• Il Trionfo di Dori was printed in 1592. A Venetian nobleman, Leonardo Sanudo asked 29 authors to compose a poem, then asked 29 musicians to compose a madrigal to each text.
• Il Trionfo di Dori describes idyllic scenes of a mythical past merged with a peaceful pastoral world. Each piece closes with the words “Viva la bella Dori!”,the collection's unifyng element. Dori, the lovely sea nymph, is the name that hints at the woman to whom the work was dedicated, Elisabetta Giustinian."

• Milan-born pianist, composer and conductor Giorgio Gaslini is a jazz musician of international fame, who to his credit has given more than 3,000 concerts, recorded 100 CD's and is a ten-time Critics Award winner. The flute works were composed between 1955 and 2011. Their performer and dedicatee is Roberto Fabbriciani, with whom Gaslini has had a long collaboration."

• Isabella Colbran (1784-1845) studied singing under the guidance of the celebrated castrati Carlo Martinelli and Girolamo Crescentini.
• Her four books of Canzoncine ou Petits Airs Italiens were composed during her youth, before the beginning of her career as “prima donna” of Italian opera.
• The compositions are typical of the chamber-music repertoire for amateurs: short, melodious, through-composed arias with two texts: one in Italian, the other a free translation into French."

A complete edition of all Gaspare Spontini’s vocal chamber-music pieces currently known is presented here for the first time. These pieces were composed for all sorts of purposes and performed in the circles of private drawing rooms. This recording, which is the outcome of an extensive, meticulous work on the sources, includes the collections, the independent tunes and, in the appendixes, the modified or translated pieces, the drafts and sketches, and the original contemporary arrangements.

In the year 1580, a young Luca Marenzio published his first collection of compositions: Primo libro de’ madrigali a cinque voci, to all a supreme master. Thanks to these works, Marenzio won a position of primacy among Italian composers, his fame soon reaching other European countries. In England, Marenzio’s works were highly admired. This CD contains an overview of the profane musical genres of the late ‘1500's, of which Marenzio and his contemporaries were the leading figures.

"• New label launch!
• This CD opens with an early piece within the Brescia Gradual of the 12th century. The next two sections are made up of pieces from different masses arranged as a Proper to provide the correct liturgical order. The CD closes with four Marian Antiphonae Finales in both simple and ornate form.
• The melody used conforms to the variations in the Graduale Novum-Vol.1. The texts are mostly from the Psalms. texts and their translations have been added for the listener's benefit."

• This seventh and last volume of the complete piano works of Giovanni Sgambati contains almost exclusively unpublished pieces, including his last notturno, the transcription for four hands of his first important symphonic work (the Sinfonia Festosa, played by Francesco Caramiello and Francesco Libetta), and an unpublished, brilliant piano transcription of Bach’s B Minor Suite, BWV 1067, that follows the great tradition of Liszt’s school."

Vivaldi, more than any of his Italian contemporaries, left a great number of works composed for diverse and highly imaginative combinations of wind and string instruments. The source of this inspiration can be traced back not only to the composer’s own personal tastes, but especially to his good fortune to have worked for an institution such as the Pietà, which had at its disposal an unrivalled wealth of instrumental forces. This interest is a constant element throughout his entire production.

•One of the very few musicians from Ravenna in the 18th century was the outstanding Antonio Pio, opera composer and music teacher at the court of Catherine of Russia. The Archivio Arcivescovile of Ravenna preserves the score of Pio’s oratorio for four voices and orchestra, Gionata. Maria Luisa Baldassari leads the four soloists and the Ensemble I Luoghi dello Spirito in this world-premiere recording.

•The Venetian Faustina Bordoni (1697-1871) was one of the most acclaimed celebrities in the forerunner of a star system that appeared in the world of Italian opera and thrilled the whole of Europe during the 18th century. One of the great bel canto voices coupled with a marvellous dramatic talent, her 35-year career from 1716-1751, intersected with most of the composers of two or three generations in all the major European opera centers.

•Alessandro Spazzoli’s work has no descriptive purpose and does not want to create any correspondencebetween motifs and chords, emotions and concepts. Deeperstill is the relationship established between the the music and Andrea Panzavolta’s texts, a bond that has to do with their structure, the questions they ask, their relationship with the history of material and thought. In this deep link lies the significance of the translation into music ofthese three plays.

Venetian musician and composer Antonio Caldara (1670-1736), unlike some of his contemporaries who today are quite famous but experienced little fame during their lifetimes, enjoyed enormous success, then faded inexplicably from music history. +Alongside a vast production of vocal music, his only significant instrumental works are two trio sonata collections published during his youth, as well as these “sonate a violoncello solo col basso”, composed in 1735, a year before his passing.

"The enormous popularity of the opera gave rise to the tradition of transcribing the public’s favourite arias in order to make it possible to perform them by a limited number of musicians. From the first years of the 19th century, all major composers included the harp among the instruments for which their pieces were meant. This “operatic legacy” also promoted the introduction of the harp into the so-called
“drawing-room music”. This disc features a sampling of these works."