For the first time with naïve, the counter-tenor Andreas Scholl joins the Accademia Bizantina and Alessandro Tampieri to present a Neapolitan programme, centred on the Virgin Mary.
Andreas Scholl and the Accademia Bizantina have for several decades enjoyed a successful musical partnership, encompassing the whole Baroque repertoire. As usual, this new album together includes both renowned and less well-known vocal and instrumental pieces. The figure of Mary, which has inspired a huge repertoire, both sacred and profane, runs through this Easter programme of exquisite affliction, virtuosic for both voice and orchestra. “Neapolitan music has a unique melodic vein and a great capacity to communicate emotion profoundly," says Alessandro Tampieri.
Thus, Vivaldi’s iconic Stabat Mater, which the German counter-tenor has enjoyed singing for many years, is placed alongside lesser-known airs from oratorios by Nicola Porpora and Leonardo Vinci, which had the character of the Virgin sung by a castrato. “I endeavour to place humanity before gender," says Andreas Scholl, “and I interpret the role of Mary with the greatest sincerity, without the slightest notion of 'travesty’. Love, despair and pain transcend the notion of gender."
We also find a Salve Regina by Pasquale Anfossi, requiring a particularly participative orchestra, a sonata by Angelo Ragazzi and a violin concerto by Pergolesi, both strongly echoing Pergolesi’s famous Stabat Mater. The solo violin parts are played by Alessandro Tampieri, first violin of the Italian ensemble, who conducts here from his instrument in the purest tradition of the Baroque orchestra.
The psaltery is one of the oldest string instruments in human history. In the German-speaking world, it is described rather coarsely as a Hackbrett. In Farsi, it is known as a santur and in Hungarian a cimbalom (not far from the Italian word for harpsichord - cembalo). But in Italian, it lost it's first letter and was used for a multitude of elegant compositions as an obligato salterio. The fine, delicate sound of the struck strings is the focus of our newest production, with which the ensemble nuovo aspetto lives up to it's name. The musicians, led by virtuoso "top striker" Elisabeth Seitz, perform a series of Romanesque rarities from a new perspective. Thanks to the subtle yet prominent solo instrument, they seem to have achieved weightlessness for a time.
Maestri a Sant'Onofrio: Works by Leo and Porpora / Andalo, Fomina, Ensemble Animantica
Bongiovanni
CD · 1 disc
$18.99May 03, 2019
The College of Music of Sant’Onofrio, one of the wonders of baroque Naples, was founded in the late 1500s as a foundling institution to train orphans and abandoned children to work as artisans. Within a few years, its educational policy had shifted to musical training and singing and during the 1600s it was home to the finest composers in the city. They transformed the rigidly austere musical geometry of northern Europe into something wholly new, as though infusing the darkness of the north with the immense, intensely bright light of the south. Nicola Porpora was just such a composer. In 1710 the 24 year-old Porpora presented his opera Berenice in Rome with great success. While in the city, Haendel himself saw it and went to congratulate its composer. Porpora wrote a great deal of music for religious purposes and opened a singing school which Farinelli also attended. Leonardo Leo is the other great composer from Sant’Onofrio. Almost a decade younger than Porpora, a combination of overwork and delicate health killed Leo at the relatively young age of fifty. He had already produced a number of new operas by 1738 when his reputation for music earned him the commission of a lifetime to write an opera to celebrate the wedding of Charles III and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Leo put everything else to one side and took as his subject the wedding of Psyche and Cupid. Yet despite the success of his opera for the imperial wedding, Leo continued to write music – both sacred and opera, whether serious or comic. Unsurprisingly, his name was a household word throughout Europe.
Handel's Queens: Cuzzoni & Faustina / Cunningham, Crowe, Bevan, London Early Opera
Signum Classics
CD · 2 discs
$27.99Jul 19, 2019
Handel’s Queens features some of the most exquisite pieces of music written by G.F. Handel and his contemporaries for the two finest singers of the eighteenth century, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. Often wrongfully framed as rivals, these dazzling new recordings with Mary Bevan and Lucy Crowe reveal the distinctive yet versatile talent of the Italian vocalists. Led by London Early Opera Director, Bridget Cunningham, Handel’s Queens serves an example of the group’s dedication to imaginative programming and outstanding period performance, placing them at the forefront of baroque research.
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REVIEW:
The choice of singers in Handel’s Queens seems perfect, for the two excellent and appropriate voices are neatly contrasted while displaying the required virtuosity. Cunningham’s contribution is adroit, with pace and style aplenty and she conducts from the harpsichord.
Full of adventure, I Pizzicanti set about making this album a reality. They came up with the idea for the project together with Céline Pasche, with whom the musicians share a love of the Italiano style. After lots of searching and playing the original repertoire with recorder, they were able to capture the spirit of this Italian style with the artistic means of historical transcription. As members of the new generation of upcoming artists, the musicians Nadja & Chani Lesaulnier, Rafael Becerra and Jonathan Pesek founded the group I Pizzicanti in the year 2009. I Pizzicanti, with all it's members being graduates of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, is perpetuating the movement of rediscovery of the 17th, 18th and 19th century repertoire by using the techniques of the historically informed performance practice. The common ground of shared aesthetic principles allows I Pizzicanti to pursue a research for liberty, creativity and spontaneity while paying due respect to the integrity of the historical masterpieces. In a productive dialogue process the dynamics of the group evolve around the distinct personalities of it's members. I Pizzicanti is devoted to the recreation and promotion of baroque musical practice like the proficient playing of several instruments and the art of transcription.
Divine Impresario is countertenor Randall Scotting's portrait of the celebrated castrato Nicolò Grimaldi ("Nicolini"), performed with the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings. Drawing on arias and duets written for Nicolini by Handel, Porpora, Gasparini, Mancini, Giaj, Broschi, and Ariosti, the album revives music closely tied to his stage career across Italy and London. Many pieces are recorded in new performing editions based on early sources. With contributions from soprano Mary Bevan, the programme highlights Nicolini's influence as singer, actor, and collaborator, presenting repertoire that shaped early 18th-century opera.
Gluck, Haydn, Mozart & Porpora: Legacy / La Marca, Chauvin, Le Concert de la Loge
Naïve
CD · 1 disc
$9.49$18.99Save 50%Jan 20, 2023
The cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca always has something to surprise us with: hybrid programs mixing genres and pushing toward musical frontiers, guests who add to an already rich repertoire, and a keen, passionate vision of both music and the world. The title and the composers of his new album may appear “classical”, but his recording, effectively rooted in eighteenth century Vienna, nevertheless once again broadens the horizons and encourages us to see things differently. “I wanted this program to introduce new ways of listening to Haydn’s concertos,” he explains. “Legacy focuses on passing down rather than inheriting – the benevolence of one generation for the next, encounters between musicians who are also enablers, the progression of the instrument in the music.”
At a time when castrati reigned on Europe's stages, a few composers dared to write for female voices. Vivaldi, Porpora, and Porta explored the subtleties of this repertoire to create some of the finest sacred music scores of their era. Marina Viotti revives this forgotten heritage, placing the power of her voice at the service of the rich and moving melodies gathered here. Accompanied by Andres Gabetta and the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal, between theatricality and sacredness, Marina Viotti accomplishes the feat of bringing back to life the golden age of 18th-century sacred music, while paying tribute to all the women who, through their art, embodied the soul of the masters.
In 1735, Porpora challenged Handel in London with Polifemo, a work that still resonates today as a vibrant ode to triumphant love. On the bewitching shores of Sicily, Galatea falls in love with the mortal Acis. This pure passion arouses the fierce jealousy of the Cyclops Polifemo, whose rage threatens to sweep everything away. But the unexpected arrival of Ulysses and the intrigues hatched by Calypso weave a complex web where gods and mortals clash. Carried by a constellation of exceptional soloists and conducted by Stefan Plewniak, this opera masterfully weaves together the legacy of a baroque golden age and the timeless power of myth.
The ensemble Pandolfis Consort, the countertenor Nicholas Spanos and the Czech Ensemble Baroque Choir present works by the Neapolitan composer Nicola Antonio Porpora on this album entitled "SALVE". The music on this album forms an imaginary concert program: In the first part, there are three Marian antiphons framed with introductory and connecting individual sonata movements composed a few years earlier in London. The second part features Psalm 127 "Nisi Dominus". Together, this is the music composed by Porpora for the feast of the Assumption for the Ospedaletto in Venice in 1744. Common to all the vocal pieces is the concentration on the sonorous, uplifting voice with infinite coloratura, the virtuoso part of the first violin and, in one case, the counterpart of the choir, which is scored here as soloist voices. This reduction to the essentials, to solo instruments, to the core of the music, has for many years been the focus of the Pandolfis Consort, founded by violist Elzbieta Sajka-Bachler, performing on period instruments
The present release by baritone Sergio Foresti on Challenge Classics. The second where he is accompanied by the remarkable Abchordis Ensemble, conducted by Andrrea Buccarella. This recording is devoted to the arias composed by Nicola Porpora, probably the greatest of the Neapolitan composers as much as the voice is concerned. A selection of arias of different moods and characters that ceaselessly tantalize and intrigue the listener. A disc you can listen to with constant pleasure and commitment from start to end, thanks also to the orchestral accompaniment (and overtures) and the impeccable recording and production.
