Il Pomo d'Oro / Andrea De Carlo ALESSANDRO STRADELLA La Doriclea

Alessandro Stradella’s place in the annals of the history of music is not only due to the adventurous circumstances that marked his brief existence, but also to the reputation as an opera composer he has acquired since the 18th century. Inaccessible for many decades to specialists and scholars, La Doriclea is definitely the least known of all Stradella’s operas. However, it constitutes a particularly significant chapter in his overall output: composed in Rome during the early 1670s, to our knowledge La Doriclea represents the first opera entirely composed by Stradella. From the dramatic point of view, La Doriclea belongs to the comedy of intrigue genre typical of the 17th century Spanish theatre tradition. Refined and amusing, it alternates touching lamentos with irresistibly comic scenes, in which the character of Giraldo, a veritable precursor of the basso buffo, allows us to glimpse Rossinian atmospheres. Emöke Baráth (Doriclea) and Xavier Sabata (Fidalbo) alongside Giuseppina Bridelli (Lucinda) and Luca Cervoni (Celindo) and the comic couple of Delfina (Gabriella Martellacci) and Giraldo (Riccardo Novaro) bring a complex and fascinating role-playing game to life. This world premiere release of La Doriclea is a major achievement for The Stradella Project, which here reaches its fifth volume. “Through his festival and recording project, Andrea De Carlo is raising the profile of this pioneering Italian composer.” (Gramophone)

Ensemble Mare Nostrum / Andrea De Carlo LE CONCERT DES VIOLES

Whilst Italian composers had taken up the ‘modern' form of the sonata and adapted it to the violin at the beginning of the 17th century, French composers remained faithful to the principles of polyphonic music with their fantaisies that were still intended for ensembles of viols; the role of the violin in France at that time was still limited to providing music for dancing. Such knowledge of polyphony was demanded not only from composers of vocal music but also from organists, one of whom was Louis Couperin and who was also dessus de viole de la chambre du Roi. Our recording comes to a fitting conclusion with the last French work to be written for ensemble of viols: Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Concert à quatre parties de violes.

Nora Tabbush / Ensemble Mare Nostrum / Andrea De Carlo NUEVA ESPAÑA

Ensemble Mare Nostrum a roman ensemble directed by Andrea De Carlo, is one of the most original and surprising baroque ensembles, already a reference to the Roman Baroque music and especially the works of the great composer Alessandro Stradella.

Founded in 2005, the Ensemble Mare Nostrum begins as a "Consort of Viols". But the ensemble opens immediately to a wider repertoire, to explore the relationship between language, affetti and nature of sounds. The personal research of Andrea De Carlo in this field opens new prospects in technique and aesthetic of 17th c. vocal music.

Music for "Consort of Viols" but also the interpretation of works for organ and harpsichord - a common practice in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - has led the Ensemble Mare Nostrum to different projects: an original orchestration of ORGELBUCHLEIN by J. S. Bach for MA Recordings (USA) receives the unanimous applause of the international critic, and the Diapason "Decouverte" in the French magazine DIAPASON (May 2011). A CD dedicated to French polyphony LE CONCERT DES VIOLES for the label RICERCAR (OUTHERE) is awarded with 5 Diapason (January 2010), and “Coup de coeur” 2010 by the Charles Cros Academy in Paris.

In 2012 is released for the label ALPHA (OUTHERE) the Cd "NUEVA ESPAÑA", a journey between the Spanish and Mexican music from the Renaissance to modern times.

Nora Tabbush began her vocal studies at the Conservatorio Nacional Superior de Música in Buenos Aires, where she was born. Several years later she graduated from the Centre de Musique Ancienne of the Conservatoire de musique in Geneva. She pursued her studies further in both opera and chamber music with Marta Blanco, Doris Andrews and Anatoli Goussev, and in baroque music with Mark Tucker and Roberta Invernizzi. 

In 2011 she won the First Prize in Vocal Music from il Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Her career has been developed above all in Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Italy, where she currently lives. 

The ensemble Mare Nostrum (dir. Andrea De Carlo) and Nora Tabbush (a worthy heir to Montserrat Figueras) here revive some pure treasures of Spanish music. Combining early instruments (viola da gamba, cornetto, etc.) with traditional ones, they bring out all the colours of these songs and dances that were to be heard in New Spain. New Spain, the Spanish viceroyalty (1535-1821), stretched from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah (United States) to Costa Rica in Central America, with Mexico City as its capital. It administered not only the territory within those limits, but also the Philippines in Asia and various small islands in the Pacific, such as Guam.

Paolo Pandolfo IMPROVISANDO

Paolo Pandolfo is one of those rare artists who does not give into the temptation of establishing a regular and frequent rhythm of making new recordings – except, in his case, when he feels that he has something really relevant and new to say. If, in some way, this sets him apart and places him on the fringes of the record market, it does guarantee on the other hand a sense of timelessness and durability for his artistic work. His dazzling virtuosity and a musicality that knows no bounds transforms him into a true reference marker in an early music world that grows more predictable by theday.

And now, after nearly two years of silence, Pandolfo gathers round him a group of friends in order to create something which has practically been lost among the performers of “classical” music, victims of a wasting process that has become almost ingrained: improvisation. Turning back to a tradition which in the 16th and 17th centuries counted upon practitioners as famous as Diego Ortiz, Christopher Simpson and Girolamo Della Casa and that continued with significant names such as Frescobaldi, Corelli, Mozart and Brahms, these musicians unleash their imagination to regale us with eighty minutes of touching beauty and an unusual freedom. What we have here is a journey across musical structures which are mainly late- Renaissance ones, from dance ostinato basses (Pass’e mezzi, Folías, Canarios, Vacas) to the Fantasies for a solo instrument, from improvisations on a cantus firmus (La Spagna) to the alla bastarda style, based on polyphonic compositions (Anchor che col partire, Doulce Memoire)… Truly delightful.