Classical Music

An album of Handel opera arias from Roberta Invernizzi is outstanding in it's own right because it completely breaks new ground for the Milanese soprano. True, she has taken part in compelte operas on disc as on stage, and has recorded plenty of arias by other composers of the time such as Vivaldi, Leo, Porpora, Feo or Mancini. This new release from Glossa, however, sees Invernizzi reflecting Handel's special brand of emotional investigation and making her selection from th emany regal characters which pepper Handel's operas - Cleopatra, Berenice, Arianna and Alcina, among them - and their ardent, affecting, distraught and stately feelings. These are choppy waters through which Roberta Invernizzi sails with unquestionable skill: complete control of her native language and dominance of Handel's stylistic demands in canto espressivo and canto d'agilita - all being allied to her lustrous vocal tones. She finds responsive and sympathetic accompaniment from Fabio Ciofini and his Accademia Hermans, which works extensively in the Perugian Teatro Cucinelli in Solomeo. Invernizzi's majestic sweep of Handelian queens also takes us through a chequered period in the composer's career, when he led the two Royal Academies of Music in the 1720's and 1730's. At this time, he was writing for magnificent and tempestuous divas such as Francesca Cuzzoni and Anna Maria Strada del Po - a selection of their roles is to be heard on this recording.

Classical Music

Fabio Biondi is not only a successful director of the Europa Galante, he also still enjoys a fantastic solo career. This release is his sixth album for Glossa, and is the first to present him as an entirely solo artist. The Telemann Fantasias for Solo Violin were composed when the composer was at his full maturity. Being himself a highly-virtuosic violinist, these works call for high proficiency in both technique and expression. This set of fantasias was published alongside other sets of fantasias for solo instruments, including the flute and viola da gamba. These fantasias were cosmopolitan upon their publication in 1730s Hamburg. The music both embraces the established and revered German polyphonic style, utilizing fugues and multi-part writing, as well as modern trends which leaned more toward Italian influences. Fabio Biondi plays an eighteenth century Ferdinando Gagliano violin. Included in the booklet is an essay from Peter Wollny, Director of the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The great Persian poet and mystic Djalaleddine Rumi (1207-1273) left a body of work encompassing over 100,000 lines of verse. It is a timeless source of passion, but also a guide that lifts the spirit. His poems have frequently inspired me, and I have been setting them to music for many years now. The RUMI project took shape more concretely after I met the vocalist Ghalia Benali, whose art touched me deeply, with it's capacity to transform each moment into a state of wonder and each note into a fascinating story. Together, Ghalia and I chose a selection of poems, both in Persian and in Arabic. Enjoy an hour of music both profound and spontaneous, that follows "in the footsteps of Rumi". (Kiya Tabassian)

Classical Music

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

Classical Music

With Molière à l’opéra, Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins bring their much-admired combination of Baroque musical stylishness and use of the technique of “parlé-chanté”, adding colour and contrast to the sung text, to comédies-ballets composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier during the reign of Louis XIV. The musical and theatrical partnership involving Lully and Molière – they were dubbed “les deux Baptiste” – was one of the most invigorating ever entered into, marrying melody, words, acting and a shared hunger for fame. The collaboration spanned ten works over a decade from 1661. Although Molière never provided the words for a Lully “opera”, the great dramatist clearly inspired the composer who was ten years his junior, in his later tragédies lyriques, a view upheld by the essayist for this recording, Elisabeth Giuliani. As well as presenting scenes from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, this new Glossa recording draws on the humorous end of the Molière/Lully partnership in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac as well as more tragic airs from Psyché, by way of the trio grotesque from Charpentier’s score for Le Mariage forcé. In Luanda Siqueira, Jean-François Lombard, Jérôme Billy and Virgile Ancely, Jérôme Correas has brought together a versatile vocal quartet, alive to the daunting and frequently crazy characterizations demanded by Lully and Molière.

Classical Music

The many successes of La Rison Anza, the ensemble led from the keyboard by Fabio Bonizzoni (notably with it's survey of Handel secular cantatas), can often lead to Bonizzoni's great talent as a harpsichordist and organist being overlooked. Here, in the delightful Op 9 concertos by Giuseppe Sammartini, we are able to enjoy Bonizzoni's skill in the latter role, assisted by a small - but decidedly elegant - ensemble of all-stars in which feature the violin playing of David Plantier and Olivia Centurioni.

Classical Music