For a work of this importance, there have been remarkably few recordings of Pergolesi’s delicious little intermezzo La Serva Padrona (The Housekeeper-Boss). Composed in 1733 to be performed between the acts of the composer’s opera seria Il Prigionier superbo, the piece ignited the splendidly hysterical Querelle des bouffons in Paris in 1752, pitting supporters of Italian opera (led by Rousseau) against fans of French opera (typified by Rameau). Perhaps more significantly, Pergolesi’s comedy seemed to indicate the direction in which the operatic winds were blowing–away from heavy duty tragedy and towards the buffo comedies of the nascent classical era.

The work is simplicity itself. Its two acts last barely forty-five minutes and contain five arias, two duets, a finale, and lots of secco recitative. No single number lasts much longer than four minutes, and several of the recitatives are bigger than the arias. The plot is rudimentary: Serpina the maid is so pushy that her bachelor employer, Uberto, decides to get married simply to get her under the control of the household’s new mistress. Serpina, seeing her chance, decides that she will marry Uberto herself, and after she arranges her own trumped up wedding to a stranger Uberto realizes that he loves her and all ends as planned.

Pergolesi’s music seems to have been designed to show off in the most schematic way all that was most appealing in the Italian school. The scoring is paired down to strings and continuo; the accompaniments are simple, the characters (only two of them) come from the middle and working classes, the action moves swiftly, and best of all, the tunes are pure vocal gold. Consider, for example, the sweetly lyrical aria, “A Serpina penserete”. Music historians, scholars, and theoreticians have never been able to wrap their brains around a style dependent on quality of melody as its primary constituent–it really is unanalyzable–and the result has always been a tendency to disparage Italian music as compared to the German or French schools, especially when those doing the analyzing happen to be German or French. Audiences, of course, have no such difficulties, hence the Querelle des bouffons and other, similar controversies throughout history.

This performance, fortunately, is quite a good one. As Uberto baritone Michele Govi sings with firm tone and he acts well with the voice; only a weakness in his lower register prevents him from being ideal. Federica Zanello’s soprano sounds a bit heavy, dare I say “matronly?” for the waspish Serpina, but she uses what she has intelligently and she is never unpleasant to listen to. The Ensemble Regia Accademia, a pick-up group drawn from various northern Italian orchestras, plays well under the direction of Marco Dallara, and the engineering sounds warm and well-balanced. As I said at the start, it’s very odd that there are so few choices available for this work, but this one will do nicely.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes song(s) by Giuseppe Martucci. Soloists: Chiarastella Onorati, Luisa Prayer.

Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973), one of the most creative Italian composers within the so called ‘Generation of the Eighties’, began self-taught, studying the Italian masters of the 17th – 18th c. before moving on to the Hochschule in Berlin and devoting his long life to teaching and composition. The piano pieces presented here give an idea of his great spirit of creative innovation that, with the basics well anchored, he was able to give new life to the writing of chamber and symphonic music that in those days was painfully resuming his way after the dominance of the rampant Italian melodrama.

Classical Music

Forgotten as a composer in spite of her remarkable skills and obvious appreciation of her contemporaries - including Amadeus Mozart and JC Bach - Maddalena Lombardini was grown in Venice in a small bourgeois family, and given her exceptional musical talent, at only seven she was admitted at at the school of the Hospital of the Mendicanti (one of the four major music education schools for girls who then served during the political and religious ceremonies of the city). At fourteen Maddalena is sent to study with the greatest master of her time, Giuseppe Tartini, who will remain a point of reference in her entire life: in fact it seems that on his advice Maddalena will marry another of his pupil, Ludovico Sirmen. She will then leave her work at the Mendicanti Hospital and started a lavish concert career in London, Dresden, Petersburg, and Paris, where she will perform and publish the six quartets included in this edition. The execution is entrusted to the splendor of the Academy of the Magnificent Community, under the guidance of Enrico Casazza.

Includes toccata(s) by Girolamo Frescobaldi. Ensemble: Nova Ars Cantandi. Conductor: Giovanni Acciai.
Includes work(s) by Isabella Leonarda, Andrea Cima. Ensemble: Nova Ars Cantandi. Conductor: Giovanni Acciai.

Among practices distinguishing the European music scene in the second half of the eighteenth century, the performance of music for two players on the same keyboard is certainly one of the more remarkable and, in some ways, significant examples. The rendition of a four-handed piece on the harpsichord or the fortepiano can be considered an example of the direction that music of the second half of the eighteenth century was about to take: light-hearted, convivial, and educational, in which quality existed alongside the intention to satisfy the new “galant” tastes of the aristocracy, as well as the needs of the rising middle class. The four-handed genre becomes, in this regard, an ideal setting to express the new musical feeling. Four hands can double possibilities and exploit the keyboard’s full range. The search for expressivity is maintained by combining extended melodies with arpeggios or broken chords. In the case of performance on the harpsichord, the increased opportunity to “mix” the stops facilitates the search for unexplored colors and contrasts. On a historical copy of the famous harpsichord maker Martin Sassmann, Alberto Firrincieli and Mario Stefano Tonda perform the singular repertoire that sees protagonists Nicolò Jommelli, Muzio Clementi and Giovanni Maria Rutini, in these compositions reflecting their different peculiarities.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The Canzoni et sonate date to 1615, three years after his Giovanni Gabrieli's death. +There are 17 canzonas for 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 or 12 voices, and 4 sonate for 14, 15 or 22 voices, and the last for three violins. +In their magnificence, these works celebrate the glory of the Venetian state and blend the old compositional style with the new - polyphonically, harmonically, rhythmically and melodically. +This historic recording features the Consort Fontegara directed by René Clemencic.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Recent research has revealed the existence of a practice which has been hitherto ignored: that of doubling the instrumental music composed and conducted by Corelli with all sorts of wind instruments. This practice forces a re-examination of the faithful reproduction of the compositions as printed, which has prevailed up until now. This is thus the first complete performance of the twelve Concerti Grossi by Corelli which attempts to accurately reconstruct the works' historical-musical context.

This release contains the complete works for organ by Girolamo Cavazzoni and is a must for Italian Renaissance music lovers. The works are performed in the beautiful acoustic setting of the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Montova on the Graziadio Antegnati 1656 organ, designed by the same Cavazzoni and played by him as Gonzaga court organist until his death. Through the great sound of this rediscovered instrument, Ivana Valotti, assisted by the Cantus planus by Gianluca Ferrarini for the alternatim, offers the listener a perfectly philogical interpretation yet full of suggestion - an absolute reference in the rediscovery of Italian musical history.