SCHWARZKOPF: BACH, MAHLER

PIANO WORKS

CARMEN

MAGIC FLUTE

PIANO CONCERTOS

GOTTERDAMMERUNG: ACT 3

PIANO CONCERTO PIANO SONATA

SONATA FOR VIOLIN & PIANO

PIANO SONATA FANTASIA

5 PIANO SONATAS

HANSEL & GRETEL

DER FREISCHUETZ

Among Puccini's great operas, Madama Butterfly is the one that had reference recordings relatively later. Among them, the first to represent the most modern and innovative side of the composer was this stereo recording from 1957 edited by Richard Moore for the American RCA. It is indisputable that the fundamental interpretative approach was that of a great non-Italian conductor such as Erich Leinsdorf, who would later record all of Puccini's most important operas. Leinsdorf's interpretative modernity was magnificently assisted by the participation of a lyric soprano like Anna Moffo and an impeccable tenor like Cesare Valletti. After many years, and also thanks to the splendid quality of the recording, the production of Butterfly remains among those of absolute reference.

Ponchielli: La Gioconda, Op. 9

This new first world recording explores Antonio Caldara and his sontatas and cantatas. Antonio Caldara is chiefly known as a composer of vocal music (operas, cantatas and oratorios), and is especially remembered for his operas, many of which are settings of librettos by Zeno and Metasasio. His stylistic development as a composer, however, has been described as a movement from works that are carefully crafted, with attention given to both musical and dramatic elements (his pre-1716 works) to music that becomes increasingly less detailed and texturally thinner (post-1716), reflecting Caldara's pressing schedule in Vienna. Today, manuscripts of Caldara's music are widely dispersed across Europe but his compositions which record so valuable a picture of the late Baroque in Italy and Austria are comparatively unknown to performers and little studied by scholars. The works are performed on this release by the ensemble I Solisti Ambrosiani.