the renowned recorder player Dan Laurin, he here performs arias and cantatas by Hasse, Porsile, Sarro and Alessandro Scarlatti. All four composers were associated with Naples and knew how to highlight these extraordinary voices, at a time when opera and the chamber cantata represented the most fashionable musical genres both in Italy and abroad. The program is completed with a concerto for harpsichord by Domenico Auletta, with Anna Paradiso performing the solo part.

The place of Domenico Scarlatti in the history of 18th century music is certainly exceptional. This exquisite and imaginative group of works is included in the fourteenth volume of Scarlatti’s manuscript sonatas preserved in the Marciana Library in Venice. Although known as keyboard sonatas, research reveals that they were very likely to have been conceived for performance on the violin – multi-movement works, often showing the presence of figured bass accompaniment, rapid changes of register and numerous passages better suited to a violin than a keyboard instrument all support the theory. This is flashy and virtuosic writing for violin at its finest.

The program takes you on a wonderful journey through Baroque Italy, illuminating compositions of different colors written for recorder and basso continuo. Some of the great music centers of the time – Milan, Venice and Naples – are visited and the listener can immerse themselves in a bygone era. Various styles emerged in these centers, which are known today as the "Venetian school" and the "Neapolitan school", and which ultimately lead to the "gallant style". Major influences from Arcangelo Corelli's compositional style can also be heard in some of the sonatas in the program. As soon as the instrument recorder appears, one always asks oneself whether this was a marginal instrument or whether it could have been of great importance within the music scene. What is certain is that there are numerous sonatas composed specifically for this instrument, as well as extensive contemporary transcriptions of the oboe and violin repertoire for recorder. Influenced by the great popularity of the recorder, composers such as the German-speaking oboe virtuoso Sieber also decided to travel to Italy in order to become respected masters of this instrument.

The present program therefore consists exclusively of works that exist in an original historical manuscript. The manuscripts are now scattered in numerous libraries from Europe to the USA - and yet they all have one thing in common: they contain wonderful sonatas for recorder and basso continuo, all of which were composed in Italy within 30 years. And the deeper you finally delve into this program, the more amazed you can be about the variety and also about some mysteries that suddenly open up...

Among the motivations of this disc, the most important one is the wish to present the various styles and periods in a clear, simple way, endeavoring to avoid superabundance and the accumulation of crossover deposits that are often heard where it seems that the music of the past cannot be self-sufficient and needs an extra chromatic and rhythmic shove in order to catch the listeners’ attention, inducing them to compare it with the commercial, repetitive entertainment repertoire. In this musical journey between Italy and Spain of the Baroque era, Paolo Rigano on the archlute and baroque guitar and Cinzia Guarino on the harpsichord are interpreting a singular anthology of pieces enriching the playing through the practice of the basso continuo that marked the entire musical period from the Renaissance to the late Baroque.

Corruption? Betrayal? Persecution? Tyranny? These subjects resonate with the current events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They also provide the subject matter of many seventeenth-century musical works. Kate Lindsey has chosen to devote this second Baroque recital with the English ensemble Arcangelo directed by Jonathan Cohen (following Arianna in 2020, ALPHA576) to the figure of Nero. Scarlatti, Handel and Monteverdi wrote works focusing on this tragic protagonist and his entourage, including his mother Agrippina and his wives (Poppaea and Octavia). Interpreted with incredible intensity by the American mezzo-soprano, the programme features world premiere recordings of two cantatas: Alessandro Scarlatti’s La morte di Nerone (c.1690) and Bartolomeo Monari’s La Poppea (1685). Tenor Andrew Staples and soprano Nardus Williams join Kate Lindsey for duets from L’incoronazione di Poppea, including the sensual ‘Pur ti miro’

Alessandro Scarlatti’s Sonate a quattro were published in 1725, the year of his death. With their specific marking ‘senza cembalo’ (without harpsichord), these compositions for two violins, viola and cello appear to be, in a sense, the first string quartets in the modern sense of the term. The program is completed by a few sonatas by his brother Francesco, the ‘London Scarlatti’, and Alessandro’s son Domenico, who had so thoroughly absorbed the contrapuntal tradition instilled in him by his father that some of his sonatas can also be played in quartet formation.

This anthology presented by the organist Margherita Sciddurlo is performed on the precious historical instrument: the Petrus De’ Simone 1747 organ of the Church of San'Antonio in Mola di Bari, fully preserved and in excellent condition. The organ in question becomes the medium to reviving a cross-section of the Apulian organ tradition whose roots are deeply connected to the musical activity of the Kingdom of Naples since the 16th century, when thousands of young talents came to the capital to undertake musical studies that ensured them a secure career. Puglia turned out to be a privileged territory where one could later exercise the profession, sponsored by the numerous feudal lords or by churches, musical chapels and convents. From Rocco Rodio from Bari to Giovanni Paisiello from Taranto, through to Nicola Porpora and Niccolò Jommelli, famous allover Europe thanks to bright careers abroad. The collection presented by Margherita Sciddurlo represents a pleasant organ cameo which also includes some world premiere recordings.

‘Settecento’ is the style of art, music and architecture that emerged in Italy in the early 18th century, celebrated here by La Serenissima and Adrian Chandler with a collection of works from that era. The works are grouped by the areas of Italy where each composer worked, including the Kingdom of Naples (Scarlatti, Mancini), Republic of Venice (Dall’Abaco, Vandini, Tartini & Vivaldi) and the Papal States / Bologna (Brescianello). The ensemble La Serenissima is recognized as the UK’s leading exponent of the music of 18th-century Venice and connected composers. Uniquely, the group’s entire repertoire is edited from manuscript or contemporary sources. It has become synonymous with virtuosity, dynamism and accessibility, uncovering new repertoire and making it available to all through live performance, recordings and educational initiatives.

The Lenten season of 1679 was a cold, rainy, and dreary affair. The new Pope, Innocent XI, was no supporter of the increasingly permissive nature of Roman aristocracy, and he took measures to enforce edicts prohibiting staged performances before a paying public, as well as a general ban on the appearance of women on the stage. Reluctantly granted, however, was permission for private performances, and this concession led to the fortuitous circumstances that made the premiere of Scarlatti’s first opera possible—the ingenuity of the Bernini brothers who produced the work; a liberal interpretation of “private performance”; the support and attendance of Queen Christina of Sweden; and, certainly not least, the fact that Pope Innocent had left the city during the carnival, leaving the enforcement of his conservatism to some of the very cardinals who most enjoyed and supported public theatre! Founded in 2008 and led by tenor Bud Roach, the vocal quartet Capella Intima presents unique programming of mainly seventeenth-century repertoire, serving as the ensemble in residence for the HAMMER BAROQUE concert series in Hamilton, Ontario. Programmes such as The Poor Man’s Vespers(a hypothetical collection of small-scale psalm settings for churches of modest means), The Paradise of Travellers (Italian repertoire interspersed with the recollections of English travelers on the Grand Tour), and concert performances of Marco Da Gagliano’s La Dafne, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Scarlatti’s youthful masterpiece presented here, have established the ensemble as a driving force on the Canadian early music scene.

Handel, Scarlatti, Corelli, Stradella, Muffat ... From 1650 to the beginning of the eighteenth century, Rome exercised an immense power in attracting composers from all over Europe and experienced an intense moment of musical activity, because of - or in spite of - the papal administration. It was a prosperous period with a melting pot of influences. The programme devised here by the Roman conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini, offers a complete and personal vision of the time, passionate and secular, lyrical (made sublime by Sandrine Piau) and orchestral, romantic in every way. Rinaldo Alessandrini is one of the leading figures in the international early music scene. His predilection for the Italian repertory and his constant preoccupation with the expressive characteristics specific to the Italian style of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are the decisive factors that orientate his musical approach and interpretative options, both as the head of Concerto Italiano, of which he is the founder and director, and as a soloist and guest conductor.