There’s nothing more heartbreaking in surveying the current state of the classical music industry than the knowledge that, amidst the constant flow of useless dreck hitting the market daily, there are wonderful sets such as this one that will never receive the acclaim (and financial success) that they deserve because they will simply get lost in the shuffle, or be too difficult to source, or disappear from the active catalog in record time. Really, it’s infuriating. So I’m going to break one of my usual rules and recommend this set urgently by “writing long,” in this case adapting some of the copy that I included in my recent book on Handel for Amadeus Press.

Between roughly 1706 and 1710, Handel composed twenty-eight cantatas with instrumental accompaniment, out of about a hundred in all from the same period. Twenty-two are included in this box, which claims to be “complete,” but never mind. No one knows for sure the exact number that Handel wrote; every now and then a new one still turns up. Clori, Tirsi e Fileno,for instance, only appeared complete in 1960. The rest are for solo voice and continuo, and only one of those, La Lucrezia(HWV145), has achieved anything like wider exposure, at least on disc. On the other hand, some of the instrumental cantatas are making their way into the consciousness of connoisseurs, even if they remain all but unknown to the wider public. We need to fix that. These are gems.

The cantatas with instruments come in every possible shape and size, from simple songs to mini-operas. Later in the century the solo cantata, in the hands of Alessandro Scarlatti (Domenico’s dad), became relatively standardized as a short piece containing two recitative/aria pairs, and some of Handel’s do that as well, but there is no hard and fast rule. In these works he was demonstrating a newly acquired mastery of his craft. He enjoyed total freedom in creating them, writing with love and evident care for his Italian patrons, many of whom wrote the poems. Handel took arias, or bits of them, from all of these pieces and incorporated them into later works. They constitute his musical “savings account,” and the fact he was still mining them decades later should be taken as the strongest possible indication of their high quality and musical value.

Although the instrumentation ranges from solo guitar or flute, to a few violins, to what is effectively a full orchestral complement, this really is vocal chamber music. Even if we are familiar with a particular number from a later setting, there’s a very special freshness and intimacy in hearing the original settings. For example, the aria “Ogni vento” from Agrippina, involves the full string orchestra with oboes in the opera. Scored for just two violin parts plus continuo as the aria “Bella fiamma” in the cantata Aminta e Fillide, the music has a distinctive rhythmic clarity and bounce (sound clip), especially as sung here by soprano Nuria Rial. Both versions are delightful; neither is inherently preferable.

Many of the cantatas involve characters that we have come to know. Armida, of Rinaldo fame, gets to vent her misery all over again in Armida abbandonata. The legendary story of Hero and Leander takes center stage in Qual ti riveggio. Apollo e Dafne tells the familiar tale of the god’s pursuit of the nature-loving Daphne, and her subsequent transformation into a laurel tree. The participants in Echeggiate, festeggiate, Numi eterni are all Roman gods and goddesses, while the fickle shepherdess Clori turns up on more than one occasion. Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, a pastoral comedy, is the longest of the instrumental cantatas. It has two parts, or acts, and it serves as a lighthearted counterpart in serenata form to Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (which these forces also recorded but which is not included in this set, from some reason).

I have a special affection for Diana cacciatrice (Diana the Huntress), with its virtuoso writing for soprano and trumpet, here sung by the splendid Roberta Invernizzi (sound clip), with an additional soprano voice offstage “in echo”. But then, all of the singers are excellent and they deserve individual mention. Aside from Invernizzi and Nuria Rial, there are sopranos Emanuela Galli, Raffaela Milanesi, Maria Granzia Schiavo, Yetzabel Arias Fernández; alto Romino Basso; and basses Thomas E. Bauer, Furio Zanasi, and Salvo Vitale. The instrumentalists of La Risonanza play beautifully under the direction of Fabio Bonizzoni, and the sonics are just about perfect.

I do wish that Aci had been included, as well as the Chamber Duets and Trios also issued in this superb series, but we already have more than eight hours here of first-rate, quasi-unknown Handel. These discs will provide countless moments of pure joy. and they belong in every serious collection. The booklet contains multilingual notes and Italian-only texts, but on disc seven you can find PDFs of all of the original booklets with texts and translations in English, German, Spanish, and French. Essential, this, and not just for opera fans or Handel lovers. This gorgeous, lyrical, intimate, warmly humane music is for everyone.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

With Vieni, dolce Imeneo, La Compagnia del Madrigale make another important halt on their compelling journey across the territory of Italian secular song with an album devoted to one of the most significant, yet these days somewhat bypassed, composers: Cipriano de Rore. De Rore was a Fleming who enjoyed great success notably in the Italian courts of Ferrara and Parma – but with a prestige which extended up and across Europe. He composed in many genres, but it is the secular madrigal – recorded here – where his skill was most valued, for example in creating extended and expressive melodic lines coupled with innovatory pre-echoes of the seconda pratica so triumphantly expressed – albeit amidst great criticism – by Claudio Monteverdi. Recordings – all also on Glossa – of madrigals by Marenzio, Gesualdo and Monteverdi have already demonstrated musical pleasures such as an uncommon vocal blend and delicacy, and a meticulous dynamic control exhibited by the richly-experienced members of La Compagnia del Madrigale, and those delights are to be experienced with these 19 madrigals by Cipriano de Rore, composed late in his career. With texts by Petrarch, Ariosto and assorted court poets for these madrigals, essay-writer Marco Bizzarini highlights one of the principal characteristic features of de Rore’s mastery when he points to the disc’s title track, Vieni, dolce Imeneo: the ideal union between poetry and music.

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Glossa is reissuing this recording which exemplifies the label's efforts as well as being a memorable reflection of the artistry of the Orchestra of the 18th Century and its conductor, Frans Brüggen. An extended and beautiful introduction to the principal work is created by performances of the Murerische Trauermusik and the Adagio for Two Clarinets and Three Basset Horns, before Brüggen directs a starling and impressive reading of the Requiem. The Metropolitan Space of Tokyo surely experienced an occasion of true magic back in March 1998, which was perfectly captured by the NHK Television microphones and can now be enjoyed once more.

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In 1753, Farinelli sent a precious manuscript from Madrid to the Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna – it contained some of the arias he usually sung during private evening concerts for the King of Spain. Among them were the celebrated Son qual nave and Quell’usignolo, for which he wrote by hand his own original da capos and cadenzas. This incredible source, offering a very unique and peculiar insight into the artistry of the famous castrato, is recorded here integrally, after a painstaking scholarly work on all the performance-related topics. The star mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg delivers the breathtaking original embellishments created by Farinelli with astonishing ease, making this survey through pieces written by Giacomelli, Conforto or Farinelli himself a truly delightful experience. Stile Galante and conductor/musicologist Stefano Aresi bring their usual savoir-faire and elegance to this carefully crafted project.

The remarkable Hypermnestre by Charles- Hubert Gervais is the latest unremembered early 18th-century French opera to be recorded afresh for Glossa, and conducted by György Vashegyi. Gervais was a contemporary of Campra and Destouches, learning from Lully and paving the way for Rameau and, like Marais and François Couperin, open to the Italianising trends of “les goûts réunis”. A high-quality libretto from Joseph La Font tackles the story of Hypermnestra which proved so popular in the early eighteenth century. The Glossa recording contains both the original fifth act and the major revision of it from 1717 and Vashegyi drives the whole tragedy expertly to its bitter (and not-so-bitter!) end. Musically, this tragédie lyrique provides powerful opportunities for the trio of leading characters, here taken by Katherine Watson (Hypermnestre), Thomas Dolié (Danaüs, her father) and Mathias Vidal (Lyncée, her betrothed), but they are ably supported by Juliette Mars, Chantal Santon-Jeffery, Manuel Núñez Camelino and Philippe-Nicolas Martin. No French opera of this time would have been complete without a generous helping of choral or instrumental music and Gervais – a master of melody, harmony and orchestration – serves these up in a dazzling set of divertissements and festive set pieces full of dances (including a massive passacaille); all this performed with great stylistic awareness and vivacity by Vashegyi’s Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir.

The sixteenth-century madrigalist Cipriano de Rore perhaps remains something of a mystery figure in modern times, awaiting penetrating simplification and clarification. Rather than simplification, a new recording of selections from his expressive output from Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix, entitled Portrait of the artits as a starved dog, is more likely to yield illumination and fascination. That is Schmelzer’s way. As with many Graindelavoix recordings on Glossa, the accompanying artwork in the CD booklet forms an integral part of the convincing performance (as does Schmelzer’s essay). Here, the imagery includes images by Albrecht Dürer and Hans Mielich, statues of Melpomene and Medusa, sculptures by Michelangelo, even a sardonyx cameo cup. A portrait of De Rore shows the inner likeness of the composer as being possessed of a manic madness or “furor divinus” and having the guise of an emaciated dog. De Rore was born in Ronse – not that far from Schmelzer’s Antwerp – and, as well as probably being under the protection of Margaret of Parma, he travelled through Europe in the first half of the sixteenth century, notably to Ferrara. Regarded as a pivotal figure in the evolution of the madrigal, De Rore’s style developed significantly across his career and Graindelavoix’s programme gravitates from some of his settings of stanze from Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando furioso through to some of his later, much more radical madrigals. Also found on this recording is De Rore’s multi-voiced setting of Dido’s lament from Virgil’s Aeneid.

Few musicians today possess so much awareness and experience with Luigi Boccherini’s music as Emilio Moreno, or can invest their performances with so much insight.With his ensemble La Real Cámara and for his seventh recording of Boccherini’s music for Glossa, Moreno has turned to the six string trios or Terzettini, op 47 (1793) – scored untypically for Boccherini for violin, viola and cello– written when he was in full maturity both in his compositional activity and in his own skills as a cellist.Mr. Moreno also provides an essay about the composer as he turned 50 and about his music.

Such was the significance of the music of Jean- Philippe Rameau for Frans Brüggen that the Dutch conductor’s first concert with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century featured a suite by the French composer, and his final directing appearance, shortly before his death in 2014, did likewise. Between times this inspirational musician and his orchestra recorded a series of orchestral suites drawn from the opéras-ballets, tragédies en musique and pastorales-héroïques, first for Philips and then for the orchestra’s own imprint on Glossa. These eight suites have now been united by Glossa for the first time in a magisterial and richly-enjoyable demonstration of Frans Brüggen’s empathy with the output of the Baroque composer from Dijon. From Les Boréades to Les Indes galantes, from Acante et Céphise to Zoroastre via Castor et Pollux, these suites – originating in scrupulous scholarship by orchestra member Wim ten Have – together represent a pillar in the modern revival and appreciation of the music of Rameau, which was dear to the heart of Brüggen and so many of the other early music pioneers of his generation.

For the past thirty years, Paolo Pandolfo has been one of the leading viola da gambists of his generation, researching and promoting the repertoire of his instrument in all directions. In 1989 he was appointed successor to Jordi Savall as professor of viola da gamba at his alma mater, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB), a position he holds to the present day. On this new recording on the SCB series on Glossa, Pandolfo presents the complete solo pieces for 'lyra viol' included in Alfonso Ferrabosco's 1609 London publication Lessons for 1. 2. and 3. Viols. The lyra viol is special type of viola da gamba that includes sympathetic resonant strings under the normal strings, thereby creating a fascinating sonority that often seems produced by more than one instrument. The playing is extremely virtuosistic as it implies, with special bowing techniques, to simulate polyphonic works written for a viol consort. Ferrabosco was at the service of Prince Henry, the heir of the throne, and was his music teacher. It is thought that these solo pieces were written for Henry himself, to be performed at the royal 'Privy Chamber'.

Classical Music

O felici occhi miei marks a welcome first solo outing for lutenist Eduardo Eguez on Glossa, adding to the label's long succession of releases devoted to Italian Renaissance music. The poem behind this album's title refers to happiness and cruelty, harmony and discord, contrasts evoked by Eguez's programme which focuses on music by five leading Italian lutenists from the first half of the sixteenth century, Francesco Canova da Milano, Alberto da Ripa, Pietro Paolo Borrono, Giovanni Paolo Paladino and Perino Fiorentino. The work and lives of these composers were all mixed up in the Italian Wars (1494-1559) which will have overshadowed their compositional activities as much as their playing at those various courts embroiled in the conflict. Eguez elegantly explores this bellicose time with virtuosic fantasias and sprightly dances, but also with diminutions on vocal intabulations - with these last emphasizing this new release's Glossa family connections, as three of the tracks feature vocal contributions from La Compagnia del Madrigale and the sessions took place in that ensemble's favoured location of the aptly contemporaneous church in Roletto, just outside the city of Turin.

For Cantar de Amor, Fahmi Alqhai and Accademia del Piacere are joined by tenor and fellow Andalusian Juan Sancho for a new survey of 17th c. Spanish dramatic songs depicting the trials of love.Juan Hidalgo, the foremost musical figure of the time who, working with Pedro Calder�n de la Barcain, produced a wide variety of musical theatre works, composed many of the tonos on this new Glossa release.Sancho and Accademia del Piacere have been able to gather together an excellent array of surviving canciones expressing the vibrancy and character of the torments of love in the Spanish theatrical manner.

Sebastián de Vivanco most unjust neglect is undoubtedly due to his having been born in Ávila at about the same time as Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611). Blinded, perhaps, by the stunning brilliance of Victoria, scholars and performers alike have been slow to discern this equally bright star. This important recording from The Orchestra of the Renaissance, directed by Richard Cheetham and Michael Noone, first released by Glossa in 2002, is now available in the Glossa Cabinet collection.