Search results: Search results

156 results

Products

Mascitti: Sonate a Tre - Opera Prima

Challenge Classics

$18.99 May 10, 2024

Fourth release by Matteo Cicchitti and his Ensemble Elegentia on Challenge Classics. World premiere recording of Triosonatas op.1 by Michele Mascitti. The work was published in Paris in 1704. In his time Mascitti was particularly esteemed and rightly considered a major testimonial of Italian instrumental music in France in the 18th century. In this oeuvre, which is for once a real discovery, Mascitti tries to combine the tradition of the Corellian sonata with the French 'gout' of the dedicatee, the Duke d'Orléans.

View Full Page

Mascitti: Sonate a Tre - Opera Prima
Challenge Classics May 2024
CD
$18.99

Trascrizioni d'opera

Tactus

$10.99 ~~$21.99~~ Save 50% Jun 02, 2017

The pieces recorded in this release stem from an all-pervading performance practice that deeply marked out the musical taste of the nineteenth century: that of “transcription”. This practice enabled a widespread dissemination of the most popular opera passages, well beyond the official circuits of the great theatres, and above all into the sphere of holy rites. Arias, cavatinas, cabalettas and symphonies were plentiful everywhere: in many cases they were transcriptions of pieces by well-known composers (it was sufficient to give them a “liturgical” title); more often they were homely elaborations. Almost all these pieces are being performed here for the first time in the modern age; the composers are practically unknown; in their music, famous opera themes are freely mixed with fanciful variations on those themes. The purpose was to reproduce this atmosphere, at once theatrical and sacred, in its entirety, by means of period instruments: a wonderful nineteenth-century organ and a series of precious original brass instruments. In fact Marco Arlotti is sitting the Adeodato Bossi Urbani 1874 organ, and Michele Santi, a specialist in nineteenth-century trumpets, is playing seven different period instruments delivering the best and most characteristic sound to each track.

View Full Page

Sale

Trascrizioni d'opera
Tactus Jun 2017
CD
~~$21.99~~ $10.99

Postcards from Italy - Italian Music for Film / Albonetti, Silvestri, Roma Sinfonietta

Chandos

$10.99 ~~$21.99~~ Save 50% Oct 06, 2023

For his third album for Chandos, the saxophonist Marco Albonetti turns to the rich tradition of film music from his native Italy. Marco writes: ‘Film music has been described as the defining new genre of classical music in the twentieth century. It engages both the ear and the heart of an audience. The masterpieces composed by two Italian film composers in particular, Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone, embody the cultural identity of most Italians and they have become recognised and loved by audiences around the world. The film themes on this album capture the magical combination of romance, melancholy, friendship, and violence. The notes vibrate with such passion that the compositions continue to engage the listener, bringing the work of these great Italian composers to life wherever and whenever it is performed.

Film music is meant to be an accompaniment to the action on screen. However, the music of the great Italian composers is so powerful and enduring that these melodies can stand on their own merit, transporting us to another time and place, evoking memories of past experiences or introducing us to new worlds, places which we can only see in our imagination. This album is a tribute to the Italian spirit, to my spirit, expressed through a musical journey: it offers Postcards from Italy.’

View Full Page

Sale

Postcards from Italy - Italian Music for Film / Albonetti, Silvestri, Roma Sinfonietta
Chandos Oct 2023
CD
~~$21.99~~ $10.99

MOZART: COSI FAN TUTTE

ERATO

DVD

$23.49 Jun 25, 2021

In Summer 2020 the Salzburg Festival celebrated it's 100th anniversary with Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in a production entirely conceived under pandemic conditions. Created in a matter of weeks by a team led by award-winning stage director Christoph Loy and conductor Joana Malwitz, it was hailed by the German newspaper Die Welt as "The best Mozart at Salzburg for decades." The three female singers in the cast are all closely linked with the Erato label - soprano Elsa Dreisig and mezzo-sopranos Marianne Crebassa and Lea Desandre. They are joined by tenor Bogdan Volkov and baritones Andre Schuen and Johannes Martin Kranzle in an ensemble that was praised for it's balance, harmony and dramatic credibility. "We are delighted," says the Salzburg Festival's artistic director Markus Hinterhauser, "that this production - which allows audiences to hear and experience the miracle of Mozart in all it's delicacy and grace, and realised with the greatest theatrical and musical intelligence

View Full Page

MOZART: COSI FAN TUTTE
ERATO Jun 2021
DVD
$23.49

MOZART: COSI FAN TUTTE (ED. IAN WOODFIELD)
RUBICON Nov 2018
CD
$29.35

Rossini: Maometto Ii / Cohen, Secov, Gemmabella, Et Al
Naxos Nov 2004
CD
$35.99

ROMA TRAVESTITA

ERATO

$17.28 Sep 29, 2023

Renaud Capucon recognises Vivaldi's Four Seasons as "a highlight of the violin repertoire", but it has taken him some time to add it to his discography. "For years, I refused to play it," he explains. "I'd heard it too much in the corridors of the Metro in Paris and as holding music on the phone. But once I'd accepted to play it, I was blown away by the power of the music... I realised that it's famous because it's amazing! It's a masterpiece. I've now played it frequently with Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and it feels fresh and new every time." He has chosen to complement Vivaldi's four concertos with two sparkling concertos composed in Paris some 40 years after Vivaldi's death. They are by Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-1799), born in Guadeloupe of French and African descent, who became a prominent and influential figure in Paris. He has been described in the New York Times as a composer who holds a "truly unique place in Western classical music history".

View Full Page

ROMA TRAVESTITA
ERATO Sep 2023
CD
$17.28

Il mito dell'opera: Cesare Valletti (Recorded 1950-1963)
Bongiovanni Jan 2011
CD
$26.99

LA TRAVIATA
WARNER CLASSICS Nov 2009
CD
$27.96

Mayr: Medea in Corinto / Rodriguez, Luisi, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia

Dynamic

$24.99 Jun 24, 2016

A successful musician in the early 19th century, Giovanni Simone Mayr composed the opera Medea in Corinto in 1813, the same year it premiered at the San Carlo theatre in Naples. The two act tragedy with libretto by Felice Romani was Mayr’s most popular theatrical work. The story is that of the Greek myth of Medea. “Michael Spyres, in the role of Jason, confirms to be one of the finest belcanto performers of the moment, endowed with a nimble voice and pure and solid high notes.” (Dynamic)

View Full Page

Mayr: Medea in Corinto / Rodriguez, Luisi, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia
Dynamic Jun 2016
CD
$24.99

Sirens & Soldiers - Song without Words from the Italian Seic

Arcana

$20.99 Aug 23, 2024

Just as the worthy and skilled painter imitates all things created in nature by varying the colours, in the same way you can imitate the expression made by the human voice on a wind and stringed instrument. This concept, which was explained by Silvestro Ganassi in his Opera intitulata La Fontegara already in 1535, has inspired Concerto Scirocco to seek the maximum expression when interpreting the instrumental music of the 16th and 17th centuries. Hand in hand with the development of the instrumental repertoire, rhetoric became the link between instrument and voice, between imitation and reality. Where words were lacking, composers and instrumentalists used rhetoric to delight listeners just as singers did. In this, it's fifth, recording, Concerto Scirocco focuses on an early baroque anthology of pieces, "painting in notes" a number of musical portraits full of contrasts: the pulsating rhythm of the battle in the Symphonia "A gran battaglia", the beguiling mermaids in Marco Uccellini's Aria sopra "Questa bella Sirena", or the operatic tension in the Sonata a tre by Francesco Cavalli.

View Full Page

Sirens & Soldiers - Song without Words from the Italian Seic
Arcana Aug 2024
CD
$20.99

Travestimenti

Fra Bernardo

$20.99 Jun 24, 2016

Italian composer, gambist, singer, and priest Claudio Monteverdi is regarded as a revolutionary composer, as his compositional style ended the Renaissance and heralded in the ornate virtuosity of the baroque era. While a great deal of his works were sacred, he also wrote a great deal of secular music as well. This album is unique in that the tracks selected are secular works which have been converted into sacred compositions. Il Pegaso has gained critical acclaim for their interpretations of Middle-Ages and Renaissance music. They perform the works on this album on period instruments.

View Full Page

Travestimenti
Fra Bernardo Jun 2016
CD
$20.99

Verdi: La Traviata, Aida, Macbeth [5 DVD Set]

BelAir Classiques

DVD

$42.99 Nov 19, 2013

LA TRAVIATA
Mireille Delunsch • Matthew Polenzani • Zeljko Lucic
Orchestre de Paris, Conducted by Yutaka Sado
staged by Peter Mussbach
Recorded at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2003)

AIDA
Nina Stemme • Salvatore Licitra • Luciana D’Intino Juan Pons • Matti Salminen
Zurich Opera Orchestra, Conducted by Adam Fischer
staged by Nicolas Joel
Recorded at the Opernhaus Zürich (2006)
BBC Magazine DVD of the month (august 07)
Gramophone DVD of the month (august 07)

MACBETH
Dimitris Tiliakos • Violeta Urmana • Ferruccio Furlanetto • Stefano Secco
Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris, Conducted by Teodor Currentzis
staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov
Recorded at the Opéra national de Paris (2009)

Three masterpieces by Verdi in a limited edition 5-DVD box set: internationally acclaimed productions from Aix Festival, Zurich Opera House and paris Opera, by Peter Mussbach (Traviata), Nicolas Joel (Aida) and Dmitri Tcherniakov (Macbeth). Artists as Mireille Delunsch, Nina Stemme, salvatore Licitra, Violeta Urmana and world famous conductors as Yutaka Sado, Adam Fischer and Teodor Currentzis.

View Full Page

Verdi: La Traviata, Aida, Macbeth [5 DVD Set]
BelAir Classiques Nov 2013
DVD
$42.99

A Ponchielli concerto per banda
Stradivarius Jun 2001
CD
$18.99

Il gioco della cieca: Madrigali, Canzoni & Villanelle / Concerto di Margherita

Arcana

$20.99 Feb 11, 2022

A young ensemble of instrumentalists and singers revives the precious historical practice of singers accompanying themselves, thus producing a wholly new sound in music usually assigned to unaccompanied voices. With Concerto di Margherita, self-accompanied singing becomes ‘collective’ for the first time in our era, and is amplified in a shared gesture in which all the members of the group – playing and singing together with extraordinary coordination – produce a sonority unprecedented in this repertory.

Created at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, the group (which is named after the Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga) performs as a consort of five voices, theorbo, harp, viola da gamba, guitar and lutes, inspired by the Concerto delle dame of Ferrara. The recording debut of Concerto di Margherita presents arrangements of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works (madrigals, villanellas and canzonas), drawing on music by De Wert, Gastoldi, Monteverdi and the ‘blind man’s buff’ scene from Giovan Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1580).

View Full Page

Il gioco della cieca: Madrigali, Canzoni & Villanelle / Concerto di Margherita
Arcana Feb 2022
CD
$20.99

Sciarrino: Fiato
Stradivarius Jan 2005
CD
$18.99

Corelli: Opera I: Sonate a tre da Chiesa
Tactus Jan 1998
CD
$21.99

Meneghetti: Concerti e Sonate
Tactus Jan 2009
CD
$21.99

Respighi: Vetrate di chiesa, Il tramonto & Trittico botticelliano / Neschling, Liege Royal Philharmonic

BIS

SACD

$21.99 Jan 05, 2018

Also available from John Neschling and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège ijn their Respighi series on BIS: Sinfonia Drammatica & Belfagor Overture; Metamorphoseon; Impressioni brasiliane & La boutique fantasque.

This is a wonderful program, both for the performances and for the intelligent overview it gives of Respighi’s art generally. It begins with a piece for chamber orchestra, continues with an intimate work for voice and string quartet, and concludes with one of the composer’s splashiest orchestral blockbusters. The progression is logical, and makes an excellent hour-plus of pleasurable listening. It’s also sensationally well engineered.

In the Botticelli pictures, Neschling adopts leisurely (but never droopy) tempos that allow every detail of Respighi’s imaginative scoring to register. In The Birth of Venus, you can easily imagine how the violins’ ostinato figures actually trace the delicate peaks of the waves in Botticelli’s painting. It’s lovely and consistently ear-catching. Il Tramonto (The Sunset), after a poem by Shelley, showcases the art of Anna Caterina Antonacci. Best known for her Monteverdi recordings, she’s a fine singing actress. Although voice tends to spread under pressure, her diction and way with the text is absolutely riveting, and Neschling paces the piece perfectly (about sixteen and a half minutes).

All of which brings us to Church Windows, still something of a rarity–in concert at least. If this performance doesn’t quite match the classic Ormandy/Philadelphia version in the blazing second movement (Saint Michael Archangel), it comes close enough as makes no difference, and it’s magnificently sustained and really powerfully recorded. The organ/orchestra balances in the last movement are just about perfect, while the bass frequencies in the closing pages are crushing. In sum, if you’re into this wonderfully colorful and entertaining music, don’t hesitate for a minute.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

View Full Page

Respighi: Vetrate di chiesa, Il tramonto & Trittico botticelliano / Neschling, Liege Royal Philharmonic
BIS Jan 2018
SACD
$21.99

Sborgi: Sei sonate da cembalo, Op. 1

Tactus

$21.99 May 15, 2026

We do not know precisely the date of birth and death of Gaetano Sborgi, a composer who lived between the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. We can say with reasonable certainty that Sborgi was born in Florence, as in the frontispiece of his sonatas he states that he is Florentine. Sborgi was chapel master and piano-forte teacher at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. He studied with his brother (or father according to Picchianti) Gasparo and then moved to Naples in the Conservatory of S. Onofrio, where he had Marco Santucci as a companion and where he stayed for seventeen years. Back in Florence "he made himself known... with several of his theatrical pieces of real good taste, and in others of different kinds. He had three works of piano sonatas printed, which show his genius and talent". Six harpsichord sonatas dedicated to Lorenzo Niccolini, ciamberlano of Peter Leopold I and Ferdinand III, can be included in the context of those compositions that show the gradual transition from the traditional harpsichord with plucked strings to the new conception, piano et forte, with struck strings. Jacopo Sibilia uses a copy of a 1783 Stein fortepiano, which can be played with two different types of action, in order to make the performance more expressive and harmonious.

View Full Page

Sborgi: Sei sonate da cembalo, Op. 1
Tactus May 2026
CD
$21.99

Mix & Match

Transcriptions of Puccini for Piano 4 Hands

Tactus

$21.99 Mar 01, 2019

At Puccini's time, transcriptions were very important and widespread, you just need to take a look at the some of the scores published by Casa Ricordi to get an idea: in fact, on the back cover you would be able to read an astonishing list of transcriptions, of fantasias and potpourris, either rewritten for piano solo (or four-hands) or for the most various ensembles, for piano and mandolin, violin, flute, guitar, or for other instruments, either in a solo or in combination with many others. It was the result of a publishing policy that was in full swing at that time and that was addressed to a large public of amateurs, a public keen to learn the repertoires meant to be played by many instruments, like opera scores. These pieces were played at home, in front of a very small and selected audience, the amateurs often wanted to perform operas that they had attended to. But that is not all, these performances were also able to popularize compositions that would have be left unknown otherwise. In the XIX century, the transcriptions for piano, especially for piano four hands, were an important vehicle for the diffusion of musical knowledge. Purposely thought for this formation, in this album the piano duo by the spouses Fabrizio Datteri and Nadia Lencioni is performing compositions inspired by the famous works and the immortal melodies of Giacomo Puccini.

View Full Page

Transcriptions of Puccini for Piano 4 Hands
Tactus Mar 2019
CD
$21.99

Verdi: La traviata (Sung in German) [Recorded 1951]
Walhall Eternity Series Jan 2004
CD
$10.99

Verdi: La Traviata / Temirkanov, Vassileva, Trevisan, Pini, Giordano, Stoyanov, Tagliavini

C Major Entertainment

DVD

$13.49 ~~$26.99~~ Save 50% Apr 30, 2013

Also available on Blu-ray

Giuseppe Verdi
LA TRAVIATA

Violetta Valéry – Svetla Vassileva
Flora Bervoix – Daniela Pini
Annina – Antonella Trevisan
Alfredo Germont – Massimo Giordano
Giorgio Germont – Vladimir Stoyanov
Gastone – Gianluca Floris
Barone Douphol – Armando Gabba
Marchese d’Obigny – Filippo Polinelli
Dottore Grenvil – Roberto Tagliavini
Giuseppe – Iorio Zennaro
Un domestico di Flora – Roberto Scandura
Un commissionario – Matteo Mazzoli

Parma Teatro Regio Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Martino Faggiani)
Yuri Temirkanov, conductor

Karl-Ernst Herrmann and Ursel Hermann, stage directors
Karl-Ernst Herrmann, set, costume, and lighting designer

Recorded live at the Teatro Regio di Parma, 9, 13, 15 October 2007

Bonus:
- Introduction to La Traviata

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 133 mins (opera) + 11 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1

View Full Page

Sale

Verdi: La Traviata / Temirkanov, Vassileva, Trevisan, Pini, Giordano, Stoyanov, Tagliavini
C Major Entertainment Apr 2013
DVD
~~$26.99~~ $13.49

Pavesi: Ser Marcantonio

Naxos

$29.99 May 28, 2013

Stefano Pavesi's work was swept away by the Rossini operatic avalanche and he is now almost forgotten, but while his vibrantly entertaining (though not without a touch of melancholy) melodrama giocoso Ser Marcantonio has many Rossini an features the young Gioachino's operatic career was yet to begin when it was first staged. The libretto sets up a typical late eighteenth-century opera buff a plot full of intrigue, buffoonery, disguises and cases of mistaken identity, which may be summarized as "about preventing an old fool from making an ill-advised marriage and stopping his heir from gaining his rightful inheritance".

View Full Page

Pavesi: Ser Marcantonio
Naxos May 2013
CD
$29.99

Choeurs de l'Opera de Vienne - Traviata & Other Great Choruses / Bauer-Theussl
Sony Masterworks Jun 2011
CD
$17.99