Compared with his immense vocal composition output (most of which remains to be rediscovered), the quantity of instrumental music composed by Alessandro Scarlatti would almost seem hardly worth the mention. + Yet the selected compositions on this double-disc set are immensely important, in that they allow immediate assessment of Scarlatti’s style, then nearing creative decline, which appears to be suspended between the glorious contrapuntal tradition and beautiful melodies that look decidedly towards the future. + Enrico Casazza leads the Accademia della Magnifica Comunità.

Among Verdi’s early productions, the comic opera Un giorno di regno had a particularly unlucky fate, written as it was after the success of his first opera, Oberto, but also during a time of unspeakable personal tragedy with the death of his two sons followed shortly by that of his wife. + Its fiasco 1840 premiere is, however, a distant, forgotten memory; the opera is far from being the disaster it had been considered for many years. + For this Tactus release, Gabriele Bonolis leads the Roma Sinfonietta and a singing cast featuring baritone Mikheil Kiria and soprano Alice Quintavalla.

The tragically early death from illness of Italian composer Mario Pilati (1903-38) abruptly terminated a career marked by rapid and deserving success despite early struggles both familial and financial. + This Tactus release, highlighting select piano works both solo and accompanied, features the playing of the young Italian pianist Giovanni Nesi (b. 1986). + He can be heard unaccompanied in Pilati’s two books of Bagatelles, and with the Orchestra Nazionale Artes in the composer’s Suite for Piano and Strings.

An alternation that recalls a noble ancestry, which is, not by chance, Triestine, Marco Podda combines 12 numbers, some instrumental, other vocal, creating what we could define as a lyric suite: The Chords of the Air. As he affirms, “these pieces, composed between 2007 and 2012, represent “something that links the past to the present […] as a souvenir photo”. Stylistically, this ‘anti-historical music’ doesn’t owe anything to any ideology of music historicism, nor to neo-avant-garde or mere ambition of restoration. There is only emotion, memory and a desire to communicate.

The latest Tactus CD from I Solisti Laudensi features works by six Italian composers (two by Vivaldi) active from the Baroque to the 20th c., in transcriptions for organ and strings accomplished in the 19th c, as well as a 20th c. piece for identical forces by the 20th c. composer Cardenio Botti. Founded in 1970, the I Solisti Laudensi ensemble’s many standout appearances have taking place at festivals and in concert halls throughout Italy and across Europe.

Pianist and composer Gino Gorini, a pupil of, amongst others, Gian Francesco Malipiero from 1934-40, was an inheritor of the monumental piano style of Busoni and Petri. Gorini admired Busoni as a virtuoso but did not like his ardent expressiveness and disagreed with the personality cult aspect. Gorini was a neoclassical pianist; his objective notion of performance, his anti-romantic attitude and his non-exhibitionistic virtuosity reflected Malipiero’s ideas. There was no distinction between Gorini the performer and Gorini the composer: the two activities were interdependent.

Throughout his lifetime, Antonio Vivaldi – a composer of many lyric operas – penned an enormous corpus of works encompassing countless concertos, sonatas, and sacred music. In his concertos and chamber sonatas, Vivaldi reveals his wonderful melodic talent with both deep and elegant allure. The concertos and the sonata of Antonio Vivaldi offered here are seldom performed and recorded. Recorder virtuoso Maria Giovanna Fiorentino leads I Fiori Musicali. “(IFM is) of Europe’s leading baroque ensembles.” (Journées Baroques sur Vienne)

This CD includes the world premiere recording of Marco Enrico Bossi complete works for piano four hands. As shown and evident in the Suite de Valses op. 93 and the transcription of the magnificent Suite for Large Orchestra op. 126, while maintaining an original mark, Bossi’s compositions for four hands seem to be inspired by Brahms and by the Hamburg chamber music transplanted in Vienna. Pianists Paolo Borganti and Giulio Giurato have used original editions and manuscripts, revising and correcting them even by comparisons of the transcriptions to the orchestral scores.

Three composers, Tedeschi, Galeotti and Mortari, with three completely different musical styles: what they share is the sound of the harp and the rediscovery of its late-Romantic, early-modern Italian repertory, which is mostly still unknown, or very nearly so. Completing with highest honors her diploma and post-grad work at the Conservatory of Parma, prize-winning harpist Eleonora Valpato was until January 2011 was First Harp Philharmonic Orchestra of Santiago de Chile. Since 2009 she has played with Nicholas Vaiente in the unusual harp and marimba ensemble Step Two.

Among the thirteen oratorios by Giovanni Paolo Colonna, more than half are connected, by origin or tradition, to the court of Francesco II d’Este. Although in the early modern period the sacredness of monarchy was indisputable, it cannot be taken for granted that an oratorio was offered to a monarch in order to praise him unconditionally. Oratorios were often an instrument of admonition. This aspect is fully expressed in L’Assalonne, concerning familial and power entanglements between father and son. Maria Luisa Baldassari leads Ensemble “Les Nations” and a cast of 5 vocal soloists.

This rarity of an album includes original works for plectrum orchestra, an ensemble formed by mandolins and instruments so derived: the mandola, the mandoloncello and mandolone, with guitars, harps, and other plectrum or pizzicato instruments added depending on the situation. Following its heyday and decline, the second half of the 19th c. throughout Europe saw many such ensembles spring up. Founded in 1898, the Gino Neri orchestra was the star of that period of splendor, and now represents the oldest plectrum orchestra still preserving and disseminating this repertoire worldwide.

Wolfango Dalla Vecchia is certainly an artist that needs to be rediscovered: composer, philosopher, organist, musicologist and lecturer. His vast production include genres like vocal, choral, chamber and instrumental (until the computer music), this extract of sacred works is undoubtedly the part he cared the most about. His great Christian faith and awareness that art is the main means to bring man to the understanding and love of God are the essence of his music, performed in this recording by a team of musicians who worked with him until his death.

This CD brings to light a completely forgotten composer, the priest Pietro Porfiri from Marche. Of him little is known; the works on this album are taken from a 1692 self-published collection of secular cantatas, just at the time when this kind of music was widespread by publishers all over Europe, particularly Italy. The soprano Pamela Lucciarini and countertenor Alessandro Carmignani bring to light an unexpected musical writing in search of innovative solutions extremely audacious for its time. Laboratorio Armonico, providing basso continuo, features highly skilled early music artists.

The 150th anniversary celebrations of Florence, Capital of the Kingdom of Italy (1865-2015) create an opportunity to know and appreciate the voices of the two precious organs preserved in the basilica of San Lorenzo, and the music composed by musicians active in Florence. The organ built by Fratelli Serassi in 1864, with more than 60 registers and three keyboards, is one of the most impressive and unique of its time. The Renaissance-era organ dates to the mid-15th c. The recording features Florentine works from the Renaissance, Classical and Romantic eras, many of which are world premieres.

Giovanni Battista Bassani, a late-Renaissance composer of great importance, has been all but ignored by posterity and recent studies. His music’s rediscovery brings to light the work of a great contrapuntist as well as creator of catchy melodies and surprising rhythmic solutions. His “Armonici Entuisiasmi di Davide”, printed in Venice in 1690, a collection of nine psalms, a Magnificat and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, was for use during the liturgical year’s rites of Vespers. One of the leading specialists of music from this period, Giovanni Acciai, leads the Ensemble Ars Nova Cantandi.